Stories: The Love We Shared: Making Apple Juice with the Butlers
by Lynn Meadows
Of course every summer at the end of June we went to the Butlers to pick cherries, but that was not the only fruit we harvested on the Butler Ranch. George and Ella also had lots of apple trees. The season for apples is longer than the cherries and the bulk of the apples came in the fall.
We used to set up apple pressing days and invite as many families and kids as we could find. We would ride out to the orchard in the morning in the back of a couple of pick up trucks. Out amongst the trees, we would fill our buckets up with grounders, (Golden Delicious, Pippin, Jonathan, Red Delicious) and throw them in the back of the trucks. When we had a few truckloads we would head back to the apple press.
In the typical style of George and Ella, their apple crusher and press were funky and jerry rigged. George tried out all kinds of ways of hooking up an engine to the grinder and ways of improving the hopper with drilling holes in giant culverts etc. It was challenging and at times hilarious. Sometimes it would take George jamming his cane in the belt to get the engine to connect. He always managed to make it work and we got lots of juice.
First we would wash the apples and then our numerous workers would throw them into the grinder until the hopper was full. Then we would push the hopper under the press and put the pressure on. Out would flow golden rich sweet cider, that would surely quench our thirst after all of that work. The grounders always had worms in the middle so we called our cider "worm juice" and made lots of jokes about how high in protein it was.
George and Ella had a huge wood fired cook stove outside their house near the pool. We set up a canning station there and would pasteurize one half-gallon jars of apple cider as it came fresh from the press. After a long day of work, everyone would go home with a year's supply of the sweetest golden brown apple cider you have ever tasted.
My memories are permeated with the feeling of the fall, the musty smell of the leaves on the ground, the hint of cooler air, even though it was still dry. I remember beauty of the orchard, the views of the Ukiah Valley, the laughing, the hard work, the sticky cider and the love we shared.
We have apple trees in our new orchard at the Butler Cherry Ranch Project and will be having apple pressing days. I hope you come and bring your family so we can make new memories and fill our hearts with the same joy that we shared with George and Ella Butler.
