The Grapes of (the) Path

Summer is so lovely, isn’t it?  The sun, the flowers growing, the pollinators buzzing, the delicious laziness of it all when you sit outside just so the sun can warm up your bones….ah wonderful, right? 

But periodically, I have that same delicious laziness rudely interrupted, either from my own thoughts, or by my husband’s casual reminders that Fall. Is. Coming.  Even as I write this, I groan a little!  I groan a little because with Fall, comes all the “have to deal with” projects  –that’s the recurring phrase I use a LOT when it comes to things I still have hanging over my head to do, once Fall is upon us.  It’s all those fruits or veggies or animals which we’ve grown or raised or purchased and which are still on my plate and are still needing to be gleaned, or harvested, or picked, or processed. Then all of it needs to be preserved in any number of ways: either pressure canned, steam canned, frozen, dehydrated, or steam-juiced (more on THAT later!) etc.  

Now don’t get me wrong –i actually LOVE dealing with all this stuff!  I really do love all the gleaning or harvesting; those crisp early morning hours where the only sounds are the morning birds, and those pollinators still brave enough to be buzzing around at this time of year.  My thoughts are quiet and relaxed, I’m focused on the task at hand, but I’m also able to still wander around in my soul and marvel at how all these things come together and can create a beautiful mosaic in my life.  I love those times, don’t you?

This week, I gleaned the grapes from our grapevines.  Last year, we had decided to cut-back and pare down (no put intended!) on many of the yearly projects we had been doing for several years, and since our grapevines are not as numerous as they had been, our grape harvest was less as well.  But I was still able to get almost a full 5-gallon bucket of individual little grapes all picked off the stems!

In years past, we’ve struggled with dealing with an average of 50-75lbs of grapes to deal with.  This year, I would guess that we wound up with about 30lbs –so much more manageable! The process to get them to the kitchen-stage is still the same ; lots of picking individual grapes off stems, getting them all into a huge amount of water to wash them off –this year I used my bathtub –to get all the bugs and spiders off, etc.  Then rinsing them several times in a great big basin and strainer, and lastly, moving to the Kitchen Phase for making either grape juice, jam, wine, or maybe a bit of each.  

That’s where things changed BIG TIME for me this year –I had recently stumbled over a YouTube video of someone using a Steam-Juicer to make their grape juice.  I had always thought that process was sooo difficult and had too many intricate steps to it: my brain had always envisioned the old Smuckers Jelly commercial of the old copper pot steaming and bubbling, with the curly steel tubes running from one pot to another and the little bit of grape juice drip-drip-dripping out of the tube…that or I thought of someone making moonshine –neither of those would work for me, haha.

So after watching that YouTube video and seeing how simple the process of steam-juicing really was, I decided to invest in one myself and use that method to make our grape juice.  WHAT A GAME CHANGER that turned out to be!  I will never use another method now! It extracts wayyy more juice than any of all the crushing, pressing, and squeezing methods have ever brought us, and the only physical labor in the whole process was the cleaning-of-the-grapes part prior to getting to the kitchen-stage.

And now we have 7 quarts of delicious grape concentrate for the winter  –no sugar added, and it’s sweet and delicious over crushed ice!

Truly, the fruit of our labor.

And hard work is hard, y’all.  Labor is laborious.  Amiright?

What is the fruit of YOUR labor that you are hoping to see from all your hard work?

Maybe it’s your children.

Maybe it’s your marriage.

Maybe it’s your restored relationship with a parent.

Whatever it is, remember this: when you find a new way to do something you’ve always done and it seems like it might make your job easier in the long run, try it out.  

And make the change if it works for you.  

Enjoy the new path, even if it includes a little bit of a learning curve… or maybe even a learning curve that feels like a huge interstate-highway on-ramp.

Never stop learning.  It honestly doesn’t matter if you’ve been “doing it this way” for years –even if it worked!  Remember, there’s always room for improvement.  It doesn’t matter how old you are.  It doesn’t matter if no one else seems to be doing it.  

Strike out on your own.  Glean those grapes.  Crush those old ways of doing things.  And when things start heating up and you feel pressed, crushed, or maybe even wilted –much like my grapes –just remember there’s a huge payoff coming for all your labor. 

“...eat the fat, and drink the sweet…for this day is holy unto the Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” –Neh. 8:10