Juicing

What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us wind up in parentheses.

I sign fifty copies of my book, package them up carefully, and entrust them to the post office for conveyance to the Netherlands. Then it’s on to the meat of the day - apple juice.

Ivan heads over to help and we’re ready to start when we discover that the hopper doesn’t fit the crusher. Luckily, Ivan has a homemade electric machine - a waste disposal unit with an Ikea colander fitted to the top. Add a workbench, a plastic bag, and an old table leg and you get a fairly efficient way of turning apples into pulp.

The juicer isn’t getting as much juice out of the pulp as expected. Under pressure, jets of pulp are squirting out between its wooden ribs. Next load, we place the pulp in an old pillow case and yield begins to improve.

Less than five hours later, and we have six crates fewer apples, a wheelbarrow of pressed apple remnants, and 15 gallons of fresh apple juice. There are crates more apples on the trees, and that’s without even considering the cookers or the pears that aren’t ready yet.

Claire’s been busy too, planting Rowan trees in the bright autumn sunlight. She’s feeling rough after last night’s adventures with Cheryl, but she makes it till after dark before heading to bed.