Our last hurrah of summer. Saturday we made fresh apple cider and had our annual hayride. In spite of the rainy forecast we managed to get every thing worked in and stayed mostly dry. Dan had some friends come up from Missouri who had never made cider. Here Ronnie is having his hand at turning the crank. Louie had already had his turn. Not as many apples this year. We made two years ago and had pickup loads. But the cider was very tasty.Mike, Craig and Gary are working the press and Dan was helping Jeanine , Geri and Donnie strain and bottle it.
Not sure how much we ended up with, around 10-12 gallons I think. Never really counted. It sprinkled just a few drops when we were cleaning up before the hayride.
Making cider is hard work as Larry and Marley found out. They decided to have a short nap before the hayride.
We had two hay racks this year. Probably could have gotten every one on one rack but wasn't sure how many were coming. It was the shortest hayride in history. Up to the corner and back. I think Donnie, our weather man knew it was going to rain or he may have just been really hungry. Who knows.
We went down to the gully for the wiener roast. Here is Donnie helping Mary off the wagon. I was sure he was going to drop her!!! But she was safe and secure. We all had a few laughs. Notice the nice fire. Thanks Gary and Amie for being our fire starters.
Everyone got into the act roasting the hot dogs. Dan didn't have time to put a longer handle on his roaster and was getting pretty hot but Gary fixed him right up with and extension.
Here it is a long stick and a clamp of some kind. It worked really well. Thanks again Gary. Food was good and way to much as always. And for the first time in history the cup trick didn't work. . We packed up and headed back to the house for some picking and grinning. Just a few feet away from the house it really started to pepper down with rain. but no one got too wet as we scurried in to the basement.
Here we are warm and dry picking away. Sorry for the blurry picture. My camera dial got changed and it didn't turn out very good. But we had a good time playing. I gave out about 10 as I had worked the night before and not slept much in the morning. But I'm sure everyone had a really good time.
