Apple Orchards

We have about 25 apple trees scattered throughout the property, the bulk of which are in two dedicated orchards: one below the back deck of the house and another in the fields east of the house. In a good year many, many buckets of apples can be harvested from these trees. Unfortunately, in 2019 an unexpected fungus hit all the trees, on our property as well as in the surrounding area, resulting in the loss of that season’s crop. In 2020 we had a very heavy late frost on our wedding day in early May, temperatures hit well below zero and wiped out most of the early blossoms (and also changed our wedding venue from an outdoor pagoda to a cosy, indoor Irish pub!). On what was otherwise an absolutely lovely day we lost most of that season’s apples too. But we did salvage enough to make the much treasured fresh apple cider and stock our pantry with apple sauce!

We also have many other hungry mouths here in Calder of course, so a good portion of every years apples gets munched up by hungry bears, deer, elk and racoons. Well worth the loss for the chance to see these beautiful animals up close and personal!

Most of the apple trees on the property were planted many years ago so are getting a bit old and many are also damaged beyond repair from hungry bears grabbing hard to reach branches and using their brute strength to bend (and break!) them to get to the apples. So, in 2020 we planted a bunch of new fruit trees, including 2 apple trees, 2 pears, 2 plums, a cherry and a peach tree. The last two were wedding presents for us from Steve’s parents so it will be especially fun to watch them grow and enjoy their fruit as we celebrate each new summer together :-)

When there are enough apples picked we make delicious, home-made cider; nectar of the gods! A few years ago Steve and his dad did what they do best, they happily tinkered away together and designed and built an ingenious apple cider press, made from salvaged wooden and metal parts. It does everything from the crunching of the apples to the pressing and collecting of the juices. Every year this contraption gets dragged out of storage, cleaned up and put through its paces to make us litres of freshly pressed, scrumptiously rich apple juice. It takes many, many buckets of apples to make the juice and there are a few steps in the process. First the apples are rinsed in a tub of water, quartered and fed into the sharp-toothed apple cruncher, which cuts them up and drops them into a waiting pot. The chopped apples are then transferred to a repurposed turkey fryer, which is perforated with many holes, and pressure applied using a couple of wooden slabs and a bottle jack press. Slowly but surely the juice is squeezed out and pours into a pot beneath. It’s ready to drink immediately but can also be served with a shot of rum and a cinnamon stick for happy hour :-). It’s always a fun to way to spend a few hours with family and friends and everyone loves the delicious results!

Another favourite use for all the apples we harvest is making apple sauce (appelmoes), jars and jars of deliciousness that disappear off the pantry shelves as fast as we can make it! Once again, a hand contraption is used, this one peels, cores and slices the apples in a fraction of the time it would take to do it by hand. The apples are then simply heated on the stove (no extra ingredients added) until they are cooked and softened. The hot apples are then poured into mason jars which are pressured cooked and stored for year round enjoyment. It’s delicious just on its own but we also love it on ice-cream, on our morning yoghurt, as a side dish next to roast turkey and as a healthy substitute for oil when baking carrot cakes and zucchini loaves. It’s as versatile as it is scrumptious!

A time-consuming but fun and necessary job every year is the pruning of the fruit trees. This is an annual excuse to monkey around, climb trees and get a birds-eye view of our beautiful property. As mentioned earlier, we have a couple of dozen apple trees so pruning them all takes many hours, days and weeks but it is oddly satisfying work. To transform a messy looking, over-sprouting tree into a well-groomed, evenly-balanced beauty is a dream for anyone that gets enjoyment out of the act of decluttering (attn: borderline OCD personalities!). On a beautiful spring day it’s a lovely way to wile away a few hours outside, scrambling out on precarious limbs and snipping away all unneeded growth, enabling the air to flow through the branches and letting the trees breath again. Although a chilly time of year to be outside it is super fun work and the results are instantly gratifying.

March 7, 2020 started out like any other day, it was a cold but beautifully sunny spring day and after breakfast we bundled up and headed outside to tackle the apple trees again. We were about halfway through pruning them all and that day we resumed work on the patch of trees just below the back deck. I had scrambled up high into one of the trees and was completely absorbed in my work and focused on not falling out. I was aware of Steve dragging piles of cut branches out from under the trees but wasn’t paying too much attention to what he was doing. A half an hour or so later I jumped down out of the tree and was greeted by a big smile as he took my hand and led me over to where he had been secretly busy arranging a bunch of apple tree twigs to spell out a message for me: “Marry me?”. Instantly my smile was as big as his and I threw myself into his arms yelling “YES!!” The sweetest proposal and so perfectly us, doing what we love doing the most: working the land together, being outside and enjoying each other. We were married 2 months later and feel so incredibly thankful, coming from opposite ends of the world, to have found so much love with each other as well as the perfect soulmate to share lifelong adventures with. Funny how unexpectedly life turns out sometimes ♥️