Instructions: Along with letters and packages, I occasionally exchange gifts with my postal person. I try to give her handfuls of raspberries in July, and she sometimes gives me a jar of apple jelly at Christmas.

In some ways, you could say weve also exchanged places. I grew up on a small farm and now live in an urban neighborhood. She grew up in my neighborhood - attending Alameda and Grant schools - and now lives on a small farm.

Not one to lollygag, Carol McConnachie nonetheless makes time in the summer to exchange quick gardening ideas with me when Im working outside.

Last year she commented on my large crop of apples that were ready to harvest from my three espaliered trees. "How are you going to store them?" she asked. I told her I wasnt, and wanted to know her recommendations.

To my delight, she had an efficient system that included fresh eating, cold storage . . . and apple juice. Of course, selecting apples for eating is the easiest. For cold storage, she selects only the best, with no bruises, no bug holes. She arranges them in boxes and places them in a refrigerator used solely for this purpose.

The apple juice? Now that caught my attention. All of the old weird apples, the ugly ones, the bugged ones and even the windfalls on the ground are rinsed and quartered, and, with the bad spots cut away, tossed into her steam juicer.

Carols husband, Scott, gave her the steam juicer for a birthday a while back. She had heard about it from the OSU Extension Service, when she called for jelly-making assistance. Its stainless steel, has three parts plus a lid and a small hose for draining the boiling-hot, sterilized, beautifully clear juice into canning jars.

This wonderful contraption, called a Mehu Maija, is made in Finland and has been on the market for years. Its available at many natural foods stores with kitchen equipment departments and some old-fashioned hardware stores.

(Scott found the Mehu Maija at Toms Natural Foods Store in Gladstone, but my friend found an enameled steel version a few years ago at Fred Meyer.)

This year I drove out to Carol and Scotts farm to see Scotts 10 kinds of espaliered apple trees and see how Carol uses the Mehu Maija.

Carol says that the juice from each years harvest has a different flavor and color, depending on the dominant apple.

With the steam juicer Carol is able to use up all of the apple harvest, at least four full boxes. "What about the pulp?" I ask. "Thats why we have chickens," she says.

"What I really like is the convenient timing of using the steam juicer," she adds. "I can get the apples juiced while the autumn flavor is at its best. Then I can make batches of jelly from the jars of juice as time allows - right up to Christmas."

Carol puts the juice-filled canning jars through the usual 10-minute boiling-water canning process, cools them and stores them in her pantry.

"Fortunately, some of the apples will be ripe by the end of September," she says, "because I just got a call from my sister that her birthday is coming and shes out of jelly."

Carol makes her apple jelly from the recipe on the pectin box. "It can be made without pectin, but its tricky to get it to gel just right." She also makes a batch or two of spiced apple juice for special occasions.

If Carol has any complaint, its that the Mehu Maija can steam itself dry. So one very important trick she learned is to put a handful of marbles in the bottom pan of the steam juicer. When the water gets very low and the boiling action stops, the marbles dont make noise. "The silence reminds me to add water," she says.

Carol also grows grapes and says grape juice is really easy. She rinses them and dumps them, stems and all, into the steamer. Grapes take only 20 to 30 minutes to juice.

"These wonderful-tasting homemade juices are my jelly- making supply, which is my main source of gifts to give," she says.

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