Over the River ...

... and through the vineyard ... to Grandma and Papa's house we went.  

My son had a football game in my old hometown on Saturday.  So we all went along.  Hubby and son did the football game, while us girls (me, oldest daughter, youngest daughter and the dog) hung out at my folk's house for the afternoon.  

Here's the view from the driveway of my parent's house ...

It's so beautiful on a clear day, with a few fluffy clouds in the sky.  

My parents live on 10 acres in the country.  They have peach and nectarine trees on their property.  But the acreage across the road is all vineyard.  Not the wine kind, the raisin kind.

The raisins have already dried in the sun and are now rolled and waiting to be collected.

Although, some of the grapes dry right on the vine ...

My bulldog just doesn't know what to make of it.  This was her first adventure out in the country.  She loved sticking her nose in the dirt!

Here's a half grape/half raisin bunch from my Dad's backyard garden ...

The vines wandered all over the place and even along the fence ...

This stone marks the grave of my cat, Calorie.  Gosh, I miss that cat.  And I really miss the country too.  There's just something about going home that makes me yearn for country life again.  I keep telling hubby if we can't move out of town I'm going to get some chickens and a cow for the backyard.  Now I really think I need to plant some vines too.

Here's some of my Dad's raisin crop drying in the sun.  I came home with a few bags of raisins that I will make into oatmeal raisin cookies and rum raisin pie during the holidays.  Yum!  Stay tuned, I'm sure I'll blog about it when I start baking.