Third Annual Cider Fest

October 17, 2013

The weather forecast predicts perfect weather for Saturday afternoon. Please invite your friends to join us for cider, popcorn and friendship. We will also unveil the most recent architectural design drawing for our orchard space.

In November of 2010, the orchard became a 1/4th owner of an old fashioned cider press. Ingela kindly stores it and each spring we all reserve the dates that we need the press.

Since our orchard is still very young, we search for apples at friends homes, at the Fruit Research station in Mt. Vernon, and at a few public places. All apples that ripen later in the fall are useful for us, even if they have some defects. We wash the apples before they reach the press and then they are heated to 155 degrees for at least 10 seconds.

How many apples do we need? A bushel of apples yields about three gallons of juice. (A bushel of apples weighs 42-48 pounds, about 125 medium apples. So, if 100 people down three ounces of apple juice each on Saturday, and we want to offer 1/2 gallon of juice to Ingela, our Cider Press caretaker, how many apples do we need annually for our Cider Fest? (Leave the answer in a comment.)

Bring a few dollars to enter the raffle for this beautiful quilt. Proceeds will benefit the P-Patch Trust – our fiscal sponsor!

Next year we will host a sugar-free apple pie contest!

Thanks to those who are directly helping to make the Fest the Best: Nancy M, Justin, Melody, Ingela, Laure J, Renee, Michelle, Joan, Sue Ellen, Teri S, Pamela P, Melany and Noah, and Jennifer.

A very special thanks to Max and Dana who have joined the prestigious FECO 20 hour club. Congratulations to both! They have spent over 20 hours specifically on 2013 Design Neighborhood Matching Grant work. In addition to grant work these two are also great at grunt work!

Ruth