CLICK TO VIEW FULL SIZE

Picking Grapes

Two-year-old Abigail Tripp looks through the mass of leaves under the arbor.

She eyes her target.

Reaching out with one hand, she reaches into the tangle of vines and grabs.

Abigail’s fingers close around a single grape, plucking it from the bunch still attached to the vine.

Her face afire with excitement, she plops her prize into her small bucket.

It might be better to pick them in bunches, however, picking them one at a time is easier for my daughter to understand.

For us, this is about a father spending time with his little girl outside on a beautiful August morning.

She relishes the time we spend together just as I am happy with the lessons she learns in the process.

By picking these grapes, she learns with time that grapes, like many foods, do not just come from a grocery store.

Fruits are grown and are gifts given by trees and shrubs within the natural world.

By picking fruits with us, we hope to teach her an appreciation and better understanding of the larger world surrounding us all.

But even if she does not grasp the concept as easily as she does the grapes just yet, she does learn that her father loves her enough to want to spend the time with her doing such things.

She also learns the joy of enjoying the fruits of our labor when sneaking a quick taste while the grapes were fresh from the vine.

The grapes we picked were set in a dish in the back part of the yard where they will attract fruit flies.

The fruit flies in turn will attract the hummingbirds — more lessons for my young one to enjoy and experience.

– Mike Tripp, photojournalist

Published in The News Leader on Sunday, Aug. 23, 2009.

The Tripp family joined the Thomas and Jarrett families for a day at Smith Mountain Lake on Friday, August 7, 2009. (Photos by Mike Tripp)

[View with PicLens]

12345►

Lee holds up Abi so she can touch the black bear on display at National Night Out held at Staunton Mall on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2009. (Photo by Mike Tripp)

Abi Tripp receives a bit of help from her mother, Lee Tripp, as she wants her balloon while at the Rockbridge County Fair on Saturday, July 18, 2009. (Photo by Mike Tripp/The Photo Columnist.com)

[View with PicLens]

123►

Abi Tripp is styling with a pair of her mom’s old sunglasses on Sunday, July 5, 2009. (Photo by Mike Tripp)

——————————

On the first Sunday in July, Abi decided it was time to style, profile and play just like her mother.

So it was that she began the day by playing with her mother’s weebles set, followed closely by going glamor by wearing a mom’s sunglasses and later even walked a mile in her shoes!

[View with PicLens]

Abi has a conversation with the ducks at Gypsy Hill Park’s duck pond.

———————-

After gathering information for Waymarks at the train station, Abi and I went to the park where she enjoyed swinging and feeding the ducks.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW GALLERY

Abi decides to take up goose herding while at Ridgeview Park in Waynesboro.

———————–

Abi and I ventured out to Waynesboro to the park for a little Waymarking.  Happened on a turtle laying eggs while there as well as had fun when Abi decided to herd geese.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW GALLERY

Then it hit me … Would she be willing to pick blackberries with me?

Grabbing her green bucket, I brought her over to where the berries are ready to be picked beside the barn.

It took her a minute, but as she watched me she picked up on the fact that we were suppose to pick the berries that were black and leave those that were red.

She lived by this thought and rule up until we ran out of black ones to pick.

Then it was time to go in before all the reds had disappeared and were gone.