Pluckin'

After all the grapes were harvested we had to pluck them. All this pickin', pluckin' and what-not occurred back in October when the nights were cool, but not freezing, so I left the basket basket of grapes out on my sun porch overnight(have you ever tried fitting a laundry basket in the fridge?!). In the morning I loaded up the kids and the grapes and headed to Grandma's house.

*Side note* If you have 2 kids, one of whom is 2 and the other one wants one-on-one time with your chest every 2 hours, and you want to accomplish something that requires your attention, Grandma's house is the only place to go!!

It turned out to be a lovely day and we sat outside and plucked, and plucked, and plucked...

(FYI: If you removed all of the l's from those last 3 p-words...sick!! I would NOT be posting pictures if that were the case).

It took me a bit to get the hang of it. Not that picking grapes is really all that difficult, but if you want to finish before the milk alarm (aka: my son) goes off you've really got to work fast. The best way is to find a thicker part of the stem and hold it with one hand while you run the other hand down the bunch in a semi-closed fist. This won't get all the grapes off, but it works for the riper ones. Then you can go back over the bunch and pluck off the ones you missed.

I was certain that the green ones would make the jelly taste bitter, but my MIL assured me that they were actually beneficial to the jelly making process as they contain higher amounts of pectin. She was right, the jelly set beautifully...but that's another story.


I really think his Kenworthy side is showing in this shot.



This is how many grapes we were able to get from that basket!!
Don't they look like blueberries?

Washing is a MUST. You'd be surprised how much sand I washed off these grapes(remember they grow on the river bar). Even after all the handling during plucking I still managed to rinse off enough sand to start a sandbox, ok not quite...but almost!

Wishy, washy, wishy, washy. Notice the color of my shirt? That was to come in very handy later when I was mashin' because you couldn't tell if I got any on me!

Ready to cook!

Isn't that juice purty? (It tastes good too!)

The grapes were done when their skins popped open. They're not looking much like blueberries now!

Stay tuned for the fun part! Pray for simultaneous naps to occur more often so I can finish up the next installment!!