Great Grapes!

Dad has nurtured and watered and tended his grapevines all summer long.  His theory that they need much more water than we assume was tested this summer as he diligently watered each vine around the paved walkway of their yard.  The Concord grapes were the last to come off the vine.  Dad waited until the nights got a little crisper in order to get the best flavor on the fruit.  One Saturday he called us up and declared it Grape Harvesting Day.  Knowing that this would take Dad hours of literal back-breaking work, and us a mere hour (?), we grabbed some breakfast and headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's.  The kids were surprised how many bunches of grapes could manage to "hide" under the leaves and vines. We filled bucket after bucket after bucket of beautiful dark purple grapes.

Dad was excited to get them in the steamer to make grape juice out of them, so our one hour turned into three as we sat around in a circle and plucked the grapes from their stems.  Lots of sampling and salivating and estimating how many jars of juice all these grapes would fill!

I got thinking about that scripture in Isaiah that talks about Christ treading the wine press alone, and wondered what that must have been like.  All we were doing was picking and plucking - I can't imagine treading, and doing it all by myself.  Our Savior loves us so much!  I'm so grateful for his sacrifice on Calvary and Golgotha.

All in all our grapes produced 40 quarts of the most delicious, sweet, aromatic, flavorful juice I have ever tasted in my life.  I'm not just saying that!