Its Harvest Time at Kilmurry
Well, its that time of year again here at Kilmurry house. Our three apple trees are loaded down with miniature fruit (because no one ever prune's them) and the pear tree that usually grows nothing has branches dripping with them. Not to mention the blackberry vines are covering the roadside path, though they may mostly go to the birds this year. The advantage of apple and pear trees over blackberries is: they do not have large, prickly thorns to punch the hands of the unwary picker. Still, we may get a few before they all go away next month sometime. But meanwhile, its time to concentrate on the larger (and easier stuff).
Which always leads to the problem of: who will pick the things? I'm willing, but I am 4'8" tall. This limits my reach some-what when you compare it to the size of your average apple tree. Sadly, most of my lady friends are also short, about 5'4" at the most. So, why am I just listing the women here, why am I not mentioning the men? Well, lets see, The Lizard (our house-mate) offered me a hundred euros if I would just let the stuff rot this year. This shows you just how enthusiastic he is to help in the household food preparation. When it was pointed out that last year (when I had another staying here for a few months) we picked well over 400 euros worth of blackberries alone (we checked the store prices) he just got quiet and went away. And away seems to be where we find most of the men, when its time to pick apples (or much of anything else). Husband can sometimes be roped into helping. Last year we actually got enough help to go over to a neighbor's house where he happily climbed up a tree and shook it. While the ladies stood underneath holding a very large bed-sheet (and having a few apples still miss and clonk them on the head). This year, he really is under a blacksmithing deadline for a local metaphysical shop. They want knives and jewelry in time for the Shamain rush (October 31). So I guess we can excuse him somewhat. Though if we had him for 15 minutes we could get a lot of tree shaking accomplished.
Realizing that this was most likely a lost cause, two weeks ago I got two house-guests (ladies whose partners were busy with the men doing guy things) to go pick about three baskets of apples and one of pears. Which then sat in our nice cool pantry, since I caught a chest infection as soon as they left. I am happy to report that the pantry did keep them just cool enough to ripen and not rot. There is something about the smell of rotting fruit baskets all over the kitchen that could make the 100 euro offer to forget the whole thing, somewhat tempting.
But this week, another friend, an American lady married to an Irishman in Belfast, came down to help. And, we managed by a lot of heavy tree shaking to get about three more baskets picked. Then we went inside, to see if any of the apple-pealing-coring widgets I'd ordered from the US, was still working. First, we had to clean them, as "someone" (couldn't be Disaster Cat could it?) put them away covered in dead apple's last year. And we found a third one still in its box. Must have been the one I ordered on Sept 10, 2001. That box arrived a year later, after first sitting in a warehouse for about six months and then getting sent to Italy instead of Ireland. Needless to say, I had long re-ordered everything in the original box by then. So now I have two of various objects. Or, in this case three, but inspection showed the oldest one was now only good for parts. So we put it up and my friend (who is much more mechanically minded than me) realized we could C-Clamp the things to the table. They are supposed to just sit there via water suction. Which they will do, until you try to peal and core an apple with them. Then, they jump up into your hands, and can cut your finger if you are not careful. So, friend went to husband's black-smithy and brought back to C-clamps, which then made our work much easier.
With two apple-peeler-corer thingys we did one huge pot of apples, another of apple butter (Americans here always want to make apple butter because you just don't find it in the UK or Ireland) and another huge pot of apples this morning. All of which got done in about three hours. Not counting apple picking time. We also found a previously unknown clump of elderberry bushes and decided to pick some to make juice in my "Finnish Steamer." The Finnish steamer is another gadget I got from the US based Lehman's Catalog (a great place for non-electric widgets you didn't know you couldn't live without). I have never had anyone from Finland talk to me about them, but they are very popular sellers in the US. Anyway, its basically several huge pots, a steamer and a hose. You steam the fruit, which then drops its juice into the middle part, which has the hose in it. This is then (theoretically) easily drained into another container. Somehow the easy part always gets away from me, leaving a large amount of liquid on the floor. But maybe I just don't get enough practice.
Anyway, we decided to pick and steam the elderberry bushes when my friend confesses that she has no real work clothing with her. A larger sized lady, almost all of her clothing is very nice and tasteful. Unlike my purple shirt that got mixed in with a load of bleach and has white blotches all over it, that I wear for such occasions. Since elderberries can be used to dye cloth a lovely shade of purple, as well as used for food. We needed to find something that would cover up her good clothing. I found it, my size 22 red robe that I bought to wear in the hospital, when I couldn't find anything else. This monstrosity wraps around the body and makes me look like a squat, red sausage. But it looked quite nice and lady-like on my friend. Although not what you would expect to see somewhere wearing out picking apples or elderberries. Since almost no-one is going to visit us on a Saturday afternoon (and if they did they might get stuck picking apples); I figured we would be safe. And for once, I was right. But I think I'll suggest friends bring old t-shirts along in the future.
So, we managed to get the elderberries into the steamer, when The Lizard (remember him, the guy that offered me 100 euros to let the fruit just rot outside?) comes into the kitchen and says,
"I thought I smell elderberries, where are they?"
I answered,
"They are in the steamer pot, making juice..."
To which we got the horrified response,
"How could you, you mean you didn't leave any for us to just eat?"...
When it was explained that we thought he didn't want any, we got a very hurt, little boy look. My friend explained where the bush was and, since he was so much taller (nearly six feet) he shouldn't have any trouble picking them for himself, off of the top branches. After all, she'd gone out in a red bathrobe to try and hold them down for me. He kind-of sighed and admitted that he could do this. I wonder if he will, but I won't hold my breath...
Meanwhile, back to trying to figure out how to use the new vacuum sealer. We've got it all figured out, except for the date stamp. I suspect this year I may just keep writing on the bags with permanent marker.
So far, T-minus seven bags of cooked apples and counting...
Stay tuned for more,
Disaster Cat