Yesterday Mom called me at work and said, "Wanna go pick some grapes?" Of course I said yes! She'd been looking for concord grapes to pick ever since our friend took out his grapevines and had finally found some down in Wapato. They were going to go through and harvest all the grapes left on the 20th, so we only had a few days to get there. After bringing a change of clothes for me (not gonna get grape juice on my nice clothes!) we drove down to Kreuger Pepper Gardens. They have more than peppers, of course, including squash, garlic, onions, watermelons and right now concord grapes! We had brought our own boxes and pruners, but we were informed the grapes around the U-Pick were all pretty well picked. They directed us down to another vineyard they owned and we had to get past the security...
...but luckily we weren't hassled much. (Sweetest dogs in the world, they just hung out while we picked.) We had the whole vineyard to ourselves, there wasn't another soul around!
Isn't that beautiful? Miles of vineyards with velvety Eastern Washington hills in the background? This is why I love where we live. The grapes were thick too! Mom and I picked and picked and didn't make it three feet in either direction.
There may have been some pretending I was a nymph of Dionysus with all those grapes around...
Too bad I can't Photoshop a toga and some laurel leaves on that pic. :)
When we'd filled our boxes to the top we trekked back out and drove back to get them weighed and pay. I picked up some butternut squash, because ours didn't do so well this year, and also some garlic and peppers. At the farm stand they told us about getting a steam juicer to process the grapes into juice to make jam or just drink. My coworker had also mentioned getting one, so we bought a fairly nice one on Amazon with 1-day shipping. Mom had spent all theses years doing it the centuries-old fashioned way with a potato masher and cheesecloth. This should speed up her processing time greatly! She figures one box for jam and the other box for juice. Or possibly wine...she's already started research. And speaking of spirits we had to pass field after field of hops. If you never knew where all those Yakima hops were grown to make your favorite craft brew, then behold the majesty...
You know your from Eastern Washington when the smell of hops makes you instantly think of fall!
**I didn't have my nice camera, so I had to make with do with my iPod. The pictures aren't too bad, but I know they could have been better.**
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