Fall Festivals are popular over the Columbus Day weekend so today my wife and I visited the one in Granville. She was more interested in the product booths while I concentrated on the food vendors. There were a lot of them and between my wife and me, we sampled: apple crisp with ice cream, maple cotton candy, beef brisket sandwich, strawberry ice cream, popcorn, apple cider and a cider donut. We also brought home a bag of Macoun apples and a piece of the famous cheddar cheese from the Granville Country Store.
Taking the school bus to the top of the hill to visit the vendors there, we spotted a demonstration at the Harvest Hill Farm showing how apple cider was made "by hand" the old way, so we stopped to check it out. Thought you might be interested too.
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| These young spectators were allowed to assist by putting apples into the grinding chute. |
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| The power to grind the apples is supplied by this old one cylinder engine. The engine is set to fire very slowly with the double flywheels supplying the continuing power until the cylinder fires again. |
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| You can see the water for cooling the engine in the rectangular hopper at the top of the engine.This type of engine fires so infrequently they are very fuel efficient and were popular for farm work tasks like this and for pumping water which did not require a lot of power. Each year the Cummington Fair displays a large collection of these machines. |
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| Closeup of the apples being ground up before the juice is pressed from them. |
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| Some young spectators try their hand at the press. |
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| The apple juice is really flowing here. This was not the kids at the press but the owner. |
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| The finished product ends up in this small barrel to be served to waiting customers. It doesn't get any fresher than this! |
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| Fresh apples for sale. We brought home a bag of sweet, juicy Macouns. | | | |
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Since the return trip was downhill, we decided to walk the 1 1/2 miles back to our car enjoying the foliage, historic homes, and beautiful fall day. We'll probably be back to this area next week as we share the beauty of New England's foliage season with our out-of-state guest.
