Kitchen Beasts

We've captured a wild beast in a jar; we've fed it, and even now it gnaws ravenously at its meal perched on our kitchen table. Farting and belching as it eats, it does our bidding.

Coffee-brown raw apple cider from our press has lightened to rusty red orange, and clarified as our wild yeast consumes the apple-sugars. Carbon and sulfer dioxides each stream upward in straight rows of tiny tiny bubbles, as the little eaters digest our juice and make alchohol.

Feast, my pretties, feast! They eat and make nectar, out-gas and reproduce. The bottom of my gallon jug is littered with the dead bodies of past generations. Soon enough they will all pay for their gluttony by the extinction of the species in their little glass universe.

The wild yeast that came in on the Oak Glen apples, the critters hiding in the cracks and crevices of our old cider press, a few hitchhikers on the wind on Pressing Day -- all trapped, our slaves making our raw cider over into hard cider.

In a few weeks we will decant this scant-gallon into sealed brown bottles, trapping the dying breathes of a million yeast critters as disolved CO2. And by summer we will have sparkling hard cider!

Next weekend, we will put down five gallons of good store cider -- alas, not our great raw home-pressed, but quite good. No preservatives, unfiltered. Pasteurized, though, so for this batch we will have to import guest yeast, a commerical strain from somewhere far off.

Meditation Makes Your Brain Grow; Coffee? Not So Much.

News outlets from Fox News to CNN and back again are reporting a recent study that shows that daily meditation can alter and improve the part of the brain that, as it thins, results in age-related dementia.

It doesn't matter what kind of meditation you do, they say, but the study tracked folks who did "insight" meditation, where the goal was simply to sharpen awareness and focus the mind. This is done by following the breath as you sit silently, discarding distractions as they come up.

I knew I liked this Zen thing.

Cider Flows Under the Ol' Moontree

We have cider!

Spent the holiday Friday getting the press finally limbered up. After a week of cleaning and finishing the new pressing tray, and on a whim refinishing some of the other press wood, which added another day's delay, Friday came and I was *ready* -- at least mentally -- for that cider.

Went to slide the new tray into the press, gave it a push and -- oof. It stuck. No worries, hand built wooden press, imperfect tolerances, check to see that everything is aligned and -- no joy. That pressing tray was a solid eighth of an inch too big on one corner, and it just was not going to fit.

Sigh.

Out comes the ancient wooden Stanley plane; out came the little spoke shave, which proved more useful. Forty minutes of judicious trimming and sanding later, the pan now fits. But of course the finish is compromised, and so although we are talking about a three inch strip, it has to be refinished. Which means two coats, four hours apart and another twelve hours to cure to food-safe. Sigh, again. Saturday we really will press cider.

Saturday Cider Day -- At Last!

The press is assembled; Leslie is in the house sterilizing bottles, the kids are washing and culling apples, and soon it will be cider.

The washing process gets all the stems and dirt and leaves, but also any agriculture residues. Fortunately, about a third of our apples are organic, so that helps. And these came straight from the orchard, before they could be sprayed in waxes or oils to make them look pretty, so we don't have to wash quite so hard to get that off. But they are seconds, and so we have to cull the few with rotten spots, and those with open holes, or cuts.

The cuts can (and often do) breed mold and bacteria, but these can often be removed. Similarly, a small hole on the outside generally means that a critter has moved in, and spoiled some or all of the apple. Out of four bushels, we had about a half bushel of "suspect" apples, and out of that wound up with about two gallons of rotten fruit and cut off bits. Not bad at all.

The big kids took turns feeding apples into the grinder and turning the grinder crank. The crank can be hard work, although the fly-wheel helps keep it rolling. Every so often an apple would get jammed in just right or one sibling would joyfully feed too many apples to crank, bringing the cranker to a stand still. Eventually it came down to the adults to finish the cranking.

Sometimes, the apple-feeder would forget to feed the apples, watching, in fascination, as the "apple eater" grinder chopped away at a whole apple. It only takes one reminder each year that the apple-eater eats fingers too. (Wicked grin.) Watching a very solid apple slowly vanish as it is turned to mush is a good reminder too.

Once the ground apples were ground, the kids (and then the adults) took turns turning the screw that pressed the cider.

This year, we bottled gallons -- in part to deliver several to my mom, and in part because we only did four bushels. The bottling process involves swapping out the metal pan under the press for an empty one, and walking the cider, carefully, over to the funnel in the gallon jug. We do pour the cider through sieve to trap large apple bits, and any other debris that might have gotten into the catch-bowl. But 99.9% of the suspended apple solids go right into the bottle.

In years past we have pressed a 50-50 of Granny Smith and Red Delicious. The cider was darker than even unfiltered store bought, and pretty darn sweat.

This year's cider came out of the press even darker, a rich cinnamon brown. Really dark. To the degree thatin a certain light it looked like a jug of coffee. The flash in these photos lightened it up a great deal, but here it is compared to Trader Joe's unfiltered apple juice. And most people consider that a little dark!

Out of four bushels we pressed about 8 gallons, drank most of a gallon during pressing and gave four to my mom. Not a bad yield, but not as high as we sometimes get.

Still, we have cider!

Woo Hoo! Peak Experience

Today we peaked!

As the winter sun transits lower in the sky and hits our solar cells close to the perfect angle, we produce 100% of our cells rated capacity. Or rather, in this case we produced more than that, because the sun angle is right, the sun is bright (between clouds) and the temperature is cool.

Not only did we hit more than the 2403 Watts nominal at which our system is rated, we peaked past the 2500 Watts for which the inverter is rated. No worries, as the peaked out production is transitory, but indicates that we are getting the most out of the system possible.

Last spring, from mid-February to late March, a bright sunny, cool day would produce the same result. On the brightest days over the summer we only got 80% or less rated capacity, because he sun angle was much higher and the heat of the summer reduced production.

So: With luck it will turn out that we have from early November to late March with peak production; we have covered about 90% of our usage so far (since April 7, our contract date). We were at 110% plus during the spring, but are currently about one months worth of electricity "behind" due to slightly lower production over the summer. At this rate we should be able to hit 100% by April 7, provided there are not too many cloudy or rainy days.

Woo Hoo!

Donner und Kopfsalat

Thunderstorms, flash floods, torrential rains and mudslides all predicted by forecasters finally arrived, but disguised as their mild-mannered alter ego: Light drizzle and the odd brief cloudburst. So much for the science of weather forecasting.

The broccoli is growing great guns, and should need thinning by Sunday. Several of the salad greens, now, are up, with three tiny romaine sprouts and a bunch of other miscellaneous peeking out. No corn salad (maché) up yet, which gives me pause. Still, I tend to plant too deep, and the other things are up just fine.

Almost to confirm my unfortunate sowing skills, two new garlic bulbs have sprouted among all the 6-8 inch plants; it apparently took awhile for them to grow enough to get past the depth of the soil (sigh).

Cider Press Repair

Took apart the cider press yesterday, to install a new pressing tray. Found a couple of small unpleasant surprises, but nothing too major.

First, when we purchased the press I built then sealed it with “e-z-do” a food-safe butcher-block sealant. As a result, I did not get sealant on the parts where wood touched wood. Under the pressing tray, one section had a little mildew; the other had a small wood eating creature making its home.

Cleaning up these two bothers delayed re-installation of the drip tray and our cider pressing by another day

We will press cider in the morning, as it is a school holiday and everyone will be home. Might even have a little fire in the outdoor fireplace to take the morning chill off. If I can find enough scrap wood. (We haven’t either picked up or purchased significant firewood this year. Just plain busy, what with the new baby, and not a lot of spare change for a cord of wood from the local supplier.)

Share the Road

Just noticed today that Share the Road signs have gone up all along Mountain as promised by the city. We really needed them on this little strip of road, as it is a major linkage between two bike paths. And the local folks did not seem inclined to follow the law and allow bikes the use of the roadway. This should help some.

Rain, no rain; or was it rain again?

Rain has begun to fall in the last few minutes; the weather people have been beside themselves with indecision, even at one point saying that two different computer models came up with very different forcasts. As it was the rain was supposed to start yesterday evening.

Guess I'll just stay here, warm in the house.

Sippin' Cider

Spirited email exchange with my mom, and some apple rancher's in Oak Glen. Her Aunt and Uncle used to own an apple ranch, and when she was a little girl she lived there awhile, her mom and dad working on the ranch.

She tells some great stories about the one-room school house she attended (I have seen it, but I remembered that it looked a lot like the classic little red school house in all the free Word graphics, -- only weathered gray. Turns out it was gray because it was built of local river rock. Hmmpf. ) The old school house has been made into a museum.) And of course the story of riding in an apple crate on the rollers in the packing shed is a classic, which I must have tried a dozen non-farm ways to duplicate.

A one-time family cider pressing when I was young, just after her Aunt sold the place, made a deep impression on me. I have eight apple trees on my city lot here in Pasadena, and after decades of lusting after it, a few years ago bought myself a double-tub cider press.

We don't produce enough apples for cider, we got about a bushel this year, which is great considering four of the trees were just planted this year after several years elsewhere stunted in pots (not my fault). They only produced a half dozen cider quality apples between 'em. And one of the remaining four trees either has bad grafts that have kept it stunted, or is affected by the oak tree litter from the street tree near it, and any apples that do grow on it are swiped by passers by while green anyway, 'cause the poor little tree is the one next to the street.

So we decided to go up to Oak Glen to get some apples, go crazy pressing cider, and put down five gallons for hard cider if we get that much, or just drink it ourselves for months. (For larger views, click on any picture.)

There is nothing more satisfying than raw, hand pressed cider. Whether caught in a cup straight from the prss, or mellowed a few weeks later. Mmmmmm.

Apple Picken'

The apples in our yard start and finish early, and we don't have enough trees for a good cider making quantity. So, and to get special apples for my mom, we made the trek to Oak Glen, California. An online acquaintance of nearly 15 years now has a ranch up there, and although the "u-pick" apples are all-picked for now, there are still apples to be had.

We tried to make arrangements to meet at the back of the Riley ranch to glean the last of the crop and pick up several bushels of windfalls -- generally sound apples that have dropped off the tree. Alas, we came up the dusty back road, as did a van full of another family, but no farmer. The pickers in the field didn't know about the arrangements we'd made, so we drove back down the back road, and came around into the main part of Oak Glen.

Apples can be had several ways, here. In small fractional bushels, that wind up being $30-40 a bushel -- considerably more than the retail cost at our local produce market. Or you can go to a "u-pick" orchard, where, as the name implies, you pick the apples off the trees yourself. Unfortunately, pretty much all the "u-pick" sites were "u-picked" out. So we resorted to the third way, which was stopping and asking the price for several bushels of cider apples, what some people called seconds.

Now, cider can be pressed from ugly apples just fine. Even ones with a little rot or spot can be cut apart and the good part pressed. Hand or eating or table apples (depending on who's namin' them) are essentially perfect, and often sorted by size, so they cost a bit more.

But by asking for cider apples or seconds, we got the ugly apples at a one-half to one-quarter of the price of the pretty ones. So, we now have four bushels of apples sitting in the back yard, waiting for all the kids to be home to press cider Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, Back at the Apple Ranch

We drove the Oak Glen loop, from Riley's to Law's, with stops along the way at the Los Rios Rancho (now called Riley's Los Rios Rancho, as the Riley family has leased the place. All the apple production on the Rios Ranch is organic, which is good news. We stopped too at Snow-Line, which is where we got our good deal on seconds.

Our bushels contain local organic Fuji's, Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Rome and Jonathan. Those happen to be the varieties that "the ladies" were sorting that day, and so a box of mixed seconds was available.

We stopped in to have lunch at Law's Coffee Shop, and to my great wonderment, an old packing label was up on the wall from the ranch run by my Great-Grand Uncle Mills B. Clapp, and his wife, Lila McConnell Clapp. I asked if anyone knew where the old Clapp ranch used to be, and the ladies at the counter ran back and dragged a gray-haired but not old looking fellow in an apron covered in cooking debris. Mustard was prominently visible on the front.

Turns out, this ol' boy is Kent Colby, step-son of the founder of the ranch, and current proprietor of the coffee shop. The shop was started in about 1953, while my Gr-Gr-Aunt and Uncle were still operating. Kent, and his wife, took over the coffee shop in about 1974, and he's been at it ever since. Seem that he is the local historian too.

Kent said the ol' Clapp place was just off the Harris road, the first road on the right past the bend. The old Clapp house could be seen in the woods, he said. The property had been sold a couple of times since Lila Clapp sold it in the late 1960s or so.

Now the last time I recall going to Law's had to have been 30 or more years ago -- probably about the time Kent was taking over. Great Aunt Lila used to come up pretty much weekly for a few years. She had no children, and her only sister had one surviving son, my grandfather. He used to drive Lila up to the Glen from Riverside, in her '51 Cadillac, for lunch at Law's every week.

"Oh yes, I remember Mrs. Clapp," Kent told me. "Used to come up here every week for awhile for lunch with her chauffeur or something." Ooooboy. Granddad would have laughed to hear himself described as the chauffeur. 'Course that's what he was, for the day. But still, its quite an image of ancient Mrs. Clapp, dressed to the nines, driven up by my 6'4" construction-worker-physique grandfather.

So we chatted awhile, and he didn't have a firm grip on my mother "little Lila", but had a sort of vague recollection. Frankly, I couldn't tell if he was being polite or if he was a heck of a lot older than he looked, and he might actually have had a faint recollection of my mom's family. Hardly matters; we remember Law's, and its right where we left it.

The apple pie was of course quite tasty -- although there was a moment of surprise to be gotten over when it dawned on us that this was fresh apple pie, from apples picked a 100 yards up the hill. There was no corn-syrup sugar goo -- just sweet, good apples and a flaky crust.

Having taken Hannah Lila up to see the apple groves where Grandma Lila and Great-Great Aunt Lila pressed cider, I think we'll have to go back to Law's in the future, for no particular reason.

Meantime, I need to finish getting the cider press oiled up and cleaned off, replace the drip pan that was shipped to me in February, and get ready to squeeze off 10 or 12 gallons of cider!

Slipping Into Fall

Cool, damp morning today; a hint of winter moisture in the air, after two or three days of 90F heat. Because it gets cool at night our 102-year-old house never got hotter than 74 for most of the day, and I was able to leave the air conditioner off. (Until this summer, we didn't have an air conditioner; between the hotter falls we've been having and the new baby, we thought it was time.)

Lettuce has sprouted! Two very tiny little plants -- and only two -- have sprouted in the horse trough salad garden. That's a 200% increase over the last crop, where none of the seeds sprouted before the heat of the composting topsoil and ants got 'em. There may be hope yet for the winter salad garden after all.

Broccoli is up two, much better growth, lots of plants, due to be thinned soon. Or rather moved. Some sections of the broccoli patch are bare, others have crammed in seedlings. (Shrugs) The seed was pretty evenly sown, and there is little difference that I can detect in the Broccoli patch sections that sprouted and those that didn't, but there you have it. So the crowed guys will get thinned, and if they survive it, transplanted to the bare spots.

We made a trip to Oak Glen yesterday, about which I will do a separate post; came back with four large bushels of apples for cider, though. Now I am scurrying to clean out the patio and clean up the cider press. We will probably press early next week, when Spencer is home.

Spencer is off at an Outdoor Ed camp, part of his 5th Grade science unit. Hope he enjoys it; I didn't have the heart to tell him that a lot of what they are going to talk about is eco-systems, composting, watersheds, recycling, map reading, tracking -- all those things we do around here or I am forever telling him about. I expect that the activities will be fun, however, and I know that at least some of it will seem new to 'em 'cause it won't be preached by Dad. (grin).