Of Cider and Minks

This afternoon I had the pleasure of going over to Beth and Doug's house next door. It's a pretty nice day today so we thought it might be the last time before winter to press apples to make cider. They usually do it in October but there were still some apples on their trees for me to use. I climbed up their trees and shook most of the apples down. They have an apple press Doug acquired from a good friend of his that was patented in 1921. Still works like a beauty. You feed the apples into the hopper on the top and you turn the hand crank and it shaves them down into pieces that you press with the hand press on the end of the little machine.

Pretty legit little operation we had going. From the 50 or so pounds of apples we pressed we ended up with about 6 gallons of apple cider. Once it drains into the pan sitting on the ground, you strain it through a cheesecloth once or twice and then pour it in your half gallon jugs. It worked beautifully and now I'll have a sipping drink to get me through til spring!

As for the mink.

While we were making cider, we saw a small black mink running around the yard. It was making straight for the chicken coop and trying to terrorize Beth's laying hens. So Beth wanted Doug to shoot it and get rid of it. He went and got his 12 gauge and followed it into the barn. When he went to open the stall door, it stuck its head out from under the door and instead of shooting a hole in his barn floor, Doug hit it on the head with the butt of his gun. Killed it dead.

I asked them if I could keep it. They were more than happy for me to take it off their hands. I'll skin it out and add it to my fur collection at the end of the season. See if I can't make myself a coat.

6 gallons of fresh apple cider and one dead mink. I don't think it could get much better than that! What a day! I was one happy fella, I tell ya what! 

I walked on home with all my spoils from a good afternoon's work and put everything in my deep freezer to store, mink and all. 

X Jeremiah