Our friends in Goshen invited us out to their farm for a cider pressing party on Sunday. We took two bushels of apples and some jugs and came home with 5 1/2 gallons of sweet, fresh cider and our bellies filled with homemade chili. A highlight was the "wild pear hunt". I've never known pear trees to grow as tall as oaks, but these were nearly as high. One of the guys climbed almost to the top and shook with all his might sending down a raining clatter of rock hard ping pong ball sized fruit. You really had to run and duck for cover. We all helped pick up the pears from the ground and took them back to be pressed into pear cider. The roaring sound of the press being cranked on the wooden floor of their outbuilding was tremendous.