The sweetest surprise on an August Sunday evening.

With the kids settled in to watch Aladdin, and Koda scarfing up the remains of dinner, I wandered outside to check the status of my hanging plants on the back porch.  I was pleased to see that the windmill jasmine is finally wrapping around the railings and following my lead as I continually try to redirect its growth.  For the last few months, it has been about as manageable as my hair.

I then made my way over to what remains of my summer garden.  Though my basil is yellowing and looking rather puny, I was excited to see that my squash plant has come back to life and seems to be crawling out of the garden towards the pool.  I'm hoping I can at least snag a few blossoms to stuff for dinner one night before it kicks the bucket for winter.

I also noticed my chives are about to bloom.  I love that.

The banana peppers and jalapenos are still going strong, as usual.

And a trip over to the pond confirmed the sun would be setting soon.  I can always tell by the state of the swamp hibiscus blooms.

The plant I can never remember the name of  displayed its purple glory.

And everything was as it should be.

But then, then something extraordinary happened.

While walking by my apple tree, which I planted 5 years ago and has never once produced fruit, I saw this:

A pear.  A single pear.

I was so excited about it finally producing fruit that it took me 10 minutes to realize it was not in fact an apple.

So I have pear tree.  With one pear. 

And I was ecstatic.

But then, then something even more miraculous happened.

I wandered over to the pecan tree, which has never yielded a single nut, and noticed a vine.  An extremely thick, strong vine winding down from a relatively young live oak tree.  And on this vine was grapes.  TONS of grapes. 

And this is why these grapes are special:

Every year I've lived in this house, I have planted a grapevine.  And every year, it shrivels up and dies.  I have tried planting them along the fence.  In the shade.  In the sun.  In moist areas of the yard.  In dry areas of the yard.  Near the pond.  Far from the pond.  In my herb garden...  You get the point.  They never ever live.  And the last time I planted a grapevine was when I was married.  I gave up on ever growing grapes a couple years ago.  And I honestly haven't thought about it since.

But today, in an area of my yard I often patrol and explore, I noticed grapes.  At first, I thought they were surely some random, nonedible, poisonous berry.  But the closer I looked, I could trace the vine through the tree back to the spot I planted the last vine several years ago.  I have no clue how I've missed it growing, constantly getting stronger.  But there is something surreal about not knowing it was there until the fruit was ripe and ready to eat. 

I grabbed a handful and when I bit into the first one, it literally exploded.  Grape juice ran down my chin and dripped onto my shirt.  Usually, I would be annoyed about the shirt-juice incident, but I couldn't help but laugh.  And seriously, these just might be the best grapes I've ever tasted.

So I'm going to enjoy my "freedom grapes" as long as they hang around.  And every time I see that dense, twisted vine I'm going to remember that as soon as I let it be and it was no longer stifled, it thrived and flourished.  Just like me.