There’s not a lot to tell about my last visit. My pal Mark has been meaning to visit the woods and on Sunday we finally managed it. A lovely morning to start off. He’s not big into woodlands but as a very good friend, paid his dues and came to have a look at what I’ve been raving about for the last year. I gave him a walk around and a talked about it, we foraged for fuel and made a fire and had a brew of coffee. Lunch time we fried up some sausage and eggs and made a sandwich. Just a nice campfire experience. Before he left, I took him to the big old crab apple tree which was loaded with apples last time. Quite a few had fallen so we collected them in a trug for me to make crab apple jelly. When I got then home and weighed them, there were about 13 pounds.

The process of making them is simple though not quick. Wash and roughly shop them into quarters. Add 1 pint water for every 2 pounds weight of apples and boil/simmer until they turn to pulp (about 10 minutes). Pour the pulp into a jelly bag (fine muslin cloth) and suspend it over a clean container overnight to collect the juice. Discard the pulp (don’t squeeze it). It took me three sessions to boil 12 pounds apples. Then for every pint of liquid, add 1 pound sugar (in fact I reduced it to 3/4 pound/pint). Boil rapidly until it reaches setting point. That was the hard bit to judge and I probably over boiled it as it is very, very jelly-like now.

Let it cool a little, clean your jam jars and warm them with hot water before putting the jelly into them. The colour of the finished product is a beautiful wine colour.

So that’s all for today, I’m hoping to go again soon and get some work done. Raring to go.