Cider Hay Ride

 Bottled apple cider!  Hard cider with a little fizz added that is.

We have never done this before so after purchasing a few supplies and scraping the labels of many-a-bottle, it's the night to bottle the apple juice that's been brewing in the basement for a couple weeks. Siphoning off the juice proved to be more difficult than we thought.  After sucking down a bit more cider than I planned we finally corrected the connection and filled a few dozen bottles. Washing and sanitizing the bottles was by far the most time consuming part of the entire process.

 Filled bottles on the left and clean, sanitized bottles with 1/2 teaspoon of corn sugar (dextrose) added to create the bubbles, waiting to be filled on the right.  Notice the Seaweed Green granite?  The granite is from India and the process of picking it out took months!

Dave filled the bottles and I capped them with the handy, dandy capper snugger. It reminded me of putting snaps on kids clothes.

 So we bottled the cider until 10:30 pm Friday night.  Saturday morning I went to work at the Library, waiting for the call that Shawn Lahti.  He was coming up the shore with 230 bales of hay and would call when he was at Cascade State Park so I could head home to meet him. Shawn had no problems weaving this truck between the garage and a 3 foot drop off, inches from the well and spruce tree which protects the gas tank, and finally between the run-in and the barn door. 

 How did they get the hay up there?

Watching 230, 70 pound bales of hay slide off that  truck was impressive.  This is a very cool flatbed truck! 

Tyler and  Brandon worked for 5 hours getting the hay from Lahti Farms stacked in the barn.  Alright, they had a couple cookie breaks but they really worked hard.  I don't know what I would have done without their industrious help with this hay!  Lahti Farms, which is down near Duluth, has been in business since 1931, selling hay and straw.   In 1931 they used horses to pull the wagons hauling the hay.  Shawn had a business card with a photo of a hay wagon, his teenager father standing on the hay and grandfather as a young man standing next to the load. 

 A winter's supple of hay, oh what a feeling!  You probably can't imagine the relief I feel having the hay stacked in the barn!

 Dave and I butchered the meat birds this morning but I'll leave those pictures for another day.  It was so wonderful to go for a ride up on the ridge with my friend Vicki.  I was tired from the morning's work and nervous wondering how Zan would behave.  I just haven't ridden her more than a few times in the last month and she doesn't have that much trail experience.

 Here we are on top of the ridge with the lake in the background.  It's another world up there and the fall colors are beautiful.  The footing was not soft nor easy for my four hoofed companion but she was a real trooper and really enjoyed being out and about.

Zan would not cooperate with a pleasant look for the photo.  She would much prefer munching on the dry, wild  yellow grasses growing in any rocky depression that might hold a bit of organic matter and moisture to support their growth.

It was really a spectacular view!  Without the direct sunshine the colors were muted and calm.  It's October 4, 2011 and the colors are at their height. This is a ride I would like to repeat any time of year.