Wednesday 31 October 2012

300 after all!

With the weather taking a turn for the worse - again - I decided to press on...
Towing eyes in place too - just hope the weather forecast improves... not recovered from traipsing round Furness Abbey in the pouring rain yet still...
 













they needed to shore up one side of the ruin and found a whole bishop in the process complete with  bling!














oh, and batch 10 makes 1.051

Tuesday 30 October 2012

Keeping 'em coming

From one job to next, stop at Andy's Farm 14.3 k sweet... take a look at some others enroute - high up, beyond panking ( I need a longer pole...) and none's come off...

And so it was about dark when I finished work... 1st up, back to those no.4's about 3m away - all on headtorch, scratting about in the grass down the golf course. Surprising how many are left yet though... no idea whether there's any left on the tree... (11.7 k) - only ever seen the tree once in daylight lol
Next up the sweets, with some shaking down got 8.5 k. - need to return in at least some light with pole...
Then it occurred that it could be a good opportunity to try to find another that I'd learned of some years ago but never got round to looking for... it's all on video, cursing an' all... suffice to say drew a blank (0 k)
Def on for 600 litres now... unless some serious rot sets in...

Ampleforth trip...

...planned for Friday. Van takes some sorting... water on board... have we got enough gas? Last run was up to Cumbria - Furness Abbey, Peel Island - end of August... didn't take in any cidermakers on that one. Cleared out all the cidermaking stuff last night, but have 3*30 litre fermenters in the garage yet (7,8&9) which is a bit cold to get fermemtation firmly underway now... could do with getting those into the kitchen...
Should have time for a run up to Cropton Brewery (Yorkshire Cider) and include a visit to the undercroft at Lastingham...
need to put the towing eyes onto current-use Panda though yet, so not much chance of making the 300 litre mark beforehand.
Came back with a good few apples yesterday - (42k - with still more on trees) which should see me up to 600 litres this year.

Saturday 27 October 2012

Bubbling around...

It's been bubbling around the back of my mind for a good few years now...
See, if one of my favourite crabs comes down, it's lost forever. What I need to do is take scions and preserve what I find. The only way to do this is by grafting of course, something I've tried but failed at... largely for not using some form of grafting wax and only tape which don't offer enough seal. I've probably done it too late in the season too. I need to invest a bit of time learning how to do this as it looks pretty straight forward on You Tube...
The idea is to plant new stock clandestinely near to where current trees are or other suitable locations - ie. not too far away from car parking as even 25 kilos of apples can take some time to hump back to the car, especially as I'm getting a bit 'long in the tooth'...

Friday 26 October 2012

Golf Links no.4

... in fruit, which is good. A hard little bullety bitter sweet - ended up on headtorch gathering some sweets not a hundred yards away. Trouble is it was mild and wet and flying things get attracted by the bright LED...
Wednesday was wet too - time to check out some reported wild trees. First one, which I tried to find last year, without success... bore one solitary apple - small red and... wait for it, sweet... doh...
Next up a reported abandoned orchard amid trees - no sign of any apples or trees...
then off to where I knew there were apples - sweets and plenty of them. Took an hour to collect 37 kilos though as brambles and nettles all about - ouch! Then off to another reported crab on an entry road to a supermarket. Found this one straight away - two small green fruits - not bad in the dark... alas the two apples were the only ones...

Yesterday lunchtime - former railway now trail - went in search of sweets (loads last year that I didn't need...) this year none according to old chap coming the other way. He did tell me of two crabs in fruit beside a nearby fishing pond which I did find... on bitter swt other bitter shp - side by side. A guy told me of another wild, but was too far away, but noted... then another dog walker pointed me to 2 more wild trees... which again I managed to find - both in fruit, but out of time really by now to do much... still they'll be added to my own Google Apple Map!

Batch 8 pressed - not taken gravity yet suspect it'll be 50 or maybe slightly more...
Last night tried some Medieval Cider made by a local who I met at the garden fete back in June - no pressing involved, chopped apples steeped in water with quite a lot of added sugar methinks - more like applewein... very much like Eastern Counties style in flavour.
that's all for now


Thursday 25 October 2012

It's all go...

Find apples/get apples... sort apples... wash apples... scrat apples... pulp apples... press apples.
Not to mention gravity and racking early batches that have finished fermenting...
Cidermaking can be largely repititious...

Saturday 20 October 2012

Local Graveyard...















after dark...
Between the headstones grows this delightful little sweet apple. Hard to show in the dark but it's laden with fruit! I'd seen the crop driving past (I know where to look!) and decided to check it out on headtorch. The fruit are smaller but more plentiful this year. I'll try and get a daytime pic.

Monday 15 October 2012

Up there fo' thinking






The quest continues...

...the crab apple tree I had in mind was sadly without fruit - a local dog walker told me of this one nearby. No evidence of fruit on the ground, and these babies were a good 30 feet up!  Beyond panking... the guy had said they were 'well up' and suggested I get my ladders off... and lean 'em against what?
Later some roadside bitter sharps (windfalls 10k), bitter sweets (mainly windfalls 1.5k) and 14k of some poor quality sweets that took a while with the panking pole

"Where did you get that hat..?"

... Aldi - £2.99. Is it a nobby one and just the proper style? No, not really... Thing is, it's getting a bit nippy out there and I get this curious earache and couldn't find not one of many... So, any roadup, now it's getting a bit cooler the trays of apples will need less sorting, particularly the windfalls.

For most of his life my father worked at a local old people's home (that's what they were called back then... well the residents were old people...) - originally he was the gardener - long story short, one day he turned up with an old gramaphone and a stack of 78's from one ot the residents - among which were some Stanley Holloway records. I'd be around ten years of age and took great delight in winding up the gramaphone and listening to the old scratchy recordings. Here's the one I had in mind with the title:

http://youtu.be/J4Kuu-FnB20

not forgetting:

http://youtu.be/tVTx44kdMbk

' "Nay, nay, Geordy love, shut thy face!" said the Queen...'

very subtle, lol

Sunday 14 October 2012

Saturday 13 October 2012

"I close my eyes..."

... and see apples, apples apples. Not had a dream of being an apple tree yet this year though...

Just knock and ask - today that tactic landed 32 kilos of an interesting sharp/sweet. Been passing this tree for years and finally plucked up the courage to go and ask in the week - my panking pole needs to be a good few feet longer though as I couldn't reach the top ones - worth calling back for the last windfalls... or maybe get the ladders off... next up the former coal washing plant - some nice sweet russety types - plenty more here yet too. I reckon somebody beat me to one of the wild bitter sweet that I went to on Thursday - got soaked in the pouring rain grubbing about in the undergrowth, but 13A made up for it...
Batch 5 scratted earlier ready for pulping and pressing tomorrow.. if I can keep the fruit flowing  there could be 500 litres this year maybe...

Wednesday 10 October 2012

Scrumpy Mick...

Bittersweets this time...


Tuesday 9 October 2012

Keep 'em coming...

Over 30 kilos added to stock today - these are wild sweets (12.4 k) from 2nd 'scrump' of the day and needed a lot of nettles and undergrowth cutting back to harvest. The nettle stings are subsiding now...
This morning, more sweets - windfalls - an easier catch but need washing as horses graze the field. Luckily they've been taken to other grazing as they'd just clean up... the field has five trees all bearing fruit and plenty of it!
There's plenty more out there yet.
Tonight a pint of 2010 batch 13A (a blend) is going down well - surprisingly well in fact!
Cheers!

Sunday 7 October 2012

Productive day

for me at least...

40 kg apples ready for scratting:














modified hopper on pulper:
















... cut-off top of a 20 litre HDPE vegetable oil container - needed a little tweaking with a blowlamp to make the opening a little bigger though bits get into the hollow handle but it's not a great problem. It still vibrates enough to shake the scrats down and the one tie wrap provides sufficient support. It did part company with the cut off ice cream tub connecting tube today though, so maybe another strategic tie wrap..?
Batch 3 now in - making 1.050 again.

Tuesday 2 October 2012

Deddington...

...doh, must be that southern accent. Though, or course, for me, now, it'll always be a 'Dunnington'...

Monday 1 October 2012

Dunnington Picking

I got the idea from the guy who discovered and named the Dunnington Pippin. On the TV programme Apples:British to the Core (sadly not available to viewers abroad, nor to me anymore since she deleted it from Sky Planner... though just learned from a Google search it's due to be shown again...) On the show the guy is seen removing an apple with a long pole with a cut-off lemonade bottle stuck on the end. Simple but effective!

Though this is a cordial bottle which wasn't quite big enough for the sharps at hand - the tree is a big one for an apple tree:









It seems to work better with a notch cut in:

... which has worn bigger as seen in this pic.







There's still plenty of fruit out there - though I was spotted scrumping by the farmer's wife! Mind you, she is a customer...
























Cheers!