When "soon" means "now"

It's harvest time on our little urban farm. Lots of things are ripening at the same time. It's a little hectic keeping up with the harvest while juggling a full-time job! But sometimes you just can't put off the demands of the harvest.

We have two grapevines growing on our border fence. Often we have let them get very overgrown, but this year I did a degree in grape pruning (at YouTube University) which helped me keep the extra leafy growth under control, and we had a great crop of grapes! It was a big eye opener to realize how many times I had to prune those vigorous vines throughout the summer! But it resulted in a great crop, so I'll be doing that again in the future.

We've been watching the grapes closely, tasting them, and waiting... Finally, two days ago I thought they were getting really ripe, and I would have to harvest them "soon." But the definition of "soon" in the natural world is not the same as in government! Turns out soon means "now." One day at lunch we noticed that all the grapes on one of the vines were gone!!!

"Raccoons!" my husband and I surmised, and he quickly got out the clippers to harvest the grapes on the other vine.

We had family arrive from Ontario that afternoon, so after finishing my workday the early evening was taken up with putting supper together and catching up with family. It was a lovely gathering. Until...

As we were winding down our meal, I happened to glance out the patio door and saw a very fat raccoon lumbering along the top of the fence towards the second grapevine! I was so thankful we had harvested those grapes when we did!

My husband had left a few bunches of grapes behind, so we were all able to observe Mr. (Ms?) Raccoon enjoy the somewhat diminished evening snack. He / she / they did not seem perturbed by having an audience only 10 feet away!

So, we ended up processing grape juice at 10pm that night! It was a long day but it's a good feeling to have all that juice going in the freezer.

Next time I'll have to pay more attention when I get that feeling something needs to happen "soon!"