Raisins on the vine

This is nature's way of making raisins. These wine grapes simply shriveled in this year's hot summer sun. And they're not alone. I see more burned grapes out in the vineyard this year than I've seen in recent years.

These are real sun made -- not sun maid -- raisins.

I guess these things go in cycles. The summer of 2003, our first in this house, was one of the hottest summers on record, significantly hotter than this year was. But I don't remember what the grapes looked like. I'm not sure I paid much attention that first year. I'll bet there were a lot of "raisins" out there.

By the way, the French word for grape is raisin. What we call raisins are called raisins secs (dried grapes) in France.