Last week, the backwoods kid and I spent a day at his grandparents farm. As always, everything at grandma and grandads is better than what’s at home. And it just so happened that today, it would be lemonade. That child can drink the heck out of lemonade. So, being on our journey of “all natural” and less processed, I thought it would be fun to make homemade lemonade at home for him this week. He was pretty excited about it, too.

Let’s forget about the fact that lemons aren’t native to Virginia.

Let’s forget about the fact that you just absolutely cannot find “organic” lemons at the grocery store, and especially not the farmer’s market. Although, I eventually found some at Martin’s Grocery.

And let’s just pretend it’s completely pesticide free, okay?

Ok, now that I got that off my chest…..

Lemonade is incredibly easy to make, and with just 10 lemons, a cup of sugar and some water — it makes an entire gallon of sunshine goodness.

We started by squeezing 9-10 lemons, by hand, over a mesh strainer, into the gallon jug that we would be using. Don’t ask me why I didn’t use my little convenient juicer, apparently I like torturing myself. Let’s just say, we really went for the “homemade” effect. Then, we mixed one cup of regular sugar with the hottest of hot tap water. You could boil it down on the stove if you prefer to make a “syrup” with the sugar and water, but honestly, it’s fine just dissolved in hot water. We added the sugar water mixture to our gallon jug, mixed well, and then filled it up the remainder of the way with cold tap water.

You’re done. That’s it. Easy as pie. Actually, ten times easier than pie.

Homemade Lemonade

10 fresh lemons
1 cup of organic cane juice (or regular sugar is fine)
1 gallon of water

1. Squeeze lemons over a mesh strainer into a 1 gallon jug
(or use a juicer and place juice of lemons into jug)

2. Mix 1 cup of sugar into a large jar of very hot tap water.
Mix until it dissolves completely.

3. Pour sugar water mixture into gallon jug, stir.

4. Fill remainder of gallon jug up with cold tap water. Stir.

5. Place 2-3 of the squeezed lemons into the jug for extra flavor.
Keep in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Amy Fewell is the Advertising Manager of The Piedmont Virginian Magazine. She resides in Rixeyville, VA along with her husband, son and loveable lab. They run a small “mini-homestead” and Amy owns her own photography business. For more information, visit their homestead website and Amy’s personal photography website.