Apple Orchard

My son took us to an apple orchard over the weekend that we didn't know anything about. We noticed as we were shopping later that the Musselmann product were from there just as my son told us. We're really missing our apples this year with the frost we had wiping them all out. Hopefully next year will be better. It made me think how lucky we have been, thanks to my husband and his foresight, to have our own apple orchard in the back yard. We've been able to experience growing our own fruit and everything associated with it. At times it hasn't been easy for my husband - especially when he needed to prune them and fell later. We've had some of the best apples around due to his pruning and spraying. Sometimes I was overwhelmed by the picking, baking, preserving and canning part of it but I've learned more about apples over the years than I ever imagined. Of course, the best part was making our cider. I've taken some to school for the kids to share with their class and even co-workers, who raved about it. Not much in the stores compares to our home made cider especially since the scare that made pasteurizing all too necessary for commercial users. I tried that one year but it took too much flavor out and left us with apple juice, which, if you know your cider is completely different. I want one more year to harvest our apples and share this with the grandkids then we can pass it on to some other lucky family.