Thanksgiving 2015

Reedy River, ,Greenville

These are the Falls on the Reedy River in downtown Greenville, viewed from the Liberty bridge. It was T-shirt weather down here while it was a bit frosty up north in my garden. We picked the week of Thanksgiving to visit my daughter in Central, South Carolina. She is working in Greenville and planning to start classes in January at Clemson to finish her degree. Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday and she is definitely a foodie like her dad.

Before the trip, Kate gave me a shopping list for some New England treats she can not find in the South. Apples (Macintosh, Macoun, and Empire), fresh apple cider (including Bolton Orchards’ amazing Golden Russet cider that tastes like an explosion of bananas and apples), maple syrup, and maple sugar candy. I also brought some sugar pumpkins (including Cinnamon Girl) and some winter squash (Autumn Crown and Kikuza, both smaller Long Island Cheese types). Also brought a selection of wines from Nashoba Valley Vineyards, including a couple of bottles of the Vignoles we helped harvest in 2012 and the Apple Cranberry that is popular for Thanksgiving. Threw in a maple Whoopie pie for good measure.

We kept Thanksgiving dinner simple. Kate had to work that day (she is a server at an upscale restaurant in Greenville that had all of three customers all day) and we didn’t want to leave her buried in left overs. So I cooked. We did a turkey breast, mashed potatoes, gravy, candied sweet potatoes, home made apple sauce, Brussels sprouts, rolls and pumpkin pie.



On Friday we avoided crowds by driving west, away from the malls in Greenville, to enjoy the mountains. This is a view of Table Rock mountain (with the cliffs, elevation 4100 feet) taken from the lookout on Caesars Head mountain (elevation 3215 feet).



Another view from Caesars Head. On the drive up the mountain, I noticed the forest understory had a lot of rhododendron and mountain laurel, some of which you can see in this photo. Maybe there is some dogwood out there as well. At the right time in the spring when all this is blooming, the mountains must be beautiful.

Turns out the area’s only winery, Victoria Valley, was nearby, so we sat on their terrace for an hour and enjoyed a cheese plate and glass of wine. South Carolina has very few wineries, mostly near the coast. However, North Carolina has lots of wineries, many easily accessible from I-77 on the way home. Unfortunately, traffic Sunday was insane, so stopping was not feasible. We finally had to stop for the night short of our intended layover and make it up on Monday. Regardless of the commute home, we had a good visit with Kate, ate at lots of great Greenville restaurants, and enjoyed a Thanksgiving dinner with (most) all the trimmings. Hope you had an equally good week.

Grape Harvest 2013

 

 

I have not been blogging much lately but that doesn’t mean I am dead (yet). Just busy with things that intrude on gardening. Like picking grapes in exchange for food and booze. Today was our second season of wine grape harvesting at Nashoba Valley Winery in Bolton, Massachusetts. This year we we picked late, but it turned out to be a beautiful Fall New England day with temperatures in the 60s and deep blue skies. We were tasked to harvest the Cabernet Franc grapes. Because of the cold nights we had, the leaves were mostly dead so picking was much easier than last year. And no bunch rot to deal with.

 

Below is the row we had to pick, which was loaded with grapes and seemed to run off into the sunset.

 

 

The Cabernet Franc clusters were fat and ripe. It was easy to quickly fill one of the yellow plastic lugs, but it took a bit more time to tease out the clusters that were wrapped up in the support wires and vines so we could maximize the yield for our host and fellow Boltonian, Rich Pelletier.

 

 

 

So two hours later,  here we are behind a skid containing 28 lugs of luscious Cabernet Franc grapes, sticky but un-stung (by hungry bees) and ready for lunch! I’m the strange looking dude on the left, accompanied by some of my fellow Bolton Community Garden compatriots, Lynn Dischler and Rachelle Ayotte (and Rachelle is responsible for some of these photos). We harvested an estimated 4 tons of grapes and my back can attest to that!

 

 

Finally it is party time in the pavilion, with a chicken barbeque luncheon and apple crisp for dessert, along with unlimited pours of last years Cabernet Franc and Chardonnay!

 

 

Lunch was followed by a personal tour of the winery led by the owner, Rich Pelletier. It was fascinating to see how the grapes we picked would be processed into fine table wines. We each received a gift card that will allow us to buy a bottle of the wine we helped harvest in a year or two, but I really did not need that to feel good about helping a local farm winery prosper. Walking back to the car, I smiled while I watched swarms of people on a beautiful fall afternoon heading to the winery to taste wines I might have had a hand in harvesting.

Harvest Monday–24 September 2012

This week was a little different than usual. I did harvest the usual cukes, beans, and zucchini (photos at the end), but the garden is getting close to done. I have to clean up some of the beds to get ready for planting garlic next month. The big event for us happened Sunday when I signed up to pick wine grapes at our local winery, Nashoba Valley Winery, and suckered my wife and daughter into keeping me company.

I had to pay $18 per person for the privilege of working and we had to show up at 9:30 Sunday morning with gloves and shears. Perfectly reasonable. Over coffee and apple cider donuts Rick Pelletier, the owner, explained our task: pick 4-5 tons of grapes in 3 hours. Piece of cake. Our family was assigned to pick Vignoles, a white grape. Rick had hoped to pick it in two weeks when the Brix readings would have been closer to the desired 23 degrees, but the appearance of sour bunch rot required its addition to the day’s assignments. What’s another 2-3 ton of grapes? Besides, it was a gorgeous New England Fall day.

Here we are at the top of the Vignoles vineyard. Rick is explaining what to do and how to pick off or cut out the rotten grapes. Note the Segway with all-terrain tires Rick used to fly around supervising us while we lugged around 30-pound boxes of grapes by hand.