Happy Homemakers

Yesterday I had the opportunity to spend half my day with my dearest friend, Lyndsey. More than often I will come to her house to spend an hour, and end up spending five. Today was planned, however. Lyndsey came upon a grapevine in her yard and took it upon herself to start juicing. I come from a childhood of home-grown grape juice and it just so happened that this year my dad wasn't juicing his. So I raided his vine and gathered myself a decent bowl of concord grapes. From there, I went to my aunts house and then raided hers as well, walking away with a hefty garbage bag that felt like it weighed 75 lbs.

Lyndsey and I spent the afternoon rinsing grapes, stuffing the juicer, smashing them down, filling up jars and before I knew it, I had a bakers dozen. Although, due to the multiplicity of vines, my grape juice starts at a very deep concord purple, and gradually grew to a light cherry-purple. So no two jars are the same. It will make for some true variety.

As it turns out, Lyndsey also canned peaches and apple sauce. We both felt this strange sense of productivity that we were creating our own stock of food from something we found outside. It's quite exhilarating. So thanks must go out to Tom, for chopping his vine so thin that the few grapes that made it weren't worth juicing to him. And to Suzi, who let me come over and pillage her crop. And to Lyndsey, who let my kid run around her house while I stocked up some antioxidants for my family.