Life After Windbird, Day 95: Homemade Apple Cranberry Juice
Date: Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Weather: Overcast and Rainy; High 58, Low 50 degrees F
Location: At Home at the Studio, Falmouth, MA
Heather was in Boston today, so I picked up Sam and Jonah after school and we headed home to make apple cranberry juice. As part of my ‘get healthy’ focus of the past few months, I bought a juicer. When Heather, Jed, and boys went to Maine over Columbus Day Weekend, they brought back apples from the very old apple trees on the family farm. The very next weekend was cranberry harvest time in the bogs here in Falmouth and we picked off the berries left behind by the professional ‘pickers.’ On Sunday when I was at Heather’s I saw that the last of the apples from Maine needed to be used, so I arranged with the boys to make juice from their Maine apples and our local cranberry harvest. When we first got home, we had to do homework. And by the time we got everything set up to make juice, Jed got home with Ollie. So all three boys were able to join in the fun.
And it was the perfect rainy afternoon for this indoor activity and it was raining outside. The boys really enjoyed de-stemming and cutting the apples in half and then putting them through the juicer. I had no idea if they would like the fresh apple juice. You know how kids are. They want everything store bought, not home-made. And Sam doesn’t eat fruit. But the apple juice was a definite winner. Hurray! We then tried juicing the cranberries and this was trickier than expected. You put the fruit in the top of the juicer and try to get the tamper in to prevent the fruit from being shot back out of the top. That was hard to do and we sometimes ended up with cranberries shooting back out at us. Of course, the boys loved that, but it made quite a mess. But what beautiful, bright red juice we got.
If you drink cranberry juice, you must have noticed that there is always added sugar or a mix of other juices, as on its own it is quite tart. But it was so beautiful that all three boys wanted to try it. It was tart, almost bitter, so they wanted to mix it with the apple juice. It was enjoyed by all. I felt bad that Jed was trying to cook dinner while we were finishing up our juicing experiment, but he tolerated our craziness and enjoyed the results as well. Everyone agreed that the cranberry apple was the favorite, even though it was on the tart side. I think it was because of the beautiful red color, but whatever, I’m just glad that all three boys liked homemade apple cranberry juice.
I went to the gym today to ride the recumbent bicycle and use some of the weight training machines. And I was quite surprised when I got there. When I was there a week ago I was told that construction of the new studio would begin in a day or two and that there would be no more classes until after the construction project was completed. But it hasn’t even started. I could have been going to classes all along. Supposedly it will start on Thursday of this week, but now I know to check the gym’s Facebook page for updates.
Tomorrow I will start getting ready for the arrival of friends on Thursday night. Kevin and Claire from Virginia, and Heather and Jon who are home visiting while their boat Evergreen waits for them in Spain, are coming to visit for the weekend. We all became friends when Mark and I lived aboard Windbird in Boston from 2003 to 2005 and we have remained close over the years. I’m old enough to be their mother, but regardless, we have always enjoyed a friendship as equals—blind to the age difference. It will be the first time we have all been together at the same time since 2005, so it will be a very special weekend.
