do you ever notice how many wild grape vines there are in downtown Iowa City? it seems as though every old house downtown has some somewhere on the property. ours is no exception. in fact, we have some rather hearty grape vines of our own growing on an arbor in our backyard (these first pictures were taken a few months ago). i'm not sure how long they've been there, but the main stems are very woody and thick and they certainly produce a lot of grapes. when we moved into the house last year, i was concerned that the tornado damage might have wiped them out. thankfully that wasn't the case though. if anything, i think it just scattered more of them around the neighborhood. now they're all over the place and i find myself constantly having to remove them from the various new spots where they're trying to establish, the little bastards.
a few weeks ago they started falling off the vines with more regularity. it got to the point where you couldn't walk on the path connecting our patio and garage without smashing a ton of them under your foot. eventually, it started to smell like stale wine bottles back there and was attracting legions of flies, bees and wasps. something had to be done, so i got a step stool out and picked about seven gallon buckets of them this past monday. here are a few pics taken just before i picked them.
so, what are you to do with seven gallons of concord grapes, you ask? make grape juice, of course! how do you make grape juice? well, you just wash the grapes, squish 'em, cook 'em for about fifteen minutes, squish 'em some more, strain 'em through a metal screen and then through cheese cloth. all in all, it took the greater part of the day, but was well worth it. cheers!
