A Beautiful Day

Making the wine

About a month ago, I was out on the driveway watching the twins ride their bikes when Uncle Carmen, our next-door neighbor,  popped out from under the grapevines in the backyard and began walking toward us, wagon behind him.  Right away I knew...it was time to make the wine.

J & Z ran right over to meet him.  Uncle C explained that this year was tough on his grapes - and not because of the weather - but more because of all the animals that have come to visit this summer.   Our backyards abut a strip of woods and we often get coyotes, foxes, wild turkeys, geese, deer, raccoons, rabbits - and lots of birds.  Apparently the turkeys really love fruit and thusly, his crop was a bit diminished.  But the winemaking must go on (every autumn he bottles enough wine to last a year), and so he went to Chelsea and bought crates of the most luscious, sweet, juicy grapes .  

Yeah, we liked those until we saw the purples ones in the garage.  The boys dove right in and we enjoyed the sweetest, most delicious fruit I've had in recent memory.  Seriously?  These little globes were packed tightly on the bunch - the sweetness exploded in your mouth and their texture was like satin.   I couldn't stop eating them.

And neither could they. 

 

Uncle Carmen has a couple of bottles with our name on it over in his garage...I can't wait until they're ready.   In the meantime, I'm tending my own little vineyard that we started this year and trying to figure out how or if we can grow anything nearly as good.   My plants are far too young right now (we harvested 2 grapes!) but next year should be telling.    In the meantime, we'll just go next door for our fix.

 

 

 

The not-so-grand reopening

Okay, I've obviously hit a wall with regard to the renovations - and I'm willing to admit that for now, this is as good as it's gonna get.  Methinks it's time to start writing again despite a lack of any "grand reopening" for A Beautiful Day.  This life - this motherhood insanity that I had prayed for and craved for so long has most definitely siphoned a great deal of my creative energy and though that disappoints me, I've learned that taking everything day-by-day (which truly happens to be my only option for survival), is actually a rather sage and fine way to live.  So what if my blog looks half-assed? - at least my kids are dressed today.  I even trimmed their fingernails, which is not a big deal until you consider that's 60 digits - 20 apiece - and the 10 minute ramp-up, which involves a lot of flitting, whining about which nailclipper to use on the feet vs.hands, and argument over who goes first and who will sit where while Mommy is cutting the others.  It's hard to daydream about color sequence and design when all you hear all day is a chorus of neediness and demands.  In fact, it's rather impossible.

Let's just say that my current daily routine is not the most conducive environment for the creative process and I need to just let go and do what I can.  Ergo, you'll hear no apologies from me for the lack of visual candy or technical prowess here.  Maybe, in time, I can conjure up a blog design more fitting for what it is I do..for now though, it is what it is and I'd rather spend that time actually working on making the things I love to make and living the life I want to lead.  The rest will fall into place.

It's good to be home again :-).