Squishing fruit into jars and jugs

A small mystery solved: the partially eaten apples I've been finding under the red apple tree are not (entirely) the work of the local rabbit population.  They're the work of the local bird population!  The red apples have thinner skin and softer flesh than the red-green stripey ones, so I guess it makes sense the local wildlife would prefer them.  (Myself, I prefer the stripey ones.  They're kind of like Fuji apples. Who knows, they may even be Fujis.)

We finally have all the equipment to press our own cider, so this afternoon the boys and I picked a basket and a box full.  Then I washed most of a box, Wonderful Husband cranked the grinder, and manned the press until it got a bit too dark to continue.

When we did this at the cider pressing event, the basket-and-boxful netted us about two and a half gallons.  Today's most-of-a-boxful got us most of a gallon.  So, slightly less, perhaps?  It might be due to different equipment not being able to press the ground fruit as hard.  Or it might be due to me deliberately picking lots of the small/misshapen apples off the striped tree (the red tree doesn't seem as prone to them).  I'm going on the theory that they're the apples not really suited for eating or cutting up for pies etc., so I might as well get use out of them in the form of juice.

I also sorted the quinces, stored the unblemished ones out in the garage, and made another batch of jam from blemished ones (after cutting the bad bits out, natch).  But I forgot the lemon juice, so it didn't deepen to the lovely ruby red the first batch did.  Ah well.  I did check out the quince tree and it's got less than two dozen fruit left on it, so at least that is finally coming to a slow.  And, oddly, one of the fruit that's already fallen as well as one of the ones still on the tree is definitely a pear.  I was told by the previous owner that it was a pear tree, and apparently pears are frequently grafted onto quince rootstock, so... was it a pear tree at one point but for some reason the rootstock took over?  I likely will never know.

Tomorrow: more cider pressing~!  And jam making.