crab apple trees

Morning rounds (with a bonus video)

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Today is supposed to be warmer, but it’s still dreary and overcast out there. Which means it’s all I can do to stay awake!

The first order of business, as always, it to feed the yard cats. The adults get distracted with their kibble feeding first, then I set out the canned cat food for the kittens, some in the sun room, some in the cat house. This morning, they got some bonus cat soup from one of the trays for the inside cats that got mostly ignored (we set out 3 trays, plus some in Butterscotch’s cat bowl, every day). This is supplemented with lysine, so that’s extra good for them. After adding it to the kitten bowls, I set the tray with some still in it by the kibble house to lure the adult cats away, and it was licked clean in no time!

Poirot headed out while all this was going on, so I had a chance to say hello to her babies, and look them over. Hastings (the white and grey) is the biggest of them, and most definitely female. Miss Lemon (the mostly white) and Japp (the mostly black) are less developed and harder to tell, still, but I suspect they are also female.

I made sure the sun room was closed up with some of the bigger kittens inside, so they got a chance to fill their bellies before the adult cats gobbled up their wet cat food, then continued my rounds.

I wasn’t happy to find this.

I think the winter sowing in the bed is a lost cause now. I don’t know how they managed it, but I found a section of netting completely pushed over the hoops to one side, allowing all sorts of elm seeds in. This was even a section that was pinned down with ground staples on the fence side, but it still got pulled up. About the only benefit the netting provides at this point is to keep those elm seeds off, since the cats are still managing to either get under the netting, or just lie on top of it, and even the seed protection is being sabotaged by the cats! I keep looking for seedlings, and even the onion seedlings and what I thought might be sprouting beans seem to be gone. I do see some seedlings that I know are weeds (mostly creeping bellflower), plus grasses. This is so frustrating!

On a more pleasant note, more trees are blooming. The Saskatoons have been blooming for a while, as have the cherry trees now. The ornamental crab apples are really starting to open up. Then there’s this one.

These are on the tree that get many small but very edible crabapples on it (click through for a second image). The others in the row have flower buds, but they aren’t opening up yet, like this one.

It wasn’t raining this morning (though I did see snow, every now and then) so I headed into the outer yard to check on the walnuts.

In the first photo, you can see the tiniest of leaves on the walnut sapling are emerging.

Click through to the next image, and you can see the little friend I found, hiding out in some of the grass that fell into the collar!

*sigh* Of course, my phone’s camera didn’t focus in the right place. I hate it when I have pictures that look great on my phone, only to discover they actually suck, when I see them on a proper screen!

Our rhubarb is doing really well with all this rain, so I gathered a few stalks before heading inside. Poirot was back with her babies, though, so I did pause to give her her squeeze treat! She is much more pleasant about it than Brussel was (Brussel no longer goes into the sun room, now that the older babies have all moved themselves into the cat house to join Caramel’s babies!). Brussel would always growl at me, then attack my hand, when I gave her the treats!

As for the rhubarb, they got cleaned up and cut up, along with some strawberries, to make a double recipe of Upside Down Strawberry Cast Iron Skillet Cornbread We’ve got two cast iron skillets and can fit both of them in our oven at the same time, so that works out. This, together with a bit of whipped cream, and some Vanilla Chai tea made for a perfect treat for such a dreary day!

I still fell ready to fall sleep on my keyboard, though.

And now, just for fun, here is the newest cooking video from Townsends. This sounds like something that would be perfect for a day like today!

I hope you have a great day today!

The Re-Farmer

Pruning day

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Well, I managed to get at least something done outside today!

The before and after pictures. I was losing light by the time I was done, so the second shot turned out pretty bad. Sorry.

My goal was to take care of the one at the end of the row of crabapples; far left in the photos. I’ve been tasting apples from different suckers, and there were two that have good apples on them. Everything else got cut away. Quite a bit of it was already dead. In the second photo, you can see the remains of the original tree that, from how rotten that stump is, died a very long time ago.

As I was clearing that one, I found quite a few branches from the tree next to it were entangled, so I started pruning that one, too. It has lots of little apples on it, but they are inedible. I was pretty ruthless in pruning it. The trees are too close together, and I don’t mind if we lose that one. The critters can eat the apples, though, so as I cleared away the branches, I made sure to shake off all the apples onto the ground. I’m sure the deer will enjoy them.

Since I still had some light, I did some work on the next tree. This is the one that has the really tasty little apples – a wonderful combination of tart and sweet. Unfortunately, this tree is dying. There were several large dead branches that I cut away, and wow did that ever open the whole thing up! One of the branches was so entwined with others, I had to cut it into three pieces, just to get it out.

All of the trees could use more pruning, but I did as far as I could reach. I could bring the little scaffolding over to work on them, but I think they’ve had enough pruning for this season. I don’t want to over do it. I’m not going to bother with the other crab apple trees, since they really should be cut down. One of them, diseased as it is, still has lots of tiny apples on it that the grosbeaks love to eat in the winter. I don’t want to remove a food source if I can wait. It will be a while before the silver buffalo berry start producing berries but, once they do, they are supposed to be quite prolific and should make up for the loss of crab apples as a critter food source.

Before starting on this, I went through all the tomatoes outside, boxed up the ripe ones and brought them inside. Tomorrow will be a day of preparing and freezing most of them, and maybe setting more up to dehydrate in the oven. We’re also supposed to be warm and dry over the next few days, so I hope to be able to get back to work on that trellis bed. Plus, our garlic should be arriving next week, so I want to make sure to have a bed prepared for them, too.

Lots of work to get done, before winter comes!

Oh, that reminds me. No word from the financing lady today, so I don’t expect to hear from her until Monday. It’s probably quite a challenge for her to find a deal that fits our budget for monthly payments!

Ah, well. What will be, will be.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2022 garden: gourds, ground cherries, and one. Just one!

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While doing my rounds this morning, checking the remaining garden beds, I found myself giving the ground cherries a closer look.

They do have frost damage, but a lot of the leaves are still looking just fine. The entire patch is all leaning over, making it hard to reach to pick anything. I’ve found that the plants, as strong as they appear to be, are actually quite fragile, and branches break off easily. There are still so many green berries on there! I’m not too worried about missing any ripe ones that have fallen off, though. Part of the reason we chose this location, was so they could self seed and hopefully come back every year on their own.

With how big they got, and how easily they fall over, though, I’m thinking we will want to add a support structure of horizontal wire mesh. Maybe two horizontal layers of them, with a mesh of about 4 inches square. That way, the plants can grow through the wire mesh, and still be supported during high winds, or when the weight of their own branches start pulling them down.

Oh! I just remembered. I’d dug out a roll of fence wire from a shed last year. It has 4 inch square mesh. It would be perfect for the job! I’ll just have to figure out what to use for vertical supports.

But that can wait until spring.

I finally remembered to get a picture of this crab apple tree this morning.

It has SO many apples on it, and they’ve turned such an incredible red colour. They are like beautiful ruby ornaments! The apples on this tree are not really edible – at least not for humans. The birds and the deer like them, though. The apples will be left on the tree to freeze. Every now and then, in the winter, I hope to be able to get to the tree to knock some of the apples down for the deer. Otherwise, they stand up on their hind legs to reach, and end up breaking branches.

This tree still looks pretty healthy, so we will be able to keep it while we cut away the dead and diseased trees. It may not produce apples we can eat, but it will serve as a cross pollinator. We plan to eventually plant apple trees that are not crab apples, and they often need a tree like this nearby, to help with pollination. Of course, there is the one big crab apple tree that produces some tasty apples, still. We will be down to only two apple trees in this area, from the dozen or so that used to be here. They were planted way too close together, which certainly didn’t help. We just need to get rid of the diseased tree in particular, and hopefully will be able to keep the remaining trees nice and healthy.

After covering the eggplants and apple gourds last night, I went over to the trellis to check on the Ozark nest egg gourds. Having confirmed the vines were completely killed off by the frost, I decided to go ahead and pick them, this morning.

I am just so happy with how these gourds turned out! Like everything else, they had a rough start, and yet they still produces so many little gourds! A few are still more on the green side. Imagine how many we could have had if it had been a good growing year? We will definitely be growing these again, and I hope to have some seeds I can save from these.

I’d brought pruning shears to harvest them. Those vines are pretty spiny! I also harvested the Tennessee Dancing gourds. They snapped off their stems quite easily; no sheers needed. As I went around to the inside of the tunnel trellis to pick more, I spotted what at first looked like a little snake, hanging in the air!

There we have it. Our one and only Red Noodle bean. Just one! It’s about half the size it could have been.

I now have to decide if these are something I want to get seeds for and try growing again. Under better growing conditions, they should have done just fine in our area. I’d like to at least know if they are something we enjoy eating.

Here are all the gourds I gathered – and my little buddy, who kept me company the entire time! She is such a little sweetie.

I rearranged the chocolate cherry tomatoes to make room for the gourds to cure for a while. Eventually, they will be brought indoors, given a wipe down with a bleach solution, then set up somewhere to continue curing all winter. Probably in the old basement, where the cats aren’t allowed. It may get damp in there during the summer, but in the winter, it is incredibly dry, so that should work out.

The onions my daughter braided yesterday are so heavy, with such thick necks, they started falling out of their braid. I remembered the hooks I put up that held our lights for the seedlings we had set up over the swing bench, so after the gourds were laid out, I strung the onions on some sisal cord to hang them. Once they were hung up, I ended up adding two more cords to help hold the weight! These are definitely the heaviest of all the onions we grew this year!

I absolutely love those nest egg gourds. They are beautiful, and even a pleasure to hold. I have some ideas of what I can do with them. What I do end up doing will depend on how many fully cure properly. The greenest ones probably won’t, but I think most of them did get a chance to become fully ripe. This is from two or three plants. We planted four, one died, and one never fully recovered. They’re so intertwined, it’s hard to tell them apart, but I don’t think that one smaller plant ever produced any gourds. Eighteen gourds from two (possibly three) plants during a bad growing year is pretty awesome! I want to plant more next year. The Tennessee dancing gourds also did really well under the circumstances, and I hope to plant more of them next year, too!

It should be interesting, once everything is in and we can do an assessment of what we got, and use that to help decide what to do next year.

The Re-Farmer

Before the heat hits?

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Well, I tried.

I headed outside earlier than usual, to try and get some work done before things got too hot. My goal of the day was to take the weed trimmer to where the berry bushes are. Tomorrow, I’m getting another load of cardboard and plan to lay it down around them as a weed barrier.

This is how it looked when I started.

I shoved the stick into the ground as a post to mark the end one of the rows of bushes.

Can you see the silver buffalo berry?

The row on the left, you can see the sawdust mulch around several of them, but the row on the right just disappears in the trimmed weeds and grass.

I ended up using sticks that were used to hold trellis lines last year, to mark where the saplings are. A few of them got two. They were so buried and trimmed material, I didn’t want to risk accidentally hitting them with the weed trimmer! I’ll be looking to make sure they all have at least two sticks marking each of them, when the cardboard get laid down.

From this end, the two saplings marked in the foreground are the two highbush cranberry.

It took adding one more length of extension cord, but I was able to trim around the sea buckthorn, too.

Since I had the trimmer in the area anyhow, I used it around all the trellises, the hulless pumpkin patch, and the bean tunnel.

The goal was to beat the heat, but I failed. By the time I was working on the bean tunnel, the thermometer attached to it was reading 30C/86F in the sun. Our high of the day is supposed to be 25C/77F, and we are now under a severe thunderstorm watch. When I headed out this morning, we were being warned of possible thunderstorms on the weekend, and just possible showers later today!

I kept at it, though, and was able to use the trimmer around the crabapple trees. The one I’m standing next to, to take this picture, died over the winter and will need to be cut away. There are a couple other sickly ones down the row that need to be removed, and the others need some pruning, but that will have to wait.

I’m hoping to be able to head out again with the lawn mower, set as high as it can go, to finish around the garden area. Even the lowest spot near the branch pile in the background is finally dry enough to mow.

The metal ring in the foreground was something I brought to do burns over old crabapple tree stumps that were infected with a fungal disease. It’s over a taller one that hadn’t been burned completely away. Currently, the ring is full of an ant hill!

We have SO many ants this year!

In other things, whatever happened to our phone last night was no longer an issue this morning. We can use our land line again. I did get an email response from the phone company to try disconnecting all but one phone and seeing if it was still an issue, which I’d done (there’s only 2 lines to disconnect; the extra handset for the cordless phone doesn’t connect to the land line on its charger base). I wrote back to explain that it was working again this morning.

It sounds like there is a short somewhere. Possibly due to rodent damage somewhere. I’m guessing the cause of the problem is outside the house itself. If it’s a short, we could lose our connection again, at any time. In my email response, I did include that possibility. It would require a tech to come and test the lines, though. They’d be able to do that at the pedestals at the fence lines, one of which is hidden by trees in the first two photos at the top of this post, at first. From there, they would know if they have to come to the house and test again or not.

For now, I’m just happy the phone started working again on its own!

The Re-Farmer

Morning in the snow

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We’re supposed to get pretty warm today, with a predicted high of 2C/36F, and a combination of rain and snow. It was already just under freezing overnight, which should have meant a pleasant morning to do my rounds. I wasn’t expecting those winds, though! It was warm enough that snow on the roof is melting, and immediately freezing again. The downspouts are full of ice, so it’s dripping all along the eaves-troughs. I broke icicles, just opening the sun room door! :-D

The kitties were very happy for food and warm water!

I only counted 17 again, but they move around so much, I can’t tell which three were missing, which means even if they came around by the time I finished my rounds, I wouldn’t be able to tell.

There are deer tracks crossing all over the inner yard, and here you can see where they milled around the crab apple trees. Sadly, there are no crab apples for them this year. At least they’re getting a bit of food from the black oil seed we put out for the birds. This is just our first snowfall of the winter, though, so they are not at all in dire straights.

They did appreciate the sunflowers I left behind for them! There isn’t a single leaf or underdeveloped seed head left.

I just love this corridor along the spruce grove, created when we cleared away the lowest branches (many of which were dead). It makes for such a nice, sheltered walkway. As you can see by the tracks, the deer seem to prefer it, too!

My older brother planted these trees, sometime in early 70’s, I think. I would have been just a wee one, and don’t remember them ever not being there, but I do remember being able to climb some of them with my late brother, when we were little. :-) There was one tree that had branches lined up so that I could lounge on them like in a reclining chair. My late brother, on the other hand, could climb trees like a monkey, could climb any tree he wanted and go so much higher than I could, with or without branches handy! Of course, in my memory, they were absolutely huge. They would have been a fair bit smaller than they are now, but in my memory, they seemed bigger! :-D

Once I was done my rounds, I quickly checked the trial cam files, then headed out. I wanted to hit the post office, then to into town to refill our big water jugs and get a flat of eggs. By the time I headed out, however, the winds had picked up even more, and it was raining. Though the gravel roads had been plowed, they were still in rough shape, and driving on them was like driving on a wash board! The paved roads didn’t seem much better, so decided to pick up what I could when I picked up the mail. It’s in a tiny little general store, and they don’t have a lot of selection, but manage to have a good variety of groceries, at least. They do carry the big jugs of water, so I asked about that. Normally, one would pay a $10 deposit for the jug, then $6 for the water. After that, it’s just an exchange of empty jugs for full, for just the cost of the water. I checked, and they looked the same as our own jugs, and the store owner ended up calling the company about it. They were okay with taking another empty, as long as it was clean and the same size/type of jug. So I traded one of our empties that didn’t have a label on it and just had to pay for the water, and not a deposit. It’s more expensive than if I’d gone into town to refill them myself, like I usually do. Likewise with the cartons of eggs I got (we really need to get chickens!), but that’s a small trade off to avoid making the drive on rough, icy roads in the rain and gusting winds.

The closer I can stay to home, the more content I am! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Fall colours

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It’s looking really gorgeous out there!

My mother’s “living fence” has a row of hawthorns (you can see some of their berries) on one side, and a mix of caragana and oak on the other. I got a picture of a larger oak at the far end of the row of trees, with elms above it. The crab apple tree is one of the ones in the West yard. The apples do not taste very good, but the deer and birds will enjoy them. There is also the linden tree, all yellow, while the currant leaves (which I thought were gooseberry at first) are lovely shades of red.

The Re-Farmer

Look what I found

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While tending the garden beds where we have the beets and carrots, I was looking into the area behind it. It had been part of the plan for this past summer to clean up further into there, and I was thinking of what I might still be able to manage this year, while we have some co-operative weather.

Of course, with the leaves turning, I was seeing all sorts of yellow and reds and…

… reds?

Those aren’t leaves. Those are apples!

Yup. I found another crab apple tree!

It is easily the tallest of any of the crab apple trees we’ve got, including the ones that aren’t buried by other trees. I honestly can’t remember if I’d noticed anything blooming here in the spring, but if I did, I probably thought it was another cherry tree, since there are so many in this area.

It’s not like I could get closer to see. There are at least 3 dead trees that have fallen by it (the leaves in the foreground are cherry suckers, grown from the bases of dead cherry trees). Through the matting of crab grass and various other undergrowth, I can see wood from other dead trees, but not well enough to tell if they are separate trees, or pieces of the ones that I can see more easily.

There is even a big fallen dead branch, stuck in the apple tree! I suspect this one fell during our more recent high winds, though, and was not part of the fallen trees at my feet when I took this photo.

I was able to get around one side and reach a single apple to pick and taste. I notice the apples are a pretty decent size for crab apples. It was sweet, but the texture wasn’t very pleasant. That could be due to the recent frosts, though.

Well, if I do get a chance to start doing some clean up this fall, I know where I plan to work! I want to clean out up to and around this tree, and get that dead branch out. That will open things up and give it more sunlight and space to branch out.

I suspect I will be finding little surprises like this for a few more years as I continue to clean up further into the spruce grove. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Wasps, fire and other things

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Yesterday was a day of running into town a couple of things, but I did manage to get one important – if rather late – job done in the evening.

I burned a fungus.

I really should have done it earlier in the year, but just didn’t have the chance until last night. Mostly because of winds. Yesterday evening was finally calmer. The fungus seemed to be growing anew on the remains of a stump, so I really wanted to get that burned away. Because this was under tree branches, I used the sheet of metal to prevent the flames from getting to high, even though I kept the fire small. It ended up being handy. I found that, by moving it around, I could basically direct the fire to around the stump area more easily, making sure to get all the fungal bits.

I had found the fungus almost a year ago, while taking photos of various mushrooms around the yard. The ones growing on the old apple tree stumps were so pretty and unusual, I looked them up – only to find out they are a deadly disease called Silver Leaf, and likely what is killing our crab apple trees. To get rid of it, at its worst, it is actually recommended to take out the tree, roots and all. I have no way to take out the roots – and this stump is in between two other trees, which are so close together, I wouldn’t be able to do so without damaging the other trees, anyhow.

The larger stump I’d burned earlier shows no signs of growth on it. I still need to burn it the rest of the way down to ground level, just because it’s sticking up so high. I could cut it flush to the ground, but this way, I can also burn the stack of diseased branches we’d pruned away, too.

Reading up on this disease again, I find myself thinking of the fruit and nut trees we intend to plant in the area, in the relatively near future. We might have to get brutal to eliminate the disease, and simply cut down any tree that shows signs of the disease. This includes inedible crab apple trees closer to the house, where several have already died. Even the plums (also an inedible variety, but one that my dad used to make wine out of) show signs of it.

*sigh*

That would be a job for next year. For now, we will just burn away what we can, including the pruned branches.

This morning, I headed over to do a meter reading on our power pole. I’ve stayed away, since it’s got a wasp nest under it, so I haven’t actually looked at the nest for a month.

Hhhmmm.

It… looked pretty quiet in there.

Was that spider webs I was seeing in the opening???

Yup.

There was a dead wasp in the opening, too.

I am guessing this nest, being as exposed as it is, did not survive that frost we got not long ago. The tree by the house is still buzzing, so the wasps inside it are still active, but I can probably remove this nest safely, now.

I don’t want to destroy it, though, so I’ll think about how to take it down with as little damage to the nest as possible. I should be able to peel it away from the box and the post easily enough. That power cable it is built around will require greater care.

There was also a snoozing moth next to it! :-)

In other things…

The reason we had to go into town a couple of times yesterday was because the girls had arranged for a vet visit for Leyendecker. The boy is now snipped!

It still blows me away how expensive it is to get that done – and it costs twice as much for females! Thankfully, the girls are taking care of that, as they are able.

I took advantage of being in town to pick up some scrub brushes, including for just outside stuff. This morning, I finally was able to give the outside cat water bowls a thorough scrubbing. I was even able to scrub the bird bath. I’m amazed we got another year out of that thing! It developed such big cracks in it over the winter, and yet it still holds water!

Oddly, this year I have found a couple of drowned frogs in it. We’ve been seeing a lot of little frogs in the garden plots this year, which is great, but why would we have drowned frogs in the bird bath? I keep a brick in it, so the smaller birds can more easily reach the water. Plus, with all those cracks and not expecting it to hold water very well, I haven’t been keeping it as full as I used to. Any frog should have been able to get out of the water, easily.

I’ll have to keep a closer eye on it, now that I’ve cleaned it and refilled it. So strange!

The Re-Farmer

Crab apple status

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Since the wind broke the one crab apple tree, and I ended up tying it off, rather than cutting it away, I’ve been keeping a close eye on it since.

Check it out.

Can you tell which part was broken?

There isn’t even a single wilted leaf on it!

It still might not survive the winter, but for now, it’s doing just fine.

Unlike this one.

This is the crab apple tree by the old compost pile. Last year, it had good eating apples. This year… well, the ones that aren’t infected taste good. :-( About half of the tree has yellowing leaves with brown spots, and even the apples on those branches are more yellow have have spotting on them. I’d hoped to have cut away the infected branches in pruning it, but the fungus had clearly already spread further.

I’ve been looking at some of the other crab apple trees and thinking of what to do with them. Like many trees here, they were planted too close to each other. Some had already died and were cut away, others show signs of fungal infection, and most… well, they’re just not good apples. When I do my rounds and check on them this time of year, I do taste the occasional apple. One tree had me spitting it out right away. Another has the most bizarre combination of being really sweet and really sour at the same time – so sour, I end up spitting that one out, too. Others are so tiny, they’re just ornamental. The grosbeaks and deer eat them, so even though we can’t use them, they are still feeding critters. In that respect, I’m okay with them.

However…

Partly because they are so close together, partly because of the spreading fungal infection, I am increasingly thinking of cutting most of them down to save the two trees that have good eating apples, and are still healthy. I hate the thought of cutting them down at all. There is even the sentimental side of things. My late father planted these, though it looks like the parts he grafted have died and only the suckers from the bases are still growing.

If they do get cut down, they won’t go to waste. One tree with particularly disgusting tasting apples is quite large. If that one were cut down, I’d find all sorts of ways to use the wood. It’s base is large enough, I can see carving some decent sized bowls out of the wood.

In the long term, we are intending to plant a nut orchard in the area, having found a place that specializes in trees that grow in colder climates such as ours. We will also be planting hardy varieties of different fruit trees. Hopefully, we will have apples, pears, and plums in this area, too. Taking out any sick trees, poorly placed trees, or any fruit trees with inedible fruit, would free up space needed for food trees.

*sigh*

I know we’ll need to take them down. I just don’t like having to do it.

All in good time. Aside from the diseased ones, there is no urgency to it right now.

The Re-Farmer

Wind damage and salvaged apples

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Yesterday’s high winds knocked quite a few branches down.

This one would have landed on the tent, if it had still been there.

We haven’t figured out what to do with the tent yet (other than keep the canvas parts). You can see two of the metal pieces that broke. On the table is the hub they had been attached to. It has no damage to it. :-/

We didn’t lose any trees this time, but we did lose part of one.

This is the apple tree at the very end of the row. In the spring, we had cut away the dead part in the middle, but the saplings that sprouted out the base looked healthy. They don’t have a lot of apples on them, but the ones they do have are larger than any of the other trees, so these young trees were already drooping from the weight.

This one simply broke away from the trunk of the original tree.

When I came back this morning, I was intending to pick the apples off, then cut away the broken tree.

Once I got a better look at it, however, I realized it was still quite attached to the roots. It just wasn’t attached to the dead tree trunk. Even after a chilly night, there wasn’t even any wilting at all.

In fact, it might actually be salvageable.

So instead of cutting it away, I took advantage of the remains of the dead tree, and tied it upright again.

If I can keep it supported upright long, as the tree grows, it should be able to old its own without the support of the trunk. It might take a few years, but that’s okay.

If it survives at all. If it doesn’t, I’ll cut it away then.

Check out the size of this apple!

It would have gotten larger, too, as it ripened. They probably could have used 2 or 3 more weeks.

These are all the apples from that one branch, including a few that had fallen to the ground.

I will be including them with my juicing, today. I’ll start off with just the sweet ones I used to make the crab apple cider vinegar; I’m hoping to get enough to do two gallons of hard apple cider. As the jugs will need room for the sugar, it’ll get less than 2 gallons of juice needed, but still pretty close. Once I get that, I don’t mind mixing different types of apples. Any remaining juice will be for drinking. :-)

The juicer is out of storage, and now I need to get off the computer, get everything prepped and start juicing! :-)

The Re-Farmer