Somerset Today

Overcast today but heres a few pics around the orchards.



Devils Turnips



Mistletoe









Pomage



Robins Pin Cushion



Bees





Burrow Hill

 

Looking good Zig.. thanks for the tour

 

Cheers John Pity about the weather though.

Oo No, they will be raked up by the Gallopiter machine and pressed into Cider, there are loads of varieties in that orchard, good names like "Tremletts Bitter, Brown Snout & Dabinette"

Some are sweet like dessert apples, some are more bitter & some just taste like Cider already

 

Yes that's what I thought, common misconception it appears:o thanks for the photo's Ziggy

 

Its part of the process. The wild yeasts start the ferment in the orchards, time they are pressed its already bubbling



And now the real truth, the galopiter machine,

Herefordshire Cider Apple Harvest. - YouTube

 

Until I realised there were apples specially bred for cider making (which I only found out fairly recently), I was under the impression that cider apples were just the apples that every pest going had had a go at. The ones that would never sell on the fruit stall. The proper ugly half eaten ones that were no good for anything else.

This image perhaps comes from the tale I was told as a kid. I was told that proper scrumpy is made in an open oak vat. The apples aren't even pressed, but instead are just left in the vat to rot. A dead cow is thrown into the vat with the apples, to help make it all rot quicker, and the juice that dribbles off is cider.

It is only fairly recently that I found out this tale I was told as a child is not true, and probably never was true

Incidentally, even while I still believed this far fetched tale, it didn't put me off cider. I still recognised it as the divine elixir that it is.

 

There have always been the tales of rat bones & only the gold rings left from the body that fell in. All balderdash.

 

Great pics Ziggy , especially the avenue off trees in the orchard . There is something about tree avenues especially in autumn......................