Apple Harvest and Cidering

Well the new press worked like a charm.  We would get a gallon of cider from each pressing.  Next year we will have to build, buy or find a better way of grinding the apples.  There are so many aspects of the harvest that arouse so many memories.  The act itself of picking apples from a tree by hand brings me back to day in my childhood and a weekend I worked on a friend's apple farm.  The smell of a bushel of apples, a wordsmith could write volumes on.  There is such a scent in a bushel of apples, it takes me through the whole season of growth from pruning in the spring, to the beauty of apple blossoms to the reddening of the orbs of fruit.  There is nothing like the scent of a bushel of apples.  You don't smell it in the grocery store when you pick up an apple, you may smell it in the first bite of an apple.  To really take in this heady aroma you need a freshly picked bushel warmed by the sun and bury your nose amongst the apples. Here you can take in the seasons, imagine the apples made into cider or cinnamon applesauce, an apple cobbler or pie served a la mode.  Each harvest I reflect on what went well in the season, what I have to improve upon for next season, but most of all how much we enjoy the fruits of our labor.