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.

Quince and Auction Finds

Well, the quince pie I tried making was... not quite a disaster, but let's just say that better than half of it ended up in the bin.  The membrillo, on the other hand, turned out quite well.  There's just rather a lot of it.  Well, let's call it a year's supply....  Next I'm going to try a couple recipes from Food in Jars and see how they come out.

Yesterday, despite (still) being sick, I went to the monthly Stokes Auction again.  A lot of the stuff I bid on or wanted to bid on went for more than I wanted to pay, but I did get two things:

A bunch of pots, for all those strawberry runners I keep rooting.  Seriously, I bought two plants and now I have upward of twenty!  And for future patio plant needs.  A lady standing next to me asked if I wanted the piece of pottery painted with a dragon in the rightmost carton.  I didn't particularly, so she gave me a couple dollars for it and said she planned to hide it in a park for kids to find.  $39.

I also got another sofa.  Much smaller than the last one I bought, this actually fit inside my Fit!  But it's sturdy and comfy and I've vacuumed it thoroughly, washed the cushion cover, and reassembled it.  Interestingly, it has four rings on the sides of the cushion cover, and four elasticated hooks on the base, so the cushion hooks in and isn't going anywhere.  And the best part?  It cost $17.  So now there's something in the living room that Wonderful Husband and I can sit on to watch TV.  And the folding metal chairs can go out to the garage.