The annual Gette Farm apple press was held last Saturday minus the apples. Due to a lousy crop of apples, at least from our normal sources, the apple press event was held anyway just to keep the tradition alive. The good news was that it was a lot less work this year. No Gary Potter and Algie Jones climbing those apple trees and shaking for all their worth. No picking up the apples, carting them to the truck bed, then driving them to "The Farm", and unloading by hand. No carting our several hundred pound 1860 vintage press from the garage to the back yard and giving it the once a year going over. No washing the apples, and shoving them into the grinder and turning that large hand crank for 5-10 minutes per press bucket. No two person (mainly cousin David, Alg, Carolyn’s Tim, and others) operation turning the press handles down squeezing all that cider juice out. No straining the excess pulp and what ever else may have slipped into the juice through one of Aunt Amy's pillow case covers (seems to work better than cheese cloth). No having to dodge yellow jackets that fly in from miles around within the first five minutes of the pressing activity. No pouring the cider into 50-60 1 gallon plastic jugs for all who attended to take home and enjoy for a week or so unless you freeze some for later. No cleanup and carting the press back to the garage and storing all the misc. utensils for another year in plastic bags. The homemade soups, the homemade pies and the company was as good as ever. But with all that being said I still missed watching the kid’s faces as the first few pressed bucket of apples released what looks like a Niagara Falls worth of juice into the old white wash tub that Doc and Wink used to give the kids their nightly baths as infants over 50 years ago. Sometimes a lot of work gives more back than we realize, and next year I hope to have to work up a sweat again.