"Tapping the Barrel when you've heard the Cuckoo"

[nfcider]

The old saying that you can tap last year's pressing when you hear the
Cuckoo calling seems a little early this year,whether it's because of
the wonderful weather we've been having with the warm spell from Spain
so the Met imply, The cuckoo has been singing loud and clear in the
Forest valley behind our smallholding since Friday,and the Tom Putt
blossom is well out now,haven't seen any swallows yet ,but the local
bird tweeters say they are in the Dorset Purbeck area.
Barry

[Tim]

No Cuckoos here yet and no cider ready to tap but I saw my first Swallow of
2011 two weeks ago, it was heading for Devon at a good rate of knots chasing
its partner.

Tim in Dorset

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[Cheshire Matt]

Swallows have made it as far north as Cheshire, and already swooping
through the barns in the yard, although a week later than usual. No
cuckoos yet - which is just as well given the cold start in December!

[James O'Donoghue]

The swallows arrived yesterday. It is lovely to see them skinning along the
top of the pond in front of our house.
I bottle off my cider today as well.

-----Original Message-----
From: cider-w...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:cider-w...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Cheshire Matt
Sent: 11 April 2011 20:08
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Subject: [Norton AntiSpam] Re: [Cider Workshop] "Tapping the Barrel when
you've heard the Cuckoo"

[Michael Cobb]

I only have the early varieties in full blossom, BoB (probably) and Rev
Wilkes (almost certainly) Group 1 and Group 2 respectively according to
"Apples a field guide" whilst Tom Putt is a group 3 so the weather in the
NF must be a bit different to that in Somerset. (neither BoB or R W are
known as cider apples but I have used them in blends in the past.) My
other apple trees are springing into life but full blossom is a way off
yet . How is the blossom season progressing elsewhere in the UK? If it
is "time to tap the barrel" maybe I need to start thinking about tasting a
few fermenters to choose what goes to B&W in about six or seven weeks time
doesn't time fly!

Michael Cobb

[tim-...@supanet.com]

Barry, heard the Cuckoo for the first time today in Tutts Clump, and
started to use last years (Aug/Sep) pressings about two weeks ago. Tim

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[Ray Blockley]

Plenty of Swallows and House Martins in Norfolk over the past two weeks, in
town / country and skimming the shoreline...

Ray.

http://hucknallciderco.blogspot.com/
http://torkardcider.moonfruit.com/

[from Heather]

For some reason, I got to thinking about this thread this morning. We don't have cuckoos on this continent, probably because Shakespeare didn't write about them, so they didn't get imported like the evil Starling did. We do have swallows (barn and purple martin in this region), but I don't expect them until May.

Does this saying have anything to do with your last frost? Like, we have seeded vegetables in the greenhouse, but we don't plant outside until May 15, which is the average of when there is no longer a threat of frost in this region. I guess a good way to explain our current spring situation is that the daffodils are finishing up, and the tulips are about to come on. Apple trees are just barely pushing out growth buds.

Mind you, I had two carboys (5 gallons) drop clear, so I bottled them, and I have a third near ready to bottle, regardless of the cuckoo.

Heather

[Dick Dunn]

On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 05:04:21PM +0000, from Heather wrote:
> For some reason, I got to thinking about this thread this morning. We don't
> have cuckoos on this continent, probably because Shakespeare didn't write

> about them,...

Ummmm....well...actually there are a few species of cuckoo in NA; they just
don't get out west. And Shakespeare did mention cuckoos on various
occasions because of their habit of taking over nests.

>...so they didn't get imported like the evil Starling did...

We've been given the starling and worse, the English sparrow, but--coming
back on-topic (even if off-Subject)--that's not nearly as bad as North
America having inflicted fire blight on England! (let alone phylloxera
on France)

I'm curious how much damage fire blight is doing overall in the UK. As I'd
mentioned last week (and John Campbell echoed) there are some UK cider CVs
which are excruciatingly sensitive to fire blight.
--
Dick Dunn rc...@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA

[greg l.]

We have a few cuckoo species around my place - fantail, pallid,
horsfield's bronze, and brush cuckoos. In Sydney they have the cuckoos
from hell - channel bill cuckoos and Koels; they celebrate when the
cuckoos shut up.

Greg

[from Heather]

haha! I stand corrected - they are here in North America, but I just live in a special, cockoo free part.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo
"The cuckoos have a cosmopolitan distribution, ranging across all the world's continents except Antarctica. They are absent from the south west of South America, the far north and north west of North America, and the driest areas of the Middle East and North Africa (although they occur there as passage migrants)."

---

From: for_h...@hotmail.com
To: cider-w...@googlegroups.com

Subject: RE: [Cider Workshop] "Tapping the Barrel when you've heard the Cuckoo"

Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 17:04:21 +0000

[Andrew Lea]

On 14/04/2011 02:26, Dick Dunn wrote:
>
>
> I'm curious how much damage fire blight is doing overall in the UK. As I'd
> mentioned last week (and John Campbell echoed) there are some UK cider CVs
> which are excruciatingly sensitive to fire blight.

When I was a lad at Long Ashton in the 1970's people were exceeedingly
worried about fireblight here. There had been some bad outbreaks in
certain pear cultivars and it was feared this would be the shape of
things to come. Now you rarely hear it mentioned. I will defer to the
opinion of any proper orchardists, but my impression is that it hasn't
become a significant issue in the UK after all. Perhaps our strain has
become less virulent or perhaps our climatic conditions mostly don't
favour its development.

Andrew

--
Wittenham Hill Cider Page
http://www.cider.org.uk

[Tomas]

This is my first post after joining this esteemed group, even though
I've been reading daily since its inception.

Heather, I hate to challenge you on your bold assertion, but North
America has three species of cuckoo, the Mangrove, Yellow-billed, and
Black-billed, as well as several birds in the same family, including
the Greater Roadrunner (of beep-beep fame). None occur in your area,
so it's not surprising that you don't know of them. None eat fruit as
far as I know, but are otherwise quite interesting, behaviorally
speaking.

Apples are in various stages of development here in northern New
Mexico, depending on altitude and microclimate, although most have at
least some degree of frost damage if not total crop loss.

Tomas

[Nick Bradstock]

When I were a lad fireblight hadn't appeared in the UK (AFAIK).
NACM members (ie: the UK) are very much on the look-out for it and take
prompt action in their orchards to cut it out or remove affected trees when
it appears. The problem is made worse by the reservoir of infection in
linked hedgerow and ornamental species....
I think also that it was a notifiable disease but don't know if it still is.
Probably Gabe is closer to this topic than I am....
Nick

Andrew

[Tim]

According to DEFRA;

If you suspect the presence of this disease, you should immediately inform
your local Defra
Plant Health and Seeds Inspector or:
PHSI HQ, York
Tel: 01904 455174
Fax: 01904 455197
Email: planthea...@defra.gsi.gov.uk
web: www.defra.gov.uk/planth/ph.htm
PB

http://www.fera.defra.gov.uk/plants/publications/documents/factsheets/firebl
ight.pdf

Tim in Dorset

[greg l.]

> Apples are in various stages of development here in northern New
> Mexico, depending on altitude and microclimate, although most have at
> least some degree of frost damage if not total crop loss.
>
> Tomas

One of my favourite novels is "the Milagro beanfield War". It has a
good passage on the frustrations of growing fruit trees in that part
of the world, how an early warm spell will bring on the blossoms,
followed by the inevitable frosts. It's a bit like that in my part of
the world.

Greg

[Tomas]

Greg,
Ever see the movie? Most of the village scenes were filmed in
the little town of Truchas, not too far from here. The Mrs. and I
were driving through the other day and noticed "Ruby's Pipe Queen
and Muffler Shop" still faintly visible on an old adobe shop bldg and
had a good laugh.

That area is a plateau about 8000 ft high (sorry, don't know the
metric
conversion) at the foot of much higher mountains and can have
bitterly
cold weather...probably not much fruit this year.

Tomas

[from Heather]

Okay, so we have established that there are cuckoos in North America, just not my region. However, I still don't know what the cuckoo has to do with spring, and therefore what it has to do with the timing of drinking cider (to bring the topic back around to cider). Is it when you have your last frost, or some other day/night temp?

Heather

[Andrew Lea]

Getting wildly off topic but.....

Our (UK) single species of cuckoo is a migratory bird, wintering in
Africa and returning as the weather warms up at about the time that
people might think about tapping last year's cider. The male has a loud
and distinctive call (cook-coo) which is often audible at a great
distance while the bird itself remains hidden. For most of us in rural
or semi-rural areas the 'first cuckoo' therefore marks the coming of
spring in a tangible biological way, much as returning swallows do if
not more so. Our bird is also a brood parasite (not all species of
cuckoo are, AFAIK) which further makes it the stuff of intrigue and
mystery. Just a part of our European cultural heritage.

Andrew