Oo arr! Making zider on Vashon...

On Saturday, we took the ferry over to Vashon island with Kurt and Ginger (our very first houseguests) for Trika's annual cider-making party on her parent's farm. Before you get excited, that's American cider, which just means cloudy apple juice. Although we did smarten it up with some bourbon as the day wore on...

Here's Trika co-ordinating the delivery of about half the apples we picked from the orchard. A great variety of green ones, red ones, pears and a few rotten-ish ones too. Didn't matter - gave them a wash then fed them through the apple masher.

Here we are simultaneously crushing the apples (with an electric motor) and then winding that handle (me) to press the juice.The raw juice looked pretty murky, so we gave it a couple of sieves and strains before bottling it. We managed to make about 30 gallons in the end!
Karen and I slept out under the trees in a tent. A beautiful night if it hadn't been for all the geese honking around us at daybreak, and then the Harms zum Spreckel's crazy giant Schnauzer trying to join us in the tent shortly after.Here's the end result. Gallons of rapidly fermenting, totally unpasteurised apple juice - delicious!
Almost as delicious, an Obama cupcake ("it tastes of hope!") that we devoured in the after-cider party.