Dare I say???

We are DONE canning!!

119 Q + several other various jars (ran out of the quarts) of beautiful purple grape juice are now on the kitchen counter...about 12 hours of canning in all!! Well, actually it was more 9 hours of canning and 3 hours of clean-up...that means cleaning the garage, ALL equipment, moping the floor, cleaning counters, vaccuming etc. etc. AHCK it was a LOT of clean-up...maybe because we were so tired!! Especially my parents...they were in there up to their elbows graping and juicing and everything!! They probably never expected to be canning this much with all their kids married...but now we live with them...and happy are we!! Plus, how can you turn away free grapes from a vineyard that hasn't been picked yet? (Besides other local vineyards were charging $0.20/lb you pick grapes: so that would have been $120 in grapes! We've canned 600 lbs this year.)

Well, we couldn't turn away such a sweet deal...and you should have seen the gleam in my mom's eye after we were done Wed..."Maybe we should go get more! You never know what next year will bring." So, we juiced...

We, my mom, Allison, her boys, Kaylee and I picked grapes on Friday afternoon...we only picked for 1 1/2 hours, walked away with near 300 lbs. of grapes...(just a guess)...whew!! Collected jars from Mike's grandparents...rounded up 3 juicers...2 gas grills...several bowls & pots...My dad did have a painting project, but I think he had too much fun "directing" the grape activities. He and my mom came up with our "system/set-up" in the garage...which is a pretty groovy one...

Anyhow...DONE, DONE, DONE!!