Grape Season

When you plant a dozen tiny grape sprouts in the ground, they do not much look like a hedge of vines. Then when you have to baby them through the summer and three quarters of them die anyway, it is discouraging. But there comes a time six or seven summers later when huge vines threaten to over take the maple tree and have killed a bush by sneakily twining inside it and stealing all the sunshine. Those huge vines hide so many grapes that you stand in your kitchen, after having washed, plucked, smashed, cooked, and strained grapes all day long, yet there are still as many grapes still on the vines as you brought in the house. Then you wonder why on earth you planted so many grape plants. But it is hard to picture that day when they are tiny. Of course you’re also going to have grape jelly for the entire rest of the year, so there’s that.