Cidering: Favorite Fall Memories

Fall colors at Mount Holyoke College taken by Anna Smith

Fall is here. This means getting out your sweaters and long pants, leaves changing colors, and the fall drinks. For me, it also means missing home. Fall is one of my favorite seasons. I remember childhood days spent raking leaves and jumping in the piles in my backyard, hiking in the woods, and, my favorite activity, cidering.

Growing up in Vermont one of the fall traditions in my family was hauling out the cider press, picking apples and making and drinking cider. Whether it was with family friends or my own friends, cidering was my favorite thing to do in the fall. It was something that was fun, and it meant fresh cider for weeks. We would gather apples from the trees at home and from the trees of everyone we knew. We would pick apples from the ground and use them as long as they were still good. Once we gathered enough, we would set a date for the get together.

Cidering is a social activity. There are so many things to be done. There is cleaning the apples, cutting them up, spinning the wheel to break them up. There is pressing the bits to squeeze that last bit of cider out of them. These are my fall memories that I miss so much. It was not just about making the cider; it was about getting together and doing something fun and invigorating outside with people you care about. It is an experience that many people do not get to have. I look back now and know how lucky I was growing up with parents who value this kind of activity and have the means to make it happen. I may not always have appreciated my fall activities, but now that I am away from that and immersed in the stressful life of college it’s nice to remember the joy of fall, and while I cannot be home making cider, I can still enjoy a cup of hot (or cold) cider from one of my favorite places around, Thirsty Mind.