Watch-It Wednesday: Apples R Us!

Let the games begin! Step one of Operation Cider has been accomplished: retrieving the apples. Our entire garage now smells like an apple pie, and it's the season of feasting on apple fritters by day and apple dumplings by night! I can hardly wait to rent the press and begin our good, old-fashioned, cider-pressing day! Complete with fellow apple-buying friends, contests to recognize the fastest pressing team, sticky hands, savory cider warming on the stove, and a bonfire - yes, it's a time to anticipate!!

Have an apple-licious Wednesday!

The Weekend of the Apples

We in the Coder household have just lived through a momentous time. Not the Year of the Scorpion, not the Month of the Dandelion (you like that? No, it's not a real thing, I just made it up. But, yeah, it's good enough to have been a real thing. Maybe. Well, you may thing this is just another totally random and non-essential parenthetical rabbit trail. But I don't want to put thoughts in your head) - oh no. Our past few days have been prodigiously dubbed the "Weekend of the Apples" *queue dramatic music*. Yep. A week or so ago, a crazy trip to Hood River resulted in this: 

(In case you're wondering, the smell is heavenly)

Namely, twenty-seven hundred pounds of apples taking up residence in our garage. (Actually, originally there were forty-five hundred, then some friends came and picked up their two bins, leaving us with three, two of which were ours, the third belonging to a soon-to-be-named, family of friends who, upon taking their aforementioned third left us with two, the weight of which was approximately eighteen hundred pounds - but I'm getting to that.)

What does one do with hundreds of pounds of apples, you ask? Allow me to inform you: "One" makes apple cider! 


Soo yum!

Where was I? Oh yes, the Weekend of the Apples *queue dramatic music*. With hundreds of pounds of apples, and mouths watering for a sip of freshly-pressed cider, we invited our awesome friends the Spaffords over for a little cider-pressing fun...

                 

...which soon turned in to some friendly-competition-cider-pressing-fun...


The Little Girls' Team (Megan, Madeline, and Ania)



They were a wee bit short for the wheel, so their
heroes (the big bros) had to help

  

Then The 14-Year-Old Team (JT and Kayleen)



(In case you're wondering why Ben and Jonathan are in almost every shot and seem to be doing...something...with every team: they were necessary to stabilize the press because of the great speed as which the teams were cranking out the cider!)

The Mama Team!!!

Aren't they great? :)

The Awesome-ness Team (haha - that'd be me with the...hair, and
Charae with the beautiful smile!)

 
This is "The Boys Team" and - though I know this breaks your heart - it is my unpleasant duty to inform you that they beat the stellar, unbeatable time Charae and I set. But, rest assured, if we were them, we could have beaten us, too. :D

In the end though, the ultimate, Cider-Pressing Champion was (drum roll, please), Daddy! Single-handedly, he schooled "The Boys" by having the the best time by 30 whopping seconds! Sadly, the only picture I have of this strapping specimen of a man is at the beginning of the post, pouring cider for the taste-testing! We made over 15 gallons Saturday, followed up by another 10 or so Sunday afternoon. It was truly a crazy, yummy, full-of-fun, Weekend of the Apples *queue dramatic closing music*. Now we only have about 500 pounds left to process! I feel a "Weekdays of the Apples" coming on.

*queue dramatic music*