APPLE DAYS

A few of our freshly picked apples :)
Danish flags are always used to decorate on special days. This time
they were displayed throughout the garden (yard) to celebrate apple festivities.

This was such a fun time! Thanks to some new friends, the Lindberg and McConchie families, we were invited to join in what is becoming a very popular fall activity here in Denmark: Apple Day. 

The first of the two apple Saturdays was apple picking day. Unlike similar experiences in the States where you might go to a U-pick orchard and pay by the bushel for your apples, here we drove to open, public land and picked apples for free. The trees are not cultivated like in an orchard, and they've just volunteered themselves in random places in public land along the roads and in parks. As 'wild' trees, they're rather gnarly looking and grow similar looking fruit. But all of this added to the authentic feeling of the experience. 

See if you can spot Ben, Jared, and Maurie

The kids loved this day because they were the climbers! They had a blast climbing as high as they could and tossing down apples. They picked everything they could reach and would then shake the branches so the rest of the apples would fall and be collected from the ground. We managed to pick around 70 kilos of apples that day! 

Grant in the leafy treetops.

Cute Maurie :)

Happy to be monkey for a day!

Gathering all the shaken apples from the ground.

Grant and Mats Lindberg loading another crate of apples

Jared picking and tossing apples down to Trav.

Following an afternoon of climbing trees and picking apples, we enjoyed walking through the 'deer park.' This is the area that, for centuries, was stocked for the royal hunting grounds. Today it is open for the public to enjoy. We heard this beautiful bull deer bugle, as it is now mating season. It was neat to be so close to him! We also saw a rare white deer. 

We finished the day with a nice chili dinner at the McConchie's home. 

Washing and cutting.

The second of the two apple days was the tastiest! For this, we all went to the Lindberg's home to press the apples into apple juice and to make apple butter. It was quite an undertaking! People were cooking apples in the kitchen, making apple butter--which is quite like apple sauce. (They spread it on fresh rolls. It's very good.) Out in the yard, we washed and cut apples into quarters, then ground the quartered apples into mash, and finally pressed the mash into delicious juice. It was so fun to be part of this process! The apple juice was surprisingly sweet, considering how tart the apples were. The quantity of apples to get through this process was staggering, but it was a perfect fall day to sit outside and work together. Conversation was fun, kids helped sometimes and had a slamdunk contest on the trampoline other times, and it was great to take fresh pressed apple juice home to the fridge and freezer. 

Grinding

 

Pressing into juice

Slamdunk competition :)

Our perfect end to this day was a nice dinner with the Lindbergs and all the other friends who had picked and pressed apples together. Our dinner was a potluck with only dishes made of apple being allowed. We had some pretty yummy, creative food! (Pinterest is quite popular here, too.) After our meal we sat and visited around a fire in the garden until late in the evening, enjoying some Danish hygge. It continues to surprise me how often it feels like home here. This was one of those times.