Those strawberries have been sitting in the frig for three days and many were pretty ripe to begin with. We've put four of the flats in the freezer, tucked away in six gallon freezer bags ready for fruit smoothies, but the rest had to be dealt with. The girls started by pulling off the stems. They set up work areas at the table and worked upwards of two hours. I kept strawberries rotating through the wash water and back to my smashing-station before they went into the jelly pot.
After heating the mashed strawberries up, I added pectin, kept heating to boiling, and then added sugar. When the whole thing was boiling again, I ladled the jam into jars. Fifteen minutes in the boiling water canner and they were done.
While we were working indoors, my husband was working with that little Bobcat to clean up the manure. This is the second full day he's put in. It has been a big bigger mess than we realized.
After four or five hours on my feet, going hard, we have 24 jars of strawberry jam to show for our efforts. Tomorrow when they are thoroughly cool, they'll go into the cupboard.
When it was finished, I immediately started a cheese. Thankfully, cheese begins with warming up and letting it set for an hour. But then it was over and time to get up and stir cheese.
By 6pm I was exhausted and my knees ached, but walking out to check on my husband, I noticed the broccoli was starting to bloom. Ack! So I harvested everything and tonight I'll have to blanch and freeze all this. Oh, I'm so tired already.
My favorite
book on self-sufficient living says that this living can make for very long days. Boy, is she right!
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