37- MAKIN' APPLE CIDER in an OLD-FASHIONED PRESS!

Want something?...go to the grocery market or mega-box store in our society, but there are enough of us Americans who have learned from grandparents or older books how to make what we need and want, or least try...and enjoying the process!
My paternal grandfather, Carl, built his own cider press, among a wide variety of other needs on his small farm on Buttermilk Spring Road, and the family always enjoyed, for years, homemade cider and vinegar, both good for the body. Over time, the press was relegated to his barn, and that's where I, as a pre-teen discovered the gem!
With his permission and knowledge of making cider, my two chums and I set off to an orchard down the country road to acquire feedbag sacks of October apples and load on our bikes. Loaded down with apples we headed back to the barn and press, ready to cut up the fruit and begin a new adventure one Saturday afternoon.
Apples were sliced into quarters, after scrubbing the press, and dropped into the slatted hopper. We took turns turning the wheel that ground the apples, that in turn accumulated in the round hopper for squeezing with a press that was made from a sold piece of wood. And, withing a minute or three, the golden nectar began to trickle down the runway to a clean gallon jug with a large funnel attached.
Success! We eventually squeezed up four gallons of our very first batch of homemade apple cider. It didn't look like the kind we were used to buying in the market, but who cared. My grandfather said that it was 'cloudy' because it had lots of healthy pulp in it. Pulp has always been "in" for me!
That Saturday afternoon we filled our Dixie cups with our efforts, over and over, thinking that the brew might give us a buzz...NOT!
Over the years this researcher and avid historian has been invited to experience and photograph many country cultural folk happenings out and about my native Virginia: fall butchering, sausage grinding and ponhoss makin'...crossing a swinging bridge in Highland County...molassess making...climbing an abandoned lighthouse in the Bay...canning veggies and fruits...chasing McCorkle's wandering bull to bring 'em back to the barn...the birth of a foal in a pasture...Saturday church suppers in Augusta County on a late summer's day...spring socials for a Golden Anniversary...spelling bees (I didn't win)...gathering guinea eggs along a country fence line...sipping a freshly squeezed limeade at an old-fashioned soda fountain in the back of the Williamsburg Drugstore that doesn't exist anymore...quilt making out on the front porch of an Amish farmhouse...box supper "blind" auctions, with me winning the bid on my sister's box supper!...candle dipping...exploring old abandoned farmhouses from long ago...the Chicken House Gospel Revivals in Louisa County, Va...community lawn parties in Rockingam County, always on a Saturday afternoon...and weekend morning country auctions, looking for very old real picture penny pastcards!
Cultural society, methinks, is moving too fast and in a direction that enough of us want to slow...pressing apple cider helps!