Grapes

Margery arrived at my house with boxes early in the morning. I grabbed my cup of coffee and we piled into my car.

The Tom Tom (GPS unit) was already on the dashboard and set for Watkins Glen. We were heading for Lake Seneca, largest of the Finger Lakes (5 of them, more or less parallel to each other as are fingers), and wine country in New York State. It would be a six hour drive to get there.

We had each brought a second set of clothing because it was supposed to rain all day and our goal was to pick grapes, an outdoor adventure for sure.

Near Watkins Glen there are a number of waterfalls by the roadside. This was the first one we passed.

Then we reached the southern end of Lake Seneca. This is a salt mine. If Francis is reading this post, he may recognize some of the places in these pictures from the time he went with me to Elmira, NY.

As we traveled northward, this was the next waterfalls. It actually ran under the road and into the lake. Weather travels from west to east and today's rain was heading for Vermont. We seemed to have driven through it, heading in the opposite direction and never needed all that extra clothing we had packed.

Margery was concerned because at the end of the day at the U-Pick-It vineyard she had been to the previous week, the machine picking tractors (les enjambeurs) had arrived. 

Any grapes in here?

We found the vineyard and drove past the rows of grapevines. In the picture above, between me and the hills in the distance would be Lake Seneca.

Halfway up the hill Margery got out of the car to look around while I drove further until I could turn the car around.

She managed to get out at the only row of vines that somehow hadn't been machine picked! We found grapes...

Next year we will take some taller boxes, still only put 1 layer of grapes in them, but use the higher sides to hold up a second level of grapes. That way we should be able to bring home twice as many!

I picked a little over 30 pounds at 49 cents a pound.

We never saw another person, but there was a scale and a box in which to leave money.

Our next stop was at the Hazlitt cave. We certainly weren't going to leave wine country without bringing some of it home with us!

My sister's family loves the Red Cat wine which is made from the Catawba grapes. Last year we had picked half Concord and half Catawba and used both for jelly. The Catawba jelly had a zing to its grape flavor.

I like their rosé wine, Cabin Fever.

We had one more chore...pick teasel. Thank goodness Margery has tough skin because these are the prickliest plants! She did the picking while I held a bag open. I'll be wearing gloves when I use them in the teachers' vases along with cattails and Autumn Joy, the last flower of our season.

I won't mention the speed with which I drove on our way home. At dark we stopped for dinner. Once night fell, I drove at a normal pace, but we were still able to reach my house by a little after 11 PM and Margery was home before midnight.

The next two days were devoted to canning. Here's Margery picking the washed grapes off their stems. There were worker bees all around her, but they don't sting.
 

Margery had previously been canning her tomato crop. That's her spaghetti sauce and tomato juice on the table.

You can also see the cone we use to squeeze the juice out of the grapes.

Mush that is left is in the bowl in the forefront. It ended up being fed to some chickens. 

The canner is on the stove.

We made jelly first. Then we made a grape nectar. We brought the juice to a boil, put it into pint jars, and then processed it in the canner for 15 minutes.

When a jar gets opened, water is added to the nectar either in a 2:1 or 1:1 ratio. Some people also add honey, but we think it is plenty sweet all by itself.

This was our first year to make the nectar and it's the reason we want to have more grapes next year.

We use a lot of dish cloths when we can!

The only reason things look so clean in the picture above this, is that it's the first jar and I haven't actually begun to fill it yet!

Margery gets a lot of tomatoes because she plants them inside her "grow shed" which is a small greenhouse.

I'll never get to eat all the tomatoes my bushes produced because tons of the green tomatoes will never get to ripen.

Some year I may get ambitious enough to make green tomato relish. Meanwhile, you can see just how ambitious Margery's husband Gary is...

Ahh, retirement...