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As you all probably know, last year Blanco county had a bumper crop of wild mustang grapes. I picked grapes until I was purple all over. When I ran out of grapes here I picked grapes from Sonny and Henrietta’s and Gene and Judy Yentzens’ vines and still there were grapes. I can’t tell you how much jelly I put up but we just used the last of the jelly and Pat set about looking in the freezer hoping I still had grapes there. He was in luck because I just must have gotten tired making jelly last year and hid the rest in the freezer and so today I used the last of last summer’s grapes. I was able to make 14 jars and I hope or he hopes that is enough to last until August when we pick grapes again, provided there was enough rain.

If you were reading this column last year you will remember how I humbled myself AFTER showing off my jelly making skills to Norma Honeycutt and Kay Culp who wanted to watch me make jelly. I am not going to show off in that way again, people can learn like I did, by trial and error. Jelly making isn’t brain surgery and these are savvy women but they wanted to SEE what jelly making looked like in the different stages of cooking.

I really showed them, I ended up ruining the huge white enamel pot that I have cooked jelly in for 25 years. It seems I forgot to look inside the pot before dumping in the grapes and that was a big mistake. Not until the grapes were finished cooking did I see that I had not only cooked the grapes but the white plastic lid that was inside the bottom of the pot unknown to me. It ruined all the grape juice, it ruined the plastic lid in there and it ruined my enamel pot.

Today when I got ready to make jelly I forgot all about my white pot and what I had done to it. I looked everywhere for it and then I realized, “oh yes, I burned holes in the bottom of it and threw it away.” I had no idea if one MUST cook jelly in an enamel pot or if I just did because it was so big. The only other pot I had large enough was aluminum and I wasn’t sure it would do but I tried it. This time I looked in the bottom of the pot to see if anything was in there lurking in the dark deep bottom.

I had enough grapes and one container of grape juice that I had frozen to make two batches of jelly. I have 14 jars cooling on the counter and if Pat is careful he will have enough jelly to last him until summer.

I love making jelly because it seems like it is making good use of something here on the land that is free. Of course, you who know better, know it takes a lot of sugar and pectin to make jelly and it is probably a lot cheaper to just buy it. When my grandsons were really little they were completely amazed that I could put berries or grapes in a pot, add water and turn it into something really good to go with their peanut butter sandwiches. They thought it was nearly as neat as making syrup out of water and sugar with a bit of flavoring.

The first year my daughter and son in law moved here I talked her into going with me to pick grapes. She has never been back and said she didn’t care if she ever had jelly again she would not pick them. I have learned to wear gloves when I pick grapes because I too, like she, am very susceptible to a rash from the grapes and talk about itch.

Back in Beaumont, Texas where I was born and where we lived until we moved here, every spring and early summer we all went out along the railroad tracks out in the country to pick wild dewberries. Now those are some delicious berries only not quite as wonderful as mayhaws and I really miss those.

A rule for picking berries with the kids (when they were small) was that we’d pick until one of us saw a snake and then it was over. We never picked mayhaws because you had to go to Vidor down in some of the swampy areas where there were water moccasins. They say about mayhaws like they do up here about agarita’s; beware because under every bush there lurks a snake. However mayhaw juice was sold all over and it wasn’t hard to find enough to make jelly and it doesn’t get much better than mayhaw jelly or for that matter dewberry jelly.

I much prefer to stand up and pick mustang grapes off a climbing vine than stooping over and picking dewberries off the bush so near the ground where the snakes are. To tell you the truth there are more than just a few things I miss about Southeast Texas but not enough to ever want to live there again. Give me mustang grapes, rattlesnakes and pear cactus any day, this Hill country is home and I am looking forward to picking grapes and making jelly again.