We went strawberry picking yesterday because we really needed to make strawberry jam. The only jam we have in our house is some huckleberry jam I bought (I usually don't buy jam since I prefer to have more control over the ingredients) and we also have some quince syrup that I made in my last evening of insanity before Sonia was born. No one likes the quince syrup except for me.
Isaac was a great picker. He only ate ONE strawberry the entire time. I can't say the same for myself. It's pretty important to make sure you are picking the strawberries that are just at the right stage of ripeness, and I find that to be a bit of a trial and error process that involves lots of taste checks. Sonia picked no strawberries the entire time but probably ate 30 of them.
How do you like Isaac's silly green mustache? Thanks, Dollar Tree.
All his hard work paid off though, because we went back and processed the strawberries that evening. Now we have 16 jars of jam! How many pints, you may ask? Let me go count. 9 and 3/4 pints. I think that is about how many pounds we had, too. Hm. All 16 jars are sealed this morning, despite me re-using lids. (The Ball Blue Book says this is a no-no, but I don't see why I would throw away a perfectly good lid when I make sure not to bend the edge much when I take them off then I fix the edge to be back to the original way - anyway, if they seal then it should be fine, right?)
Little helper! Kind of... not really. We did pick a good day to go picking though. It was warm enough, but overcast, so not hot and not giving me a sunburn. The sun did come out briefly and I had a moment of concern that we might get too hot. I think the dad a few rows over felt awkward when we were talking about sunburns and Isaac said I might get one, but he wouldn't, because I had "white skin". It's true though, it's pretty pale, and these guys aren't going to get burned with that length of exposure in that kind of sun. I don't know if they actually would get burned ever. Maybe a ridiculously hot day such as is not to be had in Oregon.
Here's hoping we can go picking lots more fruit this summer and make many more delicious jams!
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