the loving is good

First of all I must thank you all so much for the love and well wishes. I’ve been overwhelmed with all of your kind words and encouragement during these waiting days. Each and every one has meant so much to me. I am humbled by the incredible community I’ve been blessed with here. Thanks, friends.

It’s been life (almost) as usual while we await our new arrival. I’ve been a little crankier, quite a bit slower and am finding the stairs a little more tiring but mostly I’m trying to keep some semblance of patience and normality.

Dan may argue that “semblance” would be a stretch as I’ve been finding more time for napping, knitting and perhaps moaning but my family is taking good care of me, including my mom who has flown in from the East Coast.

Amidst that semblance of normality we’ve been happily keeping up with our canning plans (the plans loosely being to put away as much as possible).

So this week we did more of the same, drunken cherries and cherry jam, along with a very exciting first – raspberry jam.

The raspberries were a special treat because we don’t grow our own and have never bought more than a pint or two at the farmer’s market due to their price. But at closing time last week Dan passed the right booth at the right time and got 10 lbs for a mere $5. They definitely needed some sorting through but in the end we only lost a small amount to the compost bin. The kids were even excited about the score – alerting random strangers to the great deal we got on raspberries. I love those kids.

The first batch of cherry jam (which I mentioned here) was quickly disappearing but we bolstered our reserves this week and now we have a whopping 24 jars – not including the 3 or 4 jars that have already been enjoyed. Unfortunately I didn’t cook the second batch quite long enough so it’s a runnier jam but it was still delicious drizzled over this morning’s fresh biscuits.

So here’s my tally:

purchased: 10 lbs of raspberries, $5

yield: 16.5 cups of jam using a simple recipe of a 3:2 ratio of raspberries to sugar along with the zest and juice of one lemon

purchased: 32.5 lbs of cherries, $60 ($1.85/lb)

yield: 11 – 500ml jars of drunken cherries prepared in a simple syrup with a splash of kirsch

10 jars of cherry jam once again using this recipe

While we’ve been stocking up for winter (and for plenty of Christmas giving) we’ve been enjoying the great bounty of summer. Our fingers are sticky with apricots, our teeth stained with blueberries, our chins dripping with cherry juice…Come to think of it a lot of things are stained with cherry juice these days and we’re loving it.

How are you loving these summer days?