More fruits

I've said it before and I'll say it again, we were SO lucky to get a place that had so many wonderful things already in place. This week we are particularly grateful for all the fruit trees, bushes, and vines there were already in place and thriving when we moved in.

 The corner of the backyard has this massive muscadine vine that we have been keeping an impatient eye on all these months. Well, this week we finally had just a few of ripe grapes that we were quick to harvest and pop into the freezer until we have enough ripe grapes to start out own batch of muscadine wine. Yum!

The other fruit we have been keeping a close eye on is the giant cooking pear tree on the other side of the yard. It's branches have been looking heavy with fruit and the occasional rock hard pear bomb would come falling down.

 We decided to give it a good shake and see what we could get. I stood back and watched while the Big Onion all but swung from the branches, and the pears came raining down! All counted we ended up with 21 pears. Apparently pears aren't like apples in that they do not ripen while on the tree, you have to harvest them and store them for a while for them to soften and sweeten. Since we are pretty sure these are cooking pears, I'm not sure how soft or sweet they will get, but we tucked them away into our smaller refrigerator to ripen before they get juiced and turned into cider.

The ever present Josie and the turkeys were both on hand to help dispose of any damaged fruits. This series of photos just cracks me up....