Time is drawing near for the Pohick Country Fair, and with that big event comes Apple Butter Weekend. Hopefully, calendars have already been marked for this fun weekend, and everyone is really eager to get started. Apple Butter Weekend is Saturday, September 24 and Sunday, September 25; and a whole bunch of volunteers are needed to get the job done. This is a change from previous years when Apple Butter Weekend was scheduled for a Friday and Saturday. Hurricane Isabel forced a change two years ago, and it turned out to be pretty successful.

The event will start on Saturday at 7:00 am, and this is when the greatest number of volunteers is needed. There are many things that need to happen to get the four 40 gallon kettles cooking. Members of the Apple Butter Committee will be there to greet everyone and get the volunteers started. Eighty bushels of apples will be cut into snits and cooked down to a soft “mush” in the copper kettles outside the Common Room. Then the “mush” will be processed through motorized food processors into applesauce. This will take all day Saturday. Please bring a paring knife and cutting board. The cutting process should be finished before noon and the processing-into-apple-sauce phase and clean up should be finished by 5:00 pm. Volunteers are needed for all day or part of the day. Support is critical, and there are never enough volunteers. There is always room for more.

Sunday is devoted to cooking the applesauce “down” to apple butter and canning it in pint jars. It takes 12 hours of steady cooking over a good fire to reach the canning point. Here again, a large number of volunteers are needed to get all the work done in a timely fashion. There is a GREAT JOB for each volunteer. It is expected that 1,000 pint jars of apple butter will be canned.

The fellowship and camaraderie are great. Come and meet a whole lot of fine people and make a whole lot of new friends. Please join in this wonderfully fun endeavor.