Phew! Yesterday was a to do conglomeration for the annals of double tasking homestead history! We had an unexpected, generous delivery of some Lodi apples from one of our dear friends on Wednesday, and with it being a touch on the warm and dry side in these parts, we knew that we better grind and press those gift apples stat.
The thing is, we also needed to cut and distill the last of the lavender harvest too. So we decided to do both. At the same time. It was fun.
Have you noticed that fun is a word that has multiple definitions? heh.
Anyway, I got my carcass out of my sublimely comfortable bed quite early yesterday and wandered out to the almost harvested lavender field. One thing anyone who grows lavender should know is that you want to harvest your lavender for oil or buds before mid morning, for once the sun hits those buds with all it's UV glory, much of your lavender plant's oil is going to dissipate into the air for the day before coming home to roost in the evening. Evaporation is fun. Oooh, there's the F word again.
Mini science lesson aside, I love going out into the lavender field at about 6am. The farm is just waking up, and there's this quiet, peaceful vibe in the air. Well, until Rick sees me and moos like he is stuck in a trash compactor, but until then the sights, sounds, and smells are quite serene.
It takes two, three gallon buckets of bloomed out lavender (augustifolia) flowers to get about a 1/2 ounce of lavender essential oil and a gallon of hydrosol. Don't worry, I am going to write an in depth post about the whole distillation process and building the still, but it's going to have to wait until I have a few more seconds to spare. Right now we are in the crux of harvest and 4-H bananas-ness!
Speaking of 4-H, this lovely duo stopped by for a visit while we were finishing up pressing and distilling. My daughter is in full race to the finish line mode with her moo right now. We are talking lots of coat care and one mile muscle building walks. Her hard work is definitely paying off, Moo Jr. is one well cared for chonk!
After my hubs loaded the still with lavender flowers, we got down to cider pressing. If you have ever looked at cider presses and grinders, I am sure you have suffered the same sticker shock that my husband did when he looked into such things years ago. He is the most resourceful DIY guy ever, and before long we had a homemade cider press and a handmade, hand crank grinder.
The apple pressing process went as follows. First, the apples are poured into a bucket of water and vinegar solution for a quick cleaning dip. Then the are sliced in half and thrown into the grinder. Underneath the grinder is a bucket lined with good quality cotton cloth. Once the bucket was full of grinded apples, we would lift the cloth out of the bucket and place it into the press.
A few cranks of the bottle jack later and voila! Apple juice! We strained it after it was pressed before drinking:)
And what glorious apple juice it is too! Last night was game night and one of our friends kept drinking glass after glass of the tangy, tart ambrosia.
What made pressing the apples more interesting is that we were simultaneously monitoring the lavender still. As the distillate flows through the essencier (the apparatus that separates the essential oil from the hydrosol) we have to be mindful to switch out the jars collecting the hydrosol quite often. Let's just say it's a good thing there were two of us:)
But we had the energy to persevere through the job because the night before I had made Zoobana bread. It is the height of zucchini season here, so I have a few (lol) to deal with, and my son in a most hilarious attempt at manipulation brought up that I used to make zucchini banana bread with milk chocolate chips a lot. Years ago. A few hours later there were two loaves on the counter (one disappeared almost immediately).
Hmm....Now that I think of it maybe that attempt wasn't so hilarious and was rather more successful and nefarious than I thought.....
And on that slightly perplexed note, I better leave this and get back to work. I've got cupcakes to decorate and teenagers to run to work!
Happy Homesteading!
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were take on the author's rather ran down but at least not run over iPhone.