Cider-Making Fools
Last weekend was the annual trek to Moscow for apple picking and cider making at Bishop's Orchard in Garfield, WA. We've been going to Bishop's for close to 18 years now and have become quite good friends with the Bishop's themselves along the way. In fact, we arrived with a wedding gift for the Bishop's oldest daughter, Jenny, and her mom Sally handed Mike and me our wedding gift, a little late, but there's a long story involved, of course, and it's lots of fun to keep celebrating!
My Aunt Chris and Uncle Pete live in Michigan and are like a second set of grandparents to my brothers and me. Uncle Pete is my grandma's (Mimi's) little brother and they've always been close to my grandparents. When our family moved to Moscow in 1987, my grandparents also left Cleveland to move to northern MI where they bought land on a lake way back in the woods with Aunt Chris and Uncle Pete. We were always lucky to have them all so close to each other when we visited! Aunt Chris has been battling cancer for a few years now and just had her SECOND stem-cell transplant a year ago October 6th! She's doing really well now, thank goodness, and is finally able to travel a bit. Her family lives in California so they are making the trek (by car!!) from MI to CA and were able to make a stop in Moscow to visit us! It worked out to be perfect timing because Mike and I had already made plans with Webb and Emily to go visit Moscow the very same weekend for cider making fun. Webb is bound and determined to make hard cider this year and so brought along 2- 6 1/2 gallon carboys to fill up! We had our work cut out for us!
I drove over EARLY Friday morning to surprise eveyrone with a few extra hours to visit since I had the day off. Mike, Webb, and Emily drove over after work that evening to join the fun. It was great to visit with Aunt Chris and Uncle Pete as well as both my brothers and Teresa, Mike's girlfriend. Mike and Teresa are staying in Moscow with my parents at the moment cuz they are in limbo for about a month before they head to NEW ZEALAND!!! They just bought tickets and are going to go travel around for 5 weeks for fun, man, Mike and I are pea-green! But we also can't wait to hear all their adventures and we hope they can make it to the Mapua area and visit our NZ family and friends.
The group was complete around 10:00pm on Friday when the rest of the Seattle crew arrived and we all chatted until far too late in the evening before finally retiring to our respective air matresses. Hotel Beard was sold out this weekend and it made for a great time!
Saturday morning we all got up, had breakfast, took turns showering, and headed to the orchard. We picked crazy lots of apples...83 pounds, and made enough cider to float ourselves home! Total I think we made 24 1/2 gallons! Yum. Everyone got to help do both and we cranked all that work out in less than 2 hours! Whew, are we good or what?
They just kept multiplying! And this doesn't even include Webb's giant containers!
Had to have the typical "long-arm" shot in there! Or we know you'd all be sad.
Saturday night we had a delicious feast and drank Victor Specials. For those of you who are uninitiated a Victor Special is fresh pressed cider, gin(can be any kind...don't waste the good stuff!), and a squeeze of lemon. Sounds hideous, I know, but it's divine, even for those of us who "don't drink gin". Most of the guys watched football later that day, while Mike, Aunt Chris, and I did Sudoku puzzles and got brain work outs. And laugh muscle workouts cuz Mike had to convince Aunt Chris that guessing wasn't such a great strategy!
Sunday morning we had to say our farewells and head back home. Aunt Chris and Uncle Pete were staying til Tues before heading south but work was calling us home.
A family photo! We sure missed having them at the wedding, but they had to get Aunt Chris better before making the trip out! We celebrated plenty this weekend with Victor Specials!
This week was spent laying pretty low. I had come home with a cold before we traveled and it pretty much kicked my butt until just a couple days ago. Mike got a little stuffy, Mom reported she had some sinus pressure, and the Girards were a little under the weather but nothing too bad. whew. I'm glad I was the only one to have gotten the full ick cuz it definitely was my fault! Just about every teacher at school was hit full on by this thing and all took turns being gone from work, except me cuz I rock of course, so we had a slow-moving, but hectic week that included a day-long training on Friday. Bad timing! But we made the best of it, had fun, whined about it all together, and actually managed to learn some stuff!
As for this weekend, we just chilled out yesterday and Mike is off climbing a mountain today while I do homework and catch up on some things around the house. Looking forward to another week, and getting my wisdom teeth out on Friday the 13th! Bleh.
But a great big HAPPY BIRTHDAY goes out to Peter (turning 20 on Wed. Good Lord!) and Jacob (already turning 5 on Thurs!!) from your sister/bro-in-law and aunt/uncle! We love you!
My Aunt Chris and Uncle Pete live in Michigan and are like a second set of grandparents to my brothers and me. Uncle Pete is my grandma's (Mimi's) little brother and they've always been close to my grandparents. When our family moved to Moscow in 1987, my grandparents also left Cleveland to move to northern MI where they bought land on a lake way back in the woods with Aunt Chris and Uncle Pete. We were always lucky to have them all so close to each other when we visited! Aunt Chris has been battling cancer for a few years now and just had her SECOND stem-cell transplant a year ago October 6th! She's doing really well now, thank goodness, and is finally able to travel a bit. Her family lives in California so they are making the trek (by car!!) from MI to CA and were able to make a stop in Moscow to visit us! It worked out to be perfect timing because Mike and I had already made plans with Webb and Emily to go visit Moscow the very same weekend for cider making fun. Webb is bound and determined to make hard cider this year and so brought along 2- 6 1/2 gallon carboys to fill up! We had our work cut out for us!
I drove over EARLY Friday morning to surprise eveyrone with a few extra hours to visit since I had the day off. Mike, Webb, and Emily drove over after work that evening to join the fun. It was great to visit with Aunt Chris and Uncle Pete as well as both my brothers and Teresa, Mike's girlfriend. Mike and Teresa are staying in Moscow with my parents at the moment cuz they are in limbo for about a month before they head to NEW ZEALAND!!! They just bought tickets and are going to go travel around for 5 weeks for fun, man, Mike and I are pea-green! But we also can't wait to hear all their adventures and we hope they can make it to the Mapua area and visit our NZ family and friends.
The group was complete around 10:00pm on Friday when the rest of the Seattle crew arrived and we all chatted until far too late in the evening before finally retiring to our respective air matresses. Hotel Beard was sold out this weekend and it made for a great time!
Saturday morning we all got up, had breakfast, took turns showering, and headed to the orchard. We picked crazy lots of apples...83 pounds, and made enough cider to float ourselves home! Total I think we made 24 1/2 gallons! Yum. Everyone got to help do both and we cranked all that work out in less than 2 hours! Whew, are we good or what?
They just kept multiplying! And this doesn't even include Webb's giant containers!
Had to have the typical "long-arm" shot in there! Or we know you'd all be sad.
Saturday night we had a delicious feast and drank Victor Specials. For those of you who are uninitiated a Victor Special is fresh pressed cider, gin(can be any kind...don't waste the good stuff!), and a squeeze of lemon. Sounds hideous, I know, but it's divine, even for those of us who "don't drink gin". Most of the guys watched football later that day, while Mike, Aunt Chris, and I did Sudoku puzzles and got brain work outs. And laugh muscle workouts cuz Mike had to convince Aunt Chris that guessing wasn't such a great strategy!
Sunday morning we had to say our farewells and head back home. Aunt Chris and Uncle Pete were staying til Tues before heading south but work was calling us home.
A family photo! We sure missed having them at the wedding, but they had to get Aunt Chris better before making the trip out! We celebrated plenty this weekend with Victor Specials!
This week was spent laying pretty low. I had come home with a cold before we traveled and it pretty much kicked my butt until just a couple days ago. Mike got a little stuffy, Mom reported she had some sinus pressure, and the Girards were a little under the weather but nothing too bad. whew. I'm glad I was the only one to have gotten the full ick cuz it definitely was my fault! Just about every teacher at school was hit full on by this thing and all took turns being gone from work, except me cuz I rock of course, so we had a slow-moving, but hectic week that included a day-long training on Friday. Bad timing! But we made the best of it, had fun, whined about it all together, and actually managed to learn some stuff!
As for this weekend, we just chilled out yesterday and Mike is off climbing a mountain today while I do homework and catch up on some things around the house. Looking forward to another week, and getting my wisdom teeth out on Friday the 13th! Bleh.
But a great big HAPPY BIRTHDAY goes out to Peter (turning 20 on Wed. Good Lord!) and Jacob (already turning 5 on Thurs!!) from your sister/bro-in-law and aunt/uncle! We love you!
posted by Meghan at 1:23 PM
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