Just Checking In

Not too much happening outside. The snow finally melted a few days ago - long enough for me to see that some arugula seeded last fall had started to sprout. And then another series of storms moved in. We got about 3 inches of wet sloppy snow yesterday, a bit of blue sky today, and then the clouds moved in again this evening.

I've been checking on the produce in the cellar, and most seems to be keeping quite well. I separated the storage apples last fall by keeping ability and possible damage. Today, we pulled about 1/2 bushel of ones that I didn't think would last very long and crushed them for a small batch of cider. We only had to toss about six of them as complete losses, and do a bit of trimming on a few others, but they had held in amazingly good condition. They'd softened and sweetened quite a bit. Just hand-squeezing the bag of apple mush, we got about 5 quarts of juice, and then the chickens got a real treat.

I've got almost a gallon of the juice in a glass jar with a fermentation lock on it, sitting on the kitchen counter, and it's already started to bubble. My first batch of cider vinegar turned out really good, and as soon as this gallon finishes fermenting I'll bottle what vinegar I have and start another batch. The rest of the apple juice is in the refrigerator for drinking fresh.

I haven't been able to get outside much, with all the storms coming through, so I've been playing inside on the computer. Obviously, though, I haven't been working on my blog posts, although I do still manage to get my contributions onto the SGF Co-op blog whenever it's my turn. Instead, I've been playing on FaceBook - as my sister says, "it's not a social net-working site; it's a social not-working site." Ah, well - what can I say?