A wet and exciting fall picking is complete!

We had an exciting (due to the rain) ending to our Saturday, September 28 harvest,  with 36 hard-working volunteers we ere able to pick 5,035 pounds of Marquette grapes in 3 hours! This crop was taken from 582 maturing vines, working out to 8.7 pounds of grapes / vine. We had 725 original vines planted in 2007-2009, but, as we recall, the April 2012 frost killed 142.

This June we replanted all of those plus 250 more, so that we will eventually have 1000 Marquette vines, in addition to our 250 maturing Prairie Star vines, which will be bearing grapes next year –  In other words:

Do you have any friends who would like to join us in a day of work and fun, with some of the most interesting people you will ever meet? We will need them!

The harvest was followed by an absolutely excellent dinner of beef stew (I had 3 bowls and a fair amount of our Altered States Apple, and other wines). We had great conversations, solved most of the world’s problems (except the shutdown, which hadn’t happened then), and finally, by 9 pm we got around to our great jokes around the bonfire… it was so much fun being with all of you.

Our 5,035 pounds of grapes resulted in $4,028 sales to a winery. After subtracting our operating expenses of $1,881 we are able to send $2,147 / 3 =  $715.00 to each of our 3 charities, a big increase from $375.00 / charity last year!

These contributions are substantial and will result in real improvements in the quality of the lives of our local, state, and international communities.

This would not be possible without your help, and we thank you. Your help with us has and will continue to make our world a better place. Since everything in this universe is connected, that makes us better, you can just feel it!

When we receive the contribution receipts from our charities we will post them, and we will send you a notice to check them out, as per our practice. Will then give you a heads up re our exciting plans for next year.

Thanks again to all of you. We were not able to talk and get to know many of you, but hope to in the future.

Peace and Charity,

The Board of Lost Creek Hippies Vineyard