Concord grape pie is delicious. Unfortunately, my pastry making skills are somewhat sub par.  My mother in law, on the other hand, is a pastry making goddess and a saint. She makes pie shells for me and puts them in my freezer (sainthood right there).

Grape pie is even more delicious when you can have it off-season.  The dreariness that is February (when the temperate days of autumn are a pleasant but vague memory and the warm sunshine of spring seems too far away) can be lifted by the aroma of warm grape pie.

In order to experience off-season grape pie you have to ready the grapes while they are available.  So today I was slipping the skins off 6-quarts of concord grapes, to cook the middles, to remove the seeds, to put the cooked middles back with the skins, puree the lot, and store in two cup jars.  When I was most of the way through the 6-quart, I discovered a teeny, tiny snail ooching its way across a grape.  After I photographed my find, I released it to the wilds that is my parsley.  Why are little things so fricken cute, if it had been the usual garden snail size I would not have been so delighted.