Turtle Wine

If the idea of turtle wine is not appealing... bear with me.  It all started with the need to do some drastic yard work.  An old tree house and apple tree needed removing. Even though these were part of my sons' early childhood, I had no sentimental attachment.  However, Jon's idea of reusing the wood to make a grape vine trellis and choosing a new tree together appealed to me. We are, after all, becoming our parents.... or starting to think like them.  Instead of hiring out the job and having a tree delivered, Jon decided he could do the job himself.  And I had visions of landscaping the back yard to accommodate a European courtyard and herb garden. At our age we like to think we can still make a difference, and as I write this Jon is outside tackling the problematic trellis.

With Father's Day approaching I purchased a river birch and made arrangements for it to be picked up by my son as a present for Jon.  Meanwhile Jon struck a rock while digging a post hole for the trellis. There was no budging the rock, so the whole operation was stalled. There is little that stalls the Jahnke family, and they are always on the lookout for a new project.  That showed up in the form of a huge snapping turtle killed (?) while crossing the road in Alden.  It met its demise while being flattened on the highway (who runs over a huge turtle and doesn't stop??) and was splayed across the road surround by what my son described as 'eye balls'.  They turned out to be its eggs.  Someone needed to clear it up and give it a decent burial, and, you guessed it, that someone was Jon Jahnke.  With the unwilling help of Ben, it was scooped into a garbage bag and brought home in a garbage bag... still twitching. I suggested the trash can, but Jon had other plans for the beast.

While waiting for the tree to arrive, the extended family wandered over to our house on bikes, golf carts and truck.  The party consisted of grandfather, great aunts, sister and brother-in-law, cousins and brothers, all looking for something to do.  We inspected the rock in the hole and discussion began on how to move it.  We found shovels and excavated the spot, finding old milk bottles and a huge rock.  This necessitated a tractor, chains and a whole host of family yelling.  The rock came out leaving a huge hole.  The original plan for the turtle was to be buried beneath the new birch tree, following the age old tradition of using dead fish as fertilization.  But since the the tree hadn't arrive, the turtle was ceremoniously  dumped into to the hole left by the rock under the trellis for the vine.  It was buried with its shell and eggs, with the hope that the grapes would benefit from the decomposing body.  If the vine does yield enough grapes to make wine, it will be due to the turtle and therefore will be known as Turtle Wine.
As to the birch, it did arrive and was planted by three generations of fathers and sons, and will hopefully be around to bring joy to grandsons.