Apple Day

I ventured along to a local community event - one of those 'small but beautiful' things that are so worth supporting. It was a celebration of Apple Day - harvesting and juicing our local apples. It was reminiscent of events you see abroad, where communities get together to pick olives or grapes and to celebrate the harvest. I guess these kinds of happenings were more common in the past but nowadays, when many of us get most of our produce from big supermarkets, we have lost the connection with our land - and with our community. 

Many helpers chopped apples to feed into the press. The press was screwed down to pulp the fruit. 

The pulp was compressed into a sieve:

Even the youngsters lent a hand to screw the press's lid down:

And behold, the apple juice: sweet, cloudy and full of natural goodness. What might have been wasted was put to full use. 

I think it's been a good season for fruit, perhaps because our trees - stressed by the summer's drought - seem to have decided they need to produce lots of seeds to survive. I've noticed numerous boxes and baskets of apples placed outside people's garden gates, with an invitation to 'help yourself to free apples'. This little community gathering was taking sharing that one step further. 

You could also buy local jam, home-made soup, buns and delicious ice cream. It was all rather delightful.