More Gathering

This week, we have been doing a bunch of gathering, and will continue to do so over the next couple of weeks. We want to stock up on storable feed for the pigs and rabbits. This year has been so dry that we have no idea what the prices and availability of animal feed will be like over winter.

We drop Leo off at Kinder garden and then go to our friend's place (he has a beautiful property near ours, which has over 5000 apple trees and a bunch of water and thus weeds). We load the truck up with either grass and weeds or apples. We dry the weeds to make hay, but the apples are a little more complex.

This past week, we gathered about 500 lbs of apples. We have dried about 30lbs so far in our solar food dehydrator. We made another 30 or 40 lbs into apple sauce and chunks for apple pies, which we have frozen (we also pureed some of the sauce and froze it in ice cube trays for Nico - he loves them and the coldness seems to feel good on his aching gums). We are fermenting a bunch in a 30 gallon tub for the pigs, and they also get fresh apples, while they wait for their preferred vinegary ones.

Over the next day or so we will be making our first cider and then vinegar. Cider is a good way to preserve apples, plus it gives a leftover pulp that we can dry for the animals. We'll let you know how it goes. On the other hand, we don't really drink much (if at all), so the sudden arrival of delicious cider may impair our typing abilities for a while to come. Be patient.