Well, up until now with my blog, it has mostly been the bad things that have happened in my life............let's get on with the other stuff...........
My grandparents had a vineyard and as it happened, they had one of the original family owned vineyards in the South Okanagan Valley, British Columbia Canada. Their vineyard consisted of about five acres, and they also had chicken coops, fruit trees, walnut trees, and hazlenut trees. Gramma(Lilly) had her beloved garden off to the side that ran the length of one of the lines of grapes. Pops(Clarence) loved his grapes........he was always out there tending to the vines, making sure that all the details were taken care of. I've got lots of great memories that revolved around that vineyard...........
My family is very large since my grandparents had eight kids and their families were of a wide varied number as well. Since grape picking co-incided with the Canadian Thanksgiving which was usually around the second weekend in October, lots of family and friends showed up to pick the grapes. During grape picking time, there were a lot of people picking the grapes as well as a tractor driver and workers that helped the driver pick up the picked grapes. At that time, there were two kinds of tractor runs that happened during the day.......a "wet run" when coffee, pop and beer were dropped off at the end of the grape rows and the "dry run" when the picked grapes were picked up and taken back to the shop and placed in wine bins to be stacked and taken to the winery. Needless to say, when the tractor came by on the wet runs, everyone was cheering and happy.........when the tractor came by on the dry runs, anyone that was on or near the tractor were pelted with handfulls of grapes.........provided Clarence wasn't watching.......LOL. Needless to say, by the end of the day, you knew who was on the tractor and who was just picking the grapes going by who had more purple stains on them and where.........The ones on the tractor not only had grape stains from fingertip to elbow but also had grape stains from head to toe........LOL.
Thanksgiving dinner was made that night by gramma.......she was a lady that stood 4 ft. 11 inches tall, yet she would be the spitfire person in the family.......one that others knew not to cross. Gramma would cook 3 or 4 turkeys between the oven upstairs and the one downstairs. Some of us grandkids thought that if we ganged up on her, we would be able to sneak some turkey from the kitchen before the birds actually made it to the table. My grandparents house was set up that there were 3 entrances into the kitchen......one from the backdoor, one from the livingroom/diningroom area, and one from the front door area....... Us grandkids thought that we had it figured out......since there were 3 attack angles to the kitchen, how could she defend them all at once.......WOW, were we ever wrong. I remember coming around that corner and finding my gramma standing guard with a wooden spoon in each of her hands. Needless to say, us kids were very lucky to get out of the kitchen with red knuckles and only enough turkey to fit into the palm of one of our hands that would have to be split between the 6 or more of us. When all was said and done, not a great achievement! Gramma took pride in picking the veggies from her garden that she would serve to us that night......there would be potatoes, ears of corn, carrots and cabbage all from the garden. Outside, there would be picnic tables lined up end for end, set for all the pickers with food galore.
Once everyone finished eating, then the fun was carried on to the basement where there was a dart board, a shuffleboard, a set up bar, lots of seating and a pianno in the corner. What great times we had at that time of the year........
Now that I am older, I look back on those years and thourally enjoy the memories of that day and age. My grandparents and some of my uncles and aunts are now gone, but their faces and memories still live on........
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