Another Jam

No pictures. No story. Just another delicious jam with freshly picked sun ripened blackberries.

Blackberry Ginger Jam


14 cups of blackberries (I didn't mash them before I measured and everything seemed to work out fine)
6 inches of ginger finely grated
7 teaspoons of pectin
14 tablespoons of lime juice
5 cups sugar
14 teaspoons of calcium water
2 dozen pieces of crystalized ginger

Pretty much the same drill as my earlier post found here. Same idea, different fruit. One exception. Right before the fruit with the pectin comes to its second boil, I added in the crystalized ginger pieces. Let the fruit with the extra ginger come to its final boil, remove from heat, and put it in your sanitized jars.

I think we now have 2 dozen jars of jam laying around and the blackberries are just getting started. Does anybody have a good blackberry jam recipes they would like to share?

Now in the crock pot is a batch of apple butter. I'll tell you about that later.

Never short on blueberries and jam

In this house, we always have blueberries. Foxtrot can't get enough. He eats them frozen, fresh, and freeze dried. The blueberries are everywhere. (This is most likely why he thought the goat poop was blueberries.) I went to the local farmer's market last week and picked up some delicious blueberries for him. And then I saw the peaches and I had been inspired by this lady earlier in the week, so I picked up a few pounds.

The two ingredients came together to make a delightful Blueberry Peach Jam. We eat jam on everything, from toast and tortillas to ice cream and bananas. Granimal turned me on to Pomona's Universal Pectin which worked very well. You want the recipe for the next time you have 3 cups of blueberries and 6 peaches laying around?

Blueberry Peach Jam


3 cups blueberries
6 medium peaches
1 generous teaspoon of cinnamon
3 teaspoons pectin
9 tablespoons lime juice
3 cups of honey
9 teaspoons of calcium water (comes in the package with Pomona)

1. Start by washing and rinsing your jars. Boil the jars for about 10 minutes to sterilize them. (Yada, Yada, Yada. You know the drill)

2. Put all your fruit, cinnamon, and lime juice in a large pot. Mash down the fruit until it mostly turns blue. Add the calcium water and stir well.

3. Measure out your honey, then add the pectin to the honey. Mix that up as best you can and set it aside.

4. Bring fruit to a rolling boil. Add the pectin-honey mixture. Sit vigorously. Return fruit to a boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat.

5. Fill your jars up with the deliciousness and set back in your big water pot. Boil for 10 minutes to seal the cans.

6. Let the jam sit for a week of so, if you can wait that long, then enjoy.

Yum Yum.

I grow good grass.

I inherited a garden. It is HUGE. It is maybe 50 by 100 feet. It is too big for me and my schedule. You live and learn. Next year I will do it differently, I think raised beds and much, much smaller. Right now I am growing a lot of very lush beautiful grass. As well as some delicious veggies and raspberries.

Papa foxtrot asked me if I remembered how proud I was when I got the earth turned back in April. Of course I do. It felt so good, it was soft and brown and smelt oh so good. I had blisters on every finger and I didn't care. Foxtrot ate chicken poop out of the garden and helped pull weeds. It was delightful. Who knew six weeks of full time college courses would result in an abundance of weeds along with spinach, arugula, and radishes that would go to seed? Well I suppose I should have know this.

We have now had what feels close to "summer" weather for the last two weeks. . . temperatures in the high 70's and no rain. So a watering we will go.

I have had many a delicious salads with all ingredients straight from the garden. My favorite combination is kale, swiss chard, onions, broccoli, carrots, beets, and raspberries. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. Sounds good. No dressings needed. We are now picking snow peas and bush beans. I've got dill shooting up, I see dilly beans in our future. Every day I eat fresh carrots, dirt and all, which are significantly more tasty than any grocery store carrot. Khol rabi, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts, oh my. The zucchini and red cabbages are on their way. The corn is no way near an elephant's eye, but maybe his thigh. I've got pumpkins for the fall. Some melons shooting out. . . but I don't think the growing season will be long enough.

Foxtrot loves the raspberries as he only has two teeth and I think they are both 'sweet teeth.'

Here are some iphone photos.

he did eat goat poop today because he thought it was blueberries.

kale

swiss chard

broccoli

red cabbage

zucchini 

khol rabi

foxtrot eating berries

and after a long day in the garden all farmers need a nap

Mount Rainier

Papa Foxtrot climbed 14,410 feet to the summit of Mount Rainier in mid July. He had been training for the climb during the spring with a 50 pound jug of water on his back. He climbed stairs, hills, ski mountains, and other local peaks. The team of 12 climbers (4 of them being ladies and half the climbers were over the age of 55) left for the top on July 17th and came down on the 20th. They cooked, slept, and pooped on glaciers. Papa Foxtrot even celebrated our three year wedding anniversary at 14,410ft. The group left for the final ascent at 12:00am on July 19th. When he came down, after a long embrace, I asked him, as he was still heavy breathing, 'how was it?' He said 'hard!, there was NOTHING easy about it.' Last week I asked him if he would do it again. He of course said yes. I thought it was something I wanted to do, but when I saw the photos, I KNEW it was something I wanted to do.

 Summit morning

 At the apex

on the way down

The last morning on the mountain

 the gear

 hero shot

the group of climbers

just one of the many hazards

So, here is the 7,894,621st reason why papa foxtrot is so dang awesome. And maybe because I am married to him, my cool factor went up a bit.