Charles' Cider

A long time ago, in 1932, in the very depths of the

Depression, my brother, Charles, lived down at Gore

straight, on the upper side of the road. Behind his

house was his garden and apple orchard. It

was later in the summer and the apples were

very ripe. We had already made apple

butter, and now Charles decided

to make apple cider.

We borrowed a cider mill from the neighbor. A cider

mill has a large, sloping box with two slotted

wooden wheels and a large crank handle on

the side. When you turned the crank, the

two wheels  would turn against

each other.

When you pulled apples into the large box with the

slotted wheels turning, it crushed the apples

and set the juice straight down into a bucket

and the crushed pulp was ejected in

another direction. We added sugar

to the apple juice and were

on the way to making cider.

Charles dumped in the apples and my job was to turn

the crank. Charles kept dumping the apples and I

kept turning the crank and the apple juice was

filling up the bucket. It was a hot day. Once in

awhile, I would see a worm crawling up

the inside of the cider mill.

Then I saw more and more worms crawling up the

side to escape the two big drums. They did not

want to be part of the cider. I started thinking,

My Gosh, how am I going to drink this cider

someday after it  was fermented. The

worms bothered me. I caught

some before they were

ground up, but some

fell to their fate.

We finally had about a half a barrel of apple juice

and Charles said that was enough. We carried

the juice barrel over to the cellar below the

smokehouse, sat it on the table, and

added the sugar.

Now all we had to do was wait about six weeks

for the juice to ferment and turn into cider. The

image of those worms crawling up the side

was still in my mind.

At last the day came and Charles said the cider

was ready and he offered me a glass. I said,

"I don't believe I want any cider."  Charles

said he didn't want any either. Neither of

us would admit to the other why.

Charles said, "Eddie, I'll just give about a pint of

this to the hog every time I feed it." The winter

wore on and the hog turned into a razorback

because, as we found out afterwards,

cider gives a hog diarrhea!

The hog was skinny and stumbling all over the

place. Mr. Hamrick, Charles' father-in-law,

was down at Charles' house one day and

said, "Charles, what are you feeding your

hog? It's a razorback!"

Charles said, "Fred, when I feed the hog, I put a

pint of cider in with the hog feed but it still

stumbles and has diarrhea." Fred, who had

been a farmer all his life, laughed and laughed.

Finally, Fred said,  "Charles, your razorback

hog is not sick, it's drunk!"

By Crackie!

Very true story!!

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