Blueberry Wine & The Art of of Bartering

Last summer I was in a major predicament! We had no blueberries and this meant no blueberry crisp, no blueberry smoothies, no blueberries a top of my yogurt and alas no blueberry wine. As you know if it’s growing on our homestead we are using it up, eating it, drinking it, the chickens get it, or it goes to compost….rarely does a “food” item go to waste. I still haven’t quite figured out why my blueberry bushes some of which were given to me haven’t taken off but we have moved them to a new location on our property.

Enters Katherine my good friend and she says, “I have so many blueberries I am literally running out of freezer space for all of them!”

Hmmm I think what an awful problem to have LOL!

I say…”Hey ya’ know I have an idea…..you have blueberries and the Viking makes wine…maybe we can work out a deal!”

She was amenable to the idea immediately. Win! Win! She doesn’t have to keep giving blueberries away and she gets wine in return so we decided to split the loot 50/50. It was an ideal arrangement we already have the wine bottles, equipment, etc…we did have to of course buy the sugar and yeast to get the whole thing going.

The blueberry wine I have to say turned out quite delicious! However it was not without challenges because my husband the “Viking” in my life did say it took a while to get the acid level up in order for the yeast to start fermenting. Wine making is an art in itself and we learn as we go along however it still costs about $1.00 to $1.50 per bottle so it’s a great way to be sustainable, save money, and use your overflow of your crops and if you don’t want to make wine you can always make juice as well!

For wine making instructions although they vary check out our DIY Jerusalem Artichoke post here.

It is interesting to ponder why don’t we barter as a society anymore? I mean it’s still done to some extent but not like it used to be done. I think it’s because people often don’t like to get involved or entangled with others. Years ago it was commonplace for people to bring what they had and swap and make deals and now I think often people are just nervous about it but I do think in the future bartering will be a significant part of how we do trade again. This is why I always talk about the importance of having skills like sewing, beekeeping, and others I think they will be important one day as more and more people do not focus on having skills. There are bartering boards on Craigslist and around the web so keep an eye out but do your research and make sure they are trust worthy sites to do business on!

I wish you all a beautiful week…until next time!

Fondly,