Jam making time

Yesterday I took my son berry picking at a field that is about 15 minutes from my home.  The weather was perfect and there were plenty of berries for us to pick.

When we left berry picking was closed for the day.

What I like about this berry patch is they charge you by the pound.  My son and I picked about 12 pounds and it was less than $20 US dollars.

I got to use my nifty little kitchen gadget for hulling strawberries. It works pretty slick.  Let me tell you though ... when you have that many berries you give up on the gadget and go right back to a trusty paring knife.  Things go so much faster. 

After a while I ended us using my Ninja blender to chop up the berries instead of slicing them by hand. So much faster.  The last batch of jam I made I pureed the heck out of the berries and called it good.  That batch turned out just fine. 

I was able to take my hot plate out on it's maiden voyage. It worked nice.  I had been debating on whether to set up the camp stove outside but then decided this was a perfect time to use the hot plate for the first time.

In the end I wound up with 12 jars of jam; three which are strawberry-rhubarb. One jar is missing because I made some bread so we could sample the jam.  Quite tasty, as always.

Other tidbits of news include: I've started knitting a dishcloth for a swap I joined this month.  Since I don't know if the person reads my blog I can't share any photos yet.

My son and Buck seem to have made nice.  Buck is letting himself be picked up and he's being a good boy.

Today my coworker and I walked to a new donut shop that opened up on the main street.  They were all sold out -- of everything.  I'm guessing they didn't expect the kind of support they got for their first day. Will try it again once they have a routine down.

Daily 5 things of the day that made me happy

1. Instead of canned chicken noodle soup tonite we had homemade chicken noodle soup.

2. Getting out for a walk today.

3. I made time for knitting this evening.

4. My son had a great time at daycamp today.

5. Freshly washed sheets.