Fresh homemade bread with butter and some fresh homemade triple berry jelly. Man, I’m in heaven. I think I’ll adopt Leslie’s suggestion on cutting back on the sugar tho. It still tastes mighty fine. 🙂
I wonder if these are skills that I can put on a resume?
I grew up in a small town in southern Iowa. And our neighborhood, like many other neighborhoods, had it’s share of older women that grew up on the farm and survived the Great Depression. All of the farms were the same: small, their were a lot of kids and everyone had their assigned chores to do to keep the farm running. And of course the ladies had a good number of stories to tell about growing up on a small farm in Iowa.
The farm girls had certain chores that they had depending on the particular day of the week. This day was for making bread. This day was for washing and ironing. This day was taking eggs to the grocer for egg money. Every day was for tending the garden and then there was canning to do during the summer and the fall whenever fruits and vegetables could be harvested.
So they knew how to do canning and it was something that they taught Momma. They also almost always had the answer whenever something didn’t go according to Hoyle. It was fascinating to stand there and watch them wield their expertise in the kitchen. I’d ask them how come they knew so much and almost always the answer was “Momma and my sisters taught me.”
So here I am making jelly this weekend and my strawberry jelly isn’t exactly going according to Hoyle. Sure I’ve got Google to search for some answers but I sure do wish that I could go across the street to Sally’s or Pat’s house and ask what I did wrong. They’d know the answer and the cure. Then they’d probably have some chuckle about “Men in the kitchen. They need to stay in the barn and fields where they belong!” I know the teasing would all be in good fun.
I like listening to the sound of the “plink” whenever the lids suck down and seal just like they’re supposed to. I’ll be adding 14 jars of strawberry jelly and 4 jars of triple berry jelly to the cupboard even though I know they won’t last very long. A few of the smaller jars will go out as presents and I know the gummys and their Mom will be taking some of the larger jars home with them.
Hopefully my strawberry bed will keep producing like it has so far so I can put up some more jelly later on this summer. I need to keep an eye out whenever I’m at the farmer’s market for some different types of berries so I can try out some different types. Anything that I can add has got to be a plus up as far as I’m concerned.
The weather broke cool this weekend for central Minnesota. It feels like late September in some ways. It’s going to be a pleasant 64F (18C) which makes it a great weekend to make some jelly. I have someone making a market run for me today so we’ll be making a batch of strawberry jelly and a batch of triple berry jelly as well. We’ll see just how long these two batches last for me.
Now I just have to finish off this last cup of coffee and then motivate myself to get the grass mowed. I wonder if Buffalo Tom would let me borrow the Bat Boys to do my yard???
So here we are playing our cat and mouse game between my brain and me to decide who wins once again. I really hate the way my brain toys with me.
1. I love early mornings this time of year. The weather is usually nice, the birds are singing, the temps are usually good. I know it will heat up soon enough to where I have to close up the windows due to the heat and humidity but I love sitting here in sucking in the cool morning breezes while sipping on a cup of coffee.
2. God I have to get out of this house. I’m going stir crazy being pretty much confined here. There are a lotta benefits to working from home but there are also some detriments. I’m getting a lot of on-line training done at least.
3. I think I have enough strawberries to make some strawberry jelly this weekend. That may be my Saturday project if I do. The batch I made last year didn’t last long. It didn’t make Christmas before it was gone.
4. The rumor at work is that I won’t be coming back. I’m not sure who started it or how it even got started but I’m feeding it. One of the ladies that I work with is using my office (because it’s warmer) while she recovers from her bronchitis. I told her to put her name plate on my door just to see what kind of reaction she gets out of it.
5. Miss Lily is being a total pain this morning. She’s already been fed twice and she’s complaining that she’s starving and is extremely neglected.
There ya have it. Feel free to comment and/or to do a vigorous wave and leave a nice Swedish “Hallå!” when you pass thru.
Maybe we made a mistake with the American Revolution. I mean, look at what we have now for a POTUS versus a long and rich tradition of a monarch. I mean we have a guy now who I think wants to be a monarch but he’s no blue blood so why not get the real thing? So I’ve been kinda wondering if it’s too late to tell the Queen that maybe we had a better deal under the crown.
I’m not suggesting that we trade the POTUS for the Queen given all ya’ll are set in your ways with her. And I wouldn’t suggest that we could trade the POTUS for the Prince of Wales or for the Duke of Cambridge. That’s kinda sorta like your future and all that.
But you do have Harry and a lot of us really like him and he’d be looking for a role once his brother ascends the throne. So maybe we’ve got a good deal for him. Let’s say we trade ya one POTUS for Harry and to really sweeten the pot we’ll even throw in a Speaker of the House and a Senate Majority Leader.
I wonder if the Queen would go for something like that???
Yeh, it’s gonna be a wet one today. Humid too. I had to turn the AC on early to pull the humidity out of my place. Ick! I can stand the heat but I really don’t care for humidity. Well, the rain is good for the garden.
Speaking of which, it’s back to making some organic bug spray to get whatever is eating up my bean and sweet potato plant leaves.
It looks like it may rain but who knows what it will actually do. But I do have to admit that looking out this window is mucher betterer than looking out my office window and seeing the construction thats going on outside. The bigger distraction now is watching what’s going on outside my home office window.
Back to work dude.
And it’s a bit wet out there right now and it makes it a bit dark indoors. It’s lights on for now and time to fortify myself with a cup of java. I gotta get fired up to finish up one work related task but I think I’ll do a little web surfing first.
This little one popped out tonight from under a hydrangea bush. It can’t be more than two weeks or so old and 3″ or 4″ long. Here’s to hoping it survives.
