More TCTOP training

So today I went off to Colwall to do the next part of my Three Counties Traditional Orchard Champion training. 

We spent some time in a wonderful traditional orchard

 as well as Colwall Orchard Groups base and allotments.

This is their fabulous compost loo.

Apple picking - a bumper harvest!

In common with many who have apple trees, we have a bumper harvest of apples this year

We have been picking them over several days, this week. The platform I got from Argos is really helpful!

Compostman does most of the picking  - he goes up the ladder; I pick from the ground. I also grade the apples and pass him the newly emptied buckets to pick into

The air is scented with appley-ness   as we are surrounded by cider and juicing orchards here. All our neighbours are doing the same as us, although they do it on a much larger scale.

Still, we enjoy how we do it here on our small scale and love to drink the fruits ( ha ha ) of our labours -cider for us and juice for Compostgirl and friends ( we drink the juice as well and it is lovely to be able to give a bottle as a gift, but we prefer cider!)

We are still drinking cider we made from the 2011 harvest and very nice it is as well - 6.5% abv, so a tasty alcoholic tipple, and free!

 So far this week we have picked more than 300 lb of assorted apples - with loads more to come. This should make around 40 bottles of pasteurised juice and more than 30 l of cider, if yields are good. I will also be dehydrating a load and we will be cooking and freezing some as well as making chutney and jelly with the windfalls.

We have also done a swap with a friend - a large quantity of his assorted cider apples for a similar quantity of our eaters and cookers  so our cider this year will be a rather more balanced mixture rather than our usual "whatever we have to hand to juice". We only have one cider apple tree so this arrangement is a great one and I hope we can continue it in future years :)

I have ordered some more bottles from Vigo for juice and washed all our saved wine and juice bottles again, ready to sterilise. Compostman has got down the scratter and press from the loft and I have washed them and the garage is FULL of boxes and buckets and tub trugs of apples.

Just need to make some time in the very busy next week, to do some pressing :)

Wassail!

 The Big Apple Wassailing this year was at  Aylton,  to see in the New Year and bless the fruit trees for the coming season. Compostgirl, Compostman and I went on Sat night  -  it was VERY cold indeed. We met up with a friend and her children and then saw lots of other friends there :-) it is a big social occasion around us :-)

We arrived at about 7 pm and had hot mulled cider (us) or hot blackcurrant (the children) - all locally produced -  and there were hot pork rolls on offer from a local farm's pig roast ( again local and free range and really yum)

We then processed with flaming torches to the nearby apple orchard, ledd by our local Morris dancers the  Leominster Morris Side, faces blacked up as is traditional in winter ( to avoid being identified by thier landlords or employers in times gone by!)

 where the bonfires were lit,  libations poured to the tree to ensure a good harvest, songs sung,

 

shotguns fired (!) to scare away evil spirits or bad omens which would blight the apples

 and dances danced to help ensure the harvest is good this year.

We then went back into the Great Barn and watched the traditional Mumming play, about St George and the Dragon - with many amusing and topical extras!

At about 9.30 the mumming finished and we said goodbye and went home to drink hot chocolate before out friends went home.

I have written about our local Wassail here, and about Leominster Morris and wassailling here

As always it was a fabulous thing to be a part of - one of the local things we do which we really love participating in ;-)

More about Wassailing the Orchards

Taken from the Leominster Morris website

The words comes from the Anglo Saxon 'was hael' meaning good health - literally 'be whole'. Ella Leather in 'The Folk-lore of Herefordshire' (published 1912) refers to the custom of lighting bonfires on Twelfth Night, with associated ceremonies, and called locally 'wassailing'. She quotes the Gentleman's Magazine (1791) describing the event. In Herefordshire, wassailing has long been associated with morris dancers and mummers,  THE LEOMINSTER MORRIS uphold this tradition.

The Wassail was the first event they revived after the side was re-formed in 1983. That first Herefordshire Wassail of the new era took place in the orchard of Sandy & Eileen Thompson at Tudor House, Yarpole.

The Wassail begins by gathering at a given watering hole, where flaming torches are prepared & distributed to the public, whence the side leads the crowd of followers (usually about 200) to the orchard. Toast is soaked in cider, then placed in the fork of the tree chosen to represent the orchard. Cider is then sprinkled about the roots of the tree. Next, the Herefordshire Lantern is ignited: this is a beribboned thorn-cage stuffed with straw on a pole. It represents the sun reborn, and shows why this ancient ceremony took place at this time of year. At the midwinter, the coldest & darkest part of the year, people encouraged the return of light & warmth, and by so doing they performed an affirmation of their faith that it would be so. Next, the 13th fire is lit and immediately stamped out; the Fire of Eternal Renewal or the Judas Fire. This is the sign for the simultaneous lighting of the ring of twelve fires, The Wassail Song is sung by THE LEOMINSTER MORRIS under the branches of the tree and two or three dances danced there too.

The we all go back in procession to the meeting place where THE LEOMINSTER MORRIS perform the Mummers Play. The text for which is taken from several local sources, and enlivened by individual members adding topical references or variations to their parts. More dances follow, then it is in to the bar for music, song, dance and drink!

The Wassail songs are spoken or sung.

(The Butler)

Old apple tree we wassail thee,

And hope that thou wilt bear.

For Lord doth know where we shall be,

Till apples come another year.

To bloom well and to bear well,

So merry let us be.

Let every man take off his hat,

And shout out to thee,

(Wassailers' response)

Old apple tree we wassail thee,

And hope that thou will bear,

Hat fulls, cap fulls, three bushel bag fulls,

And a little heap under the stairs.