Hallophun & Season's Cider

A crisp, whispily cloudy Halloween night with a full moon and the promise of an extra hour of sleep in the morning? I must've died and jumped state.

Unlike what you're expecting, however, this post starts with the last day of cider pressing and ends with the actual holiday happenings. Wait, last day of cider production for the year? Yes, it's true that all good things must come to an end, and the same rings true with a long ton of apples. I believe in the end our production for this year ended up something short of 150 gallons. And what a year this has been! My favorite on flavor since 2004, this year's cider is a unique sort of sweet, with a little tang, and a perfect balance of a "darker" flavor we haven't hit quite the same in the last couple years (in quotes as that's the best I can describe the flavor). One of the last 5-gallon buckets we filled today also had 7 pears mixed in, and you wouldn't believe the impact one or two of those things can have on the flavor of a single press.

The best part? We had way too many people, so I got to play supervisor and make sure the machine ran smoothly. ;-) Here's some photos from the year, followed by all the Halloween jazz:

A dashing picture of nothing but cans. Mother spent the entire day just making this little fleet, which is far from all we've made.

A different angle.

A different angle.

Nearly the perfect combination. Success of great flavor is largely in variety.

I've seen a lot of weird produce in my lifetime, and this is up there on the list.

One day's end result.

Now, on to the stories of daring candy raids, forking yards, and egging the neighborhood cat. Actually, none of these things occurred on my behalf, but my Halloween was pretty enjoyable, albeit less eventful than usual. After getting home from the day's pressing I washed off my face, shook the apple bits out of my hair, changed, and pinned a few animal hides to my fresh clothing as a costume: I was ready for trick-or-treaters! As I wasn't much in the mood for homework, I sat down to some Zelda: Twilight Princess on the Wii (graciously borrowed from Daniel) and waited.

Now, our family has been blessed with the little hooligans every year for as long as I can remember. I recall that first year in Sumner when we got a kid in full costume! Even more glorious were the days when we finally moved into a real neighborhood in lower Orting - two whole kids showed up at our door! Despite those years of bounty, they hold no candle to this year's pull up in the Buttes of Orting. We gave out two big bowls of candy, each kid only getting 2-3 pieces. Sarcasm aside, this is the first real year we've been able to give out candy to the childerkins. Dad handled most of the candy giving-out, but I came down when I heard the doorbell go off to see the costumes. Fun fun. I was quite dissapointed that one of the times I didn't come down was when the lone werewolf of the night visited (or as dad put it- "I think he was supposed to be a werewolf.") Jonny brought in a good haul from the street on his first night trick-or-treating, and by extension of his allergies, I brought in a big stack of nutty chocolate. Very good year.

My amazing costume. Adaptations from last year? No more pesky ears, and I wore the coyote pelt on my shoulder instead of the top of my head to avoid last year's problem of the preservatives giving me a headache and dry nose for three days.

It took me three major stores and two days to find this stuff. Wal-mart and Safeway DO NOT sell candy corn, but Target does. Go figure.

I made little gift bags for my friends, which they'll get in the morning.

In totally unrelated news, I nearly got a perfect score on Link's Crossbow Training for Wii. I had literally doubled my previous best scores in a freak of nature super round, only to fall short by about one target. That's a serious downer!

In other unrelated news, I'm now stalking your blog. Yes, even yours.

I'm needing that extra hour of sleep right now...