The Cider And The Doughnuts

After we picked all of the apples......

..... we headed over to the garage where my folks store the cider press.

This cider press belonged to my Dad's Grandpa. It has seen a lot of use over the years.....it was originally designed as a hand crank, and then my Dad's Dad rigged it up to the tractor with a belt, and then someone borrowed it and rigged it up with an electric motor. It has had been modified, repaired, and shored up.....and just keeps making cider.

The first step in making cider was to cut every apple in half to inspect them for bad spots and worms.....

And look who showed up to help......fresh from college.......Levi!

There seemed to be a wide range of opinions on what constitutes a "bad spot". Some folks just throw them in bad spots and all, some folks like to cut out the worst spots, and some folks won't tolerate a single blemish. I don't think we ever came to complete agreement....everyone in our family is quite opinionated!  So we just all did whatever we wanted to and they all got thrown in together! We called worms, "Protein".

Next, we fired up the cider press and dumped the processed apples into the hopper for the grinder....

The grinder shredded the apples and dropped them into a bucket that's made out of wooden slats....

When the bucket was full we pulled it forward....

And put on the lid.

The screw jack that operates the press plate has gone up and down so many times in its lifetime that the threads are worn out, so now we use a car jack to do the pressing....

It's helpful to insert a metal plate at this point....

And the squeeze was on!

Just look at the cider flow! So natural, so nutritious, and so delicious!

And while we were doing that.....my nieces were inside doing this.....

That's right people.....homemade doughnuts!

Pumpkin doughnuts and Apple Fritters!  And yes, they were as delicious as they looked! The girls brought them out to us piping hot while we worked outside. It doesn't get much better than that.

Funny how the word spreads and close neighbors and relatives start showing up out of the woodwork!

It was a fun, fun day, and I loved it that everyone felt welcome to stop by.  My family is nice that way!