When life hands you grapes...

This summer while out on walks, we would frequently pass our neighbors house who has beautiful grape vines climbing his fence. The other day, while my parents were visiting we rang the doorbell and asked if we could pick some grapes. He told us to have as many as we wanted and that every year most of them go to waste. So, I decided when life gives you grapes, make grape juice. Andrew was giving me a hard time that it was going to cost more in materials to by jars, lids, hot water bath, etc. to make the juice than it would be to just buy it off the shelf. After a quick trip to D.I. and a couple of calls around the ward I had a $5 hot water bath and 36+ quart jars for free. So Kimball, Hazel and I went down the street and started picking until our hands were blue!

Kimball helped quite a bit, but as you can see, Hazel sampled a few more than she ended up putting in the box!

After batch one of 28 quarts, a great result and more than half of a fence line of grapes to pick, I'm on round two today! Andrew had the day off so he helped me pick some more. We've already taken some of the juice to the neighbors. I have to do a lot of the work while the kids are napping or during quiet time because the kitchen is already nearly painted in grape purple and that is without 2 little ones smooshing grapes all over the place.

Before and After Shot

Post within a Post: Praying Mantis

While we were sorting grapes today, Hazel reached into the box to grab a handful to eat, suddenly jumped back and said "I sced." I said of what? She said and pointed to a big praying mantis down inside the box "Of that!" So when Kimball came home from preschool, he reached right inside and pulled it out all the meanwhile saying, "This is so cool." We played around with it in the kitchen for a while and then told Kimball we needed to turn it loose. He broke down sobbing, "but I want to keep him as a pet!" We finally talked him into turning it loose in the garden. After that, Andrew found a web page on the internet that Praying Mantids (as we came to found is the plural) make great pets! So, we went back out to the garden where Kimball had turned him loose-- found him, caught him, and now we have a pet praying mantis in the house! This place is turning into a zoo!!! We already fed him a hornet a little while ago. Charlotte is still living in a jar on the computer desk, but she isn't eating like she used to, so we think we are going to turn her loose a long ways from our house! One pet insect is enough!!!

Pictures of the event:

The kids kept trying to feed it grapes, but obviously it was a little angry about that!