But a good tree to use for ice cider, no? Hmm, I was thinking there must be some sort of modest-sized cider press, but all I can find on the web are directions for how to build rather complicated ones.

That's assuming the apples are usable. I've wanted to plant an apple tree or two, but have never been able to convince myself that varieties existed that didn't need spraying.

Wandering around the web, since my garden and yard have gone into hibernation for the winter, I ran across Sunset magazine's One Block Diet at http://oneblockdiet.sunset.com/ where they are more or less, mostly less :-) growing local, pressing olives for olive oil, making wine, raising chickens for eggs, sigh. Scroll down for a cute picture of Team Chicken, which includes Rhode Island Reds.

They're so far up, it would be a real task to get them down for anything. I was just wondering why they never fell on their own. Seemed odd.
Also, thanks for that link. I'm a big fan of Sunset how-to books! Their basic cookbook, which I've had for many years, is the one I pull down for almost everything, even before Joy of Cooking!

In browsing more around the Sunset site, I see they are now doing regional garden guides. No RI or New England one yet. The California one is indispensable for any CA gardener, incredibly detailed information on any plant you can imagine that will grow there - varieties, descriptions, growing tips, so I hope they do one for this area. I don't know where they'll get the accumulated expertise to make it comparable to the CA one, though.

They have a new posting on http://oneblockdiet.sunset.com/ and are trying to figure out if one of their Rhode Island Reds is a guy or not. Apparently guy chickens :-) are not allowed in their town due to early morning crowing, etc. I assume s/he gets a good home elsewhere if that's the case.

There are nice photos of the chickens (who knew chickens were beautiful?), maybe there is someone reading this who can let them know the gender?