Harvestfest at Raishland 2019

the crew for harvestfest 2019. The Raish trees didn't produce apples this year so we had to buy some varieties from Lain's cider mill but not press them there because we bought the means to our own production and got a small cider press this year so we could hang out and drink at Raishland at our leisure and not wait in line for hours at Lain's. It took a very long time to chop, grind, and press the apples but the cider came out good as did the hard cider. We learned some things for next time.

after a night of merry making we awoke atop raish hill ready to get our apple on.

Lain's famous cider donuts, hot tip-a wee bit in the microwave turns the sugar melty and the donuts delish

cider creek cidery around the bend from Lain's cider mill

cider creek dog

raishland dog

The grinder, Danielle would stick her finger up there to clear the apple pulp and get her finger slightly macerated and she went to the emergency room with Adam and it turned out to be ok. but it give me the willies thinking about it and especially if you look inside this thing and think of what could have happened.

next step loading that mash into bags and clamping the whole thing down slowly

its a slow small volume process but it's our process. Not that we don't love Lain's small better operation, it's more so everyone can hang out and come and go as they please.

yes we camped out in that snow but we made it

can't remember what this year's yield was but I think it was something like 14 gallons (vs 44 gallons the first year at Lain's). To be fair we didn't have anywhere near the same amount of apples this year.

a final breakfast at the Texas Cafe before moseying on out.

Growing up in this area and being an Asian person in general the words Chinese auction immediately jumped out at me. I looked up the phrase Chinese auction and as you can imagine it's not the right term to be using in 2019. "Chinese auction" is also known as a "penny raffle" or "chance auction." At the time, Chinese laborers were paid low wages, and Chinese came to mean "cheap" in American slang. Because the raffle tickets are inexpensive, perhaps this led to the characterization "Chinese auction."
So if you want to use a better term use Penny raffle or penny auction or penny social.