Spring, Farming, and Projects!

Life gets a little busy at times for any mom, but I regret that I haven't had time to blog lately. I've been busy with a lot of little (and some big) projects, kids and work. Eric is busy out in the field and on the farm, and I am busy with refinishing furniture, painting bedrooms and the bathroom, and keeping up with the house and gardens. We've spent very little time outdoors until a week ago because it rained almost every day. Now that it is nice, it is hard to sit still knowing that there is so much to be done!

 

Memorial Day 2014

 

Clara's birthday was a lot of fun. We did a farm theme, of course. I'm shocked I hadn't done that one yet! The cake took me FOREVER, or at least 3 hours. And Clara got a nice black eye for all of her birthday pictures with a minor incident on the stairs. But all in all, I'm really enjoying this whole throw a big birthday party thing. Let's hope I outgrow this phase in a year or two.

 

 

 

 

 

The kids really enjoyed the piñata... except that they couldn't break it. A bunch of little girls vs. piñata equals an adult needing to get involved.

 

 

Memorial Day was enjoyable.  There are a lot of birthdays in the month of May, so a lot of time was spent with family this month. Family is such a joy, and I truly appreciate how close we all are on both sides.  I took some pictures of the girls on Memorial Day with their red, white, and blue outfits because they were so cute in coordinating colors.

 

 

 

I will have to post some pictures later of the furniture and house projects. I have been having a lot of fun with a coffee table and television cabinet. I'd bought these two units for sale at the Crawford Furniture liquidation, and they weren't quite the right stain color. So I sanded with an orbital power-sander, stained, and sealed... I've never done any of that before so it was quite a learning experience!

 

We also bought a Hoosier Cabinet: 

 

 

If you're like me and not familiar with Hoosier Cabinets, Wikipedia can explain it to you. It is in good condition, and I was really excited to get it home, cleaned up, and stocked with some of our overflowing kitchen items that I never seem to find a good home for.  We'll eventually put this in our new kitchen or pantry area when we get to that house remodeling project.

 

We haven't planted our vegetable garden yet, but hope to do that soon. I did buy some rhubarb (about 14 pounds of it!) and made rhubarb sauce.  I froze the rest, and intend to make a few (or several) batches of strawberry-rhubarb jam, which Eric claims is better than regular strawberry jam.  More precious than gold, I realized last year, when he hoarded it and wouldn't let me give any away! 

 

 

Happy Spring!

 

 

Red Raspberry Jam

I really enjoy picking fruit.  I mean, what could be better than being out in the sunshine picking fresh beautiful berries and bringing it home to make yummy stuff like pies and jams?  So far this year, I've picked strawberries in June, and blueberries and raspberries in July.  I drag my girls along with me, so I rarely pick for more than an hour. 

A couple of weeks ago, my dad and sister went with us to pick raspberries.  It's been a hot summer, so the berries we picked were some of the few left on the bushes.  Here is step-by-step how I made raspberry jam:

I washed the berries and put them in a pot to mash one cup at a time.  Added pectin (I buy Certo boxes) and followed the directions on the box. 

The recipe is the same on the box as it is in this You Can Can! book.  Yes, I can can, can you?

I stirred the raspberry jam, while heating.  Once it boiled, I added the sugar all at once.  Make sure you have enough sugar on hand!  This recipe took 6 cups!  I often do double batches.  You'll get diabetes just looking at 12 cups of sugar.

While your jam is "cooking," put some lids in hot water to keep warm and start your water bath canner boiling.  Clean your jars.  I often run my jars and rings in the dishwasher on sterilize and try to time it so that they are hot and ready at the right time.  You could also just boil your clean jars in the canner.

Check on the kiddos.  Yup, Clara is still sleeping.

Anna is watching cartoons...

Uh oh, Anna decided to come check out what mommy's doing.  "Mommy doing?"  Here, play with some alphabet fridge magnets.  Later, I resort to throwing canning jar rings on the floor for her to play with.  She likes to put them on her wrists and ankles.

Put your raspberry jam into the hot, sterilized jars.  Fill to the right height on the jar, according to the recipe.  Beautiful!

Get the lids out of the hot water to place on the jars.  I use a magnet stick, which came in a canning kit.  Oops, the end of it melted because it was resting against the hot canner.  Make sure you don't do that! 

Put the lids on and screw the bands tight, but no need to crank it.  Put them in the canner and process 5 minutes, according to your recipe instructions.  Make sure you time it from when the water begins to boil again.

Dishes to wash.  But before you know it, the timer goes off and your jam is processed.

Remove jars and place on a wire rack.  My favorite part is listening to the lids pop as they seal.  It is so satisfying!

Clara is still sleeping.  What a good baby!

With a little bit of work, you can put up plenty of jam for a year's worth of toast, waffles, and bagels.  Eric especially loves homemade jam.  He even gets pretty possessive over it, so I have to make extra for family and friends to give away (and sneak it to them).  Strawberry and raspberry are his favorites, but I've made peach jam, too.  Blueberries I'd rather just freeze and make pies and other desserts from.  Oh what fun!  Next time I'll post about making pickles.  Stay tuned!