For the last few years, I've been making more of an effort to forage for food, mostly for blueberries and raspberries. My past Augusts have been very, very busy for the most part. Imagine my surprise when I saw ripe raspberries the other day.Could it already be time? I wondered. And the blueberries? Are they ready, too?
While Balin took his morning nap, Arthur and I biked to a cluster of raspberries in our neighborhood and took a look. We brought a bucket just in case. We weren't disappointed: raspberries galore and plenty more that weren't quite ready yet! We picked for about a half hour and then rode back home.
We also went picking at a neighbor's house, promising her jam if she let us pick there (she didn't refuse). We took our second batch of picked berries home, added them with our first batch, measured them out, and then made some jam.
Now these boys like - no, love - jam. We made 17 half-pints last August and they were gone by January. It didn't help that Arthur ate several half-pints of jam by himself (by the spoonful) before winter even began. His jam-eating habits only rival my sister Becky's. She was known to spread cupfuls of jam on one slice of bread. The real magic of that feat was that somehow the bread never seemed to get soggy and the jam never fell off. This year I'm hoping that I will be able to can at least 25 jars of jam. This is in addition to the 10 bags of blueberries I hope to pick and 100 lbs of potatoes I hope to preserve. Oh, yes, and the rhubarb. And there might be halibut fishing. Now I just need to send the boys out to wrestle that moose that's always in our yard and we'll be set!
Blessed be.
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