Ma and Pa's Blog

We just got home after spending a few days in Virginia with Jean, Bob, Ben and Stephanie at the beautiful Roadruck home in the Shenandoah Valley.  I don’t know what was more fun–touring the area with Ben and Stephanie as our guides, visiting the area wineries, or just hanging out at their house, watching Aida and playing “Cranium”.  It was a fantastic visit, filled with lots of gorgeous Virginia scenery and belly laughs, and we can’t wait to go back.

Here are some pictures of our trip–from samplings at the wineries to the spectacular views on the Skyline Drive.  Missing are pictures of Ben and Steph’s house, and all the improvements and decorating touches they’ve added since they moved in just 6 or 7 months ago–Ben’s been honing his carpenter skills and made a couple elegant luggage racks for the guest bedrooms;  Stephanie has matted and framed some of her amazing photos in many of the rooms; and they’ve both worked on painting and personalizing their home so that it is warm and welcoming.

Thank you, Ben and Stephanie, for being such gracious hosts!

Today we harvested the grapes. I’d mentioned that the yield didn’t look too good, but we ended up with about 13 pounds — just 2 pounds short of what we needed for three batches of jelly. So we supplemented with two pounds from our Sunday drive to Geneva. By dinner time, we had 25 jars of grape jelly (20 8-ounce jars, and 5 pints) plus a small storage container. Not bad for half a day’s work.

Harvest Before

Harvest After

We had just come home from a spur of the moment breakfast at Julian’s with Jean, Bob & Dan,  opened the patio door to let Cali out — and were staggered by the strong odor of skunk.

Cali stayed inside.

Shortly after, Larry was mowing the lawn when the neighbor two doors down told us that his dog had just been sprayed by a skunk and his wife was on her way to the store for shampoo and tomato juice.

Cali’s not at the top of her game anymore, and PROBABLY wouldn’t have noticed an intruder in her yard, but still…it felt like a close call.