Grapes, Bread and Dinner

This evening I went to the back yard to get another ladder (as if a full set of scaffolding, two Little Giant ladders, an extension ladder and an 8 foot stepladder weren't enough) to work on the front of the house. As I walked past the grapes, I could smell the ripeness of the grapes. I commented to Janene that it looked (smelled) like the grapes were ripe now. Then I went up front, climbed the scaffolding again and began working under cloudy skies with snow flurries in the distance.

Pretty soon, I could hear rattling from the side of the house, at the same time that I caught a whiff of the aroma of fresh baked bread. That smell always takes me back to the kitchen of my great-grandma Meik. I will have to write about my memories of that kitchen some other time. My Grandma Phillips used to bake bread in her kitchen too. There are few things better than Grandma's fresh baked bread with real melting butter, a no-no in my Mom's kitchen. One of those better things is fresh baked bread from Janene's kitchen - with butter. If Janene is in the kitchen baking bread, who is making all the noise on the side of the house?

 There she is doing two things at once. I guess they must have been ripe enough that they just had to be picked right away. Somewhere in the middle of baking bread, and picking grapes, she was also painting fascia on the ladder I brought around. What a versatile woman.

It wasn't much longer, and I had to come down from the scaffold again because I could smell the best dinner being cooked in the kitchen. I swear that sometimes I can smell Janene's great cooking when I am driving up ValVerda from work. So for dinner tonight, I was treated to homemade bread with dreamy melting butter, fried eggs and veggies from the garden with Janene's famous home grown chili sauce - and a big tall glass of fresh grape juice.

Have I got it good or what?