The Fruit Dance

          I spent the bulk of yesterday finishing pulling grapes off the stems and Roland smashed them all and heated them without boiling them and we made just over six gallons of concentrate.  We have two juices set aside for drinking.  He says we will turn the rest into jam, but that is what he said last year and we only made eight jars.  He found it irresistible not to drink it all.  It is really good and worth the mess.

 

boca grapes

paper towel on stained counter

cheese cloth top left side

permanently attached cutting board

  

my shirt

          About the title of my blog – well . . .  Roland and I had gone to bed late last night.  Late for us anyway.  Our automatic alarms did not go off at 5:00 a.m. I had told Jenna earlier this month that if there was no evidence of our being awake by 5:30 that it would be her job to wake us up – which she did.  I was so NOT ready to get up.  
          I had my eyes shut when Roland turned on the light.  I could see the light through my eyelids and black dots flashed under my eyes like strobed lights and with each strobe the dots multiplied and looked smaller.  But they weren’t black dots after all.  I could visualize blueberries and grapes dancing together.  They started out as two, but more “couples” joined them on the dance floor, until finally they faded.  Until finally I might have gone back to sleep but Roland had left the light on.  I got up for a family prayer. My plan was to turn off the light and return to bed.  Wouldn’t have mattered.  My alarm went off after Roland and Jenna left the house so he could take her to the church for early morning seminary.

Wine on the Vine

            There is a couple in the stake who had moved into a house with lots of land.  The original owner had used some of the land was used to grow baco grapes.  When the couple moved in, he asked to continue with growing his grapes and maintained that part of the land.  He has now retired from maintaining the land.  It's not necessarily an investment the family was interested in and decided to invite all those who lived in the stake to come and pick as many grapes as we want.  These were offered for free.

            So for family home evening, we loaded up the car with buckets, scissors, gloves and knee pads - though we did not need the latter.  The couple has grown into a family and had various children out in the orchard to direct participants on where to go and start cutting.  Cutting grapes off the vine was probably the easiest we've had of any other produce. (We didn't think to take pictures while we were there).  Thus in addition to the blueberries, cherries and apples, we have tackled this year, we have added grapes to the mixture of preserving - though it won't be with pie. 

            Last night Roland and I pulled a large number of grapes off the vines.  Rinsed them, smashed them, boiled them, drained them.  We did get more juice than I had expected.  We used a milk bottle for the juice and he put the glopped up mess into the sieve and put it on top of a bowl in the fridge.  I did not think about getting pictures of that last night.  I took all of these this morning while I was creating this post: 

we had filled two buckets

and a box to give away

stains left in each container that was used

Jenna calls these "grape bones"

The amount of juice made last night  - pucker up pal

The waist

Last night the waist looked like a purple jelly with seeds in it - like raspberry jelly often comes.  I didn't get a picture of it in the bowl or the sieve - not that it would have made much difference.  The cell phone quality is still not that great.  I don't see in the picture what I see in real life.  The blob no longer looks like jelly, but purple manure. Roland moved it out with the compost.