As long as I can remember, we have always eaten homemade jelly. Never did the Welches brand get the chance to grace the shelves in our frigaders. (Well, it did when we ran out of the good stuff) You see, my Grandma Reen always made us homemade jelly made from fresh juice that she cooked herself. As we got older, we too were taught how to make grape jelly. In order to make that jelly you had to make the juice, and that is just what we did yesterday. We picked up 90 lbs of grapes, plucked them from the vine and cooked them down to juice. Sounds easy right.....let me assure you that it is not a one woman job! My mom, cousin Bobbi, myself, my dad and of course with a little help from the WildFlowers, we got the job done in about 7 hours!!
Bobbi and I were the pickers, mom was the cooker and juicer and dad and the wildflowers did what they could.
You have to pick them.....
Cover with water and cook them down......
Push them thru a strainer....
And viola......you have 12 gallons of freshly made grape juice!!
We had a fun time just being together and carrying on a tradition that has been part of our family for a long time. My grandma would have had such a fun time if she could have been there. She always loved it when we all got together for any reason at all. She would have loved to see the wildflowers playing around us as we worked......she is soo very missed.
This is the only picture I have of picking grapes with her and it is very blurry . Madison was just a baby. 
5 comments:
Great tradition, Tricia.....looks like such fun!
That is an awesome tradition to have Tricia. It will be so fun to continue it with your kids!
Awwww. I loved this. Traditions are priceless...and homemade jelly ain't bad, either! yum!
How fun! I love the pictures of the kids getting involved. So precious.
That is such a great tradition. Your kids are so cute working on their bowls of grapes.
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