With the abundance harvest of apples, a friend retrieved a cider mill from 12 years in storage, and hired my son as his accomplice The novice “cidermeisters” spent a couple of days mashing and pressing bushels of apples into gallons of fresh juice. I’ve never tasted better, and have a bucket of apple mash fermenting in a half hearted attempt to make some jack.
They’ve had to shut down the cider mill for a while with arrival of what has become one of the autumn’s most unwelcome events: invasion of the Asian ladybugs. Now out in full force as buzzing swarms in the afternoon sun. When they rest, they trail an orange stench along windows and doors, and on your hands should you try to brush one off. Were just one to fall into the vat get pressed with the cider, they fear the batch would be ruined.
I read these ladybugs were first brought to the U.S. in a government effort to control aphids. But without any natural controls in place, the Asian variety proliferated, becoming a seasonal nuisance all the way north. That’s what I heard, anyway.....another well intended government cure.
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