You know that stuff you drink in fall that's made of apples? What IS that stuff? Cider? Juice? What's the difference? Ah, welcome, my friend, to the wonderful and wacky world of history, the English language, and modern technology.
Every school child learns the romanticized story of Johnny Appleseed. Every adult (should) know the real story of Johnny Appleseed. That all those seeds he planted were for pressing cider, not eating fresh out-of-hand, and of course, that cider was the hard, alcoholic stuff.
So, back in the day, "cider" meant an alcoholic beverage (there's your truncated history). And in many countries of the world today (here's where the English language comes in), "cider" still means an alcoholic beverage. Which is why we get some mighty interesting questions from time to time from foreigners when they visit our stand and purchase our cider.
Meet teosinte. You might be surprised to learn that the rather unappetizing morsel pictured to the right would give rise to a much more recognisable staple. Genus Zea, a group of plants in the grass family, encompases all modern domestic corn varieties and their wild cousins, the teosintes. Corn’s sudden appearance in the archeological timeline was a mystery to scientists, until they looked closely at the DNA. A mere five genes separate corn from its ancestral precursor, and both plants have the same number of chromosomes. The two can even produce fertile hybrids! How did wild teosinte become the corn we know today?
"My tricorder can't make heads or tails of this thing, but I hear it's helpful for farms. Beats me - I'm a doctor, not a annelidologist!" 
Don’t let anyone ever tell you farming isn’t a year-round job. It most definitely is. Even when it isn’t harvest season, there are still planning sessions and a slew of tasks vital to making the rest of the year run as smoothly and efficiently as possible. This is especially true at North Star Orchard!
Are you an early adopter as well as a Foodie? Then you’re going to LOVE this!
Welcome to "Warm Winter #2" (the implied #1 herein referred to being last winter, 2016).
"Captain, although primitive, this forcefield is nontheless quite effective against larger pest species from the rodent family."
There may not be much more to be said about Gold Rush that you don’t know already, but we’ll give it a try with a bit of interesting apple history...