"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...

Scrumpy Mick...

Bittersweets this time...

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!

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.

Wild Things...

Deddington...

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

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!