Harvest Time

Dan's farm covers some 120 acres of hills in NW MN. As a child he used to wander around gathering the berries and fruit that grow wild there. So when he mentioned that the plums and grapes (both wild and delicious) would be ripe this weekend I was very excited.

We got to Rollag around noon and soon set out in search of jelly ingredients.

Eli volunteered to be our fruit bearing pack dog.
and Flopper decided to be a scare crow.

We were pleasantly surprised to find the last of the seasons choke cherries ; these aren't good for jelly but make a very nice heavy syrup.

There were highly unorthodox fruit gathering techniques utilized resulting in people being joined at the sack and bad Siamese Twin jokes.

I kept being distracted by the butterflies and the flowers.
Eventually we found a bounty of wild grapes.
The plums had all been knocked to the ground in high winds on Friday so much to Flopper's chagrin we picked fruit off the ground. There were two types on the farm; the small red ones pictured and then a larger yellow and red type.
Eli took the opportunity to look pretty and be cool in the glade while we were slaving away picking plums.

We probably collected 20 lbs of fruit all told and trudges back to the farm house to process the juice.

~Eikon