Apple Pressing

The crab apples are ripe, and that means cider pressing season.  While the other apple trees won’t be ripe for a little while longer, it’s no matter because crab apple cider is our favorite.

Around here, if you own an apple press, you somehow have lots of friends.  Fortunately, we have a friend with an apple press, and borrow it when it’s time for cider.  This year we did something different and pressed our apples at our friends Todd and Jessica’s house.  They had a much larger crab apple tree, and had never pressed apples before.  So we were going to show them the ropes on our borrowed press.

So the morning of the event, Knut and the kids went out to pick every last crab apple off our tree.  Our crab apples are delicious.  They’re not as tart as many crab apples, and my kids often pick themselves a snack when they are outside.

Ingrid was in the stroller at first, but these days she’s not to happy just sitting around.  So I let her walk all around it.

Solveig helped in her own way.

It wasn’t long before Ingrid and Lena found each other.  Ingrid loves to climb on Lena so much and it makes me nervous because Ingrid pulls her hair and ears from excitement and doesn’t understand “gentle” yet.  As for Lena, just as she has done when Elias and then Solveig were crawlers, she just walks right up to them and nearly stoops down to let them crawl all over her.  It’s almost like she likes it.  I keep separating them, but it’s hard to keep Lena from her babies.

We got to Todd and Jess’ house later that night.  Solveig felt the need to accessorize for the occasion.

Our kids and their kids are close and age, so it’s always lots of fun.

The cider from their crab apple tree was as pink as rhubarb juice.  Wow, it was pretty!

Ours is usually a more traditional apple juice color.  This is ours before filtering and the foam still on top:

We taste tested, and theirs had much more tartness, and ours more sweetness.  Proof not all crab apples are made alike.