hey guys sit back while I tell you a story today about picking apples meeting
Luis Guzman in abundance
so the other day was one of those amazing autumn days here in Vermont the
air was really crisp yet it wasn't too cold it was a bright sunny day the trees
were starting to change was you know picturesque Vermont fall because it was
such a wonderful day and because there was still a lot of apples out there to
collect my friend Rachel and I decided to go scrumping again
well technically defined as stealing fruits and vegetables from other
people's property I see scrumping is the art of driving around and collecting
roadside apples that would have gone to rot so Rachel and I went out on a
mission because we wanted to make scrumpy
I believe scrumpy is the old British term for homemade apple cider that's
fermented because I took Latin I'm willing to wager that the term scrumpy
is derived from the act of scrumping we went out and we found a stretch of
deserted country road that was abundant with apple trees and we started the
picking and that day was a pretty good picnic we were find an apple upon apple
upon apple after only about an hour's worth of picking which filled two giant
feed bags full of apples and nobody really bothered us I mean there are only
two people who stopped for us the entire time that we were out there picking
apples the first person was this drunk old park ranger he pulled up alongside
of us and said hey what are you guys doing we just told him hey we're picking
some apples to press some cider he's like ha cider
I've been drinking a little bit myself he proceeds to pull off to the side of
the road produce this gigantic plastic handle of Canadian Club whisky and
offers us shots of this putrid putrid stuff he was apparently a park ranger
not too far from us he invited us to the ranger station which I don't think we're
ever gonna take him up on that offer he had clearly had too many poles of that
whiskey bottle himself and yeah it was quite intoxicated the other
guy stopped for us you know saw us walking down the road and slowed down
again this is a deserted country road you might get three or four cars in our
track five and he stopped down he was in a beat-up Ford Explorer and he said hey
do you guys need any help and at first my friend Rachel and I were like no no we're
fine thanks so the guy drives off the moment he drives off Rachel I both
turned to each other and say was that Luis Guzman yeah you know Luis Guzman
yeah Luis Guzman turns out Luis Guzman doesn't live too far from us here in
Vermont and so while we cannot confirm that it was Luis Guzman we both feel
very strongly that it was him and yeah if he's out there watching this video
I'd love it if you could confirm that in the comments that's some pretty weird
stuff right so Rachel and her mom Leslie have this incredible antique cider press
that they bought from a guy on a tag sale this thing is awesome it's got this
old antique motor that grinds and crushes the apples and then you just
slide the Apple basket down a couple of feet and then it's got a press so you
can press out the remaining juices after about oh I don't know maybe about 20
minutes we completely press all the apples I would guess that we had
maybe 75 80 pounds of apples it ended up the mounting to four gallons of cider
who poured it into clean sterile bottles if you're doing this at home it's really
important to use clean sterile bottles or else your scrumpy will be ruined it's
now sitting in my basement and we're gonna wait till I don't know sometime in
December baby when we're having a holiday party to bust it out and have
some good memories of the fall what's incredible about an afternoon like I had
the other day as I now have several memories the drunk old man Luis Guzman
hanging out with my friend all bottled up and some scrumpy that's fermenting in
my basement and a few months from now I'm gonna be able to pull those memories
out kind of relive that moment and relive that experience I'm sure
everybody's out there right now whether it's harvesting stuff from their gardens
or you know trying to chop firewood for the winter just getting ready for the
winter this idea of preserving the abundance that's around you some would
have a new idea to me but I'm impressed with how much it both
provides value in the form of whether its food or drink or other resources but
at the same time there's such a value from the memories that are reserved to
so think about that as you are sitting down to kin or chop firewood or whatever
it is remember that moment your