It has been an especially long hiatus since my last post--almost a year, in fact. And so, there's much to catch up on. In early July, my dear friend Gwen came to Seattle for a visit and we went strawberry picking. We headed up to an organic farm about 45 minutes north of Seattle prepared to pick at least 3 or 4 pounds of berries. (We wanted some for eating and some to make a little jam) There was a man at the farm who showed us where to pick the strawberries. He pointed to the field we were standing in front of and said "Over here are probably the sweetest berries...", which made us raise our eyebrows in excitement. But no sooner were those eyebrows raised then a deafening explosion nearly knocked us off our feet. The man said, "Oh, that's just the bird cannon to scare off the birds...don't worry about it, it'll go off every few minutes". Then he pointed out the field furthest from the cannon, where the biggest berries were growing and we promptly set out for that field, determined to get there before the cannon knocked us down on its next explosion. It was not the most relaxing berry picking experience, particularly because every time the cannon went off we were both close to dropping our baskets of berries on the ground.In the end, we went back to the farm store with our berries, only to find that we had gotten carried away with our picking and, instead of picking 3 or 4 pounds of berries, we had picked 22 pounds of berries! Upon getting home, we started cooking down the berries as quickly as we could--we had a lot of jam to make! Making jam was hot, sticky, and tiring, but when we were done we had about 21 small jars of jam and a GIANT bowl of strawberries that we ate until we were all sick. 
Gwen, being somewhat allergic to strawberries, walked a fine line between enjoying her berries and breaking out in hives. When she left Seattle, we packed her a carry-on bag with 6 jars of jam, a jar of dried oregano from the garden, and some eggs from the chickens to take to her mother. It didn't occur to us that jam was considered a liquid and would not make it through security at the airport. And so, alas, all of Gwen's jam was seized by the airport security man who, though very apologetic, refused to take the jam and eat it himself. 6 jars of lovely jam into the garbage! Luckily, I was visiting Gwen in New York two weeks later and was able to pack bubble-wrapped jars in my suitcase which made it through the trip unscathed.
Gwen, being somewhat allergic to strawberries, walked a fine line between enjoying her berries and breaking out in hives. When she left Seattle, we packed her a carry-on bag with 6 jars of jam, a jar of dried oregano from the garden, and some eggs from the chickens to take to her mother. It didn't occur to us that jam was considered a liquid and would not make it through security at the airport. And so, alas, all of Gwen's jam was seized by the airport security man who, though very apologetic, refused to take the jam and eat it himself. 6 jars of lovely jam into the garbage! Luckily, I was visiting Gwen in New York two weeks later and was able to pack bubble-wrapped jars in my suitcase which made it through the trip unscathed. When I got back from New York, Eric and I were planning to go raspberry picking to make raspberry jam. Instead, we were at the vegetable stand near our house and raspberries were $3 for a big flat. We bought two flats and made quite a bit of raspberry jam to put up for the winter. This week, blackberries are in season and we're going out to a park nearby to pick blackberries for a third round of jam. We've got pears out on the tree in the front yard that are just about ready to pick. Last summer, we made apple-pear sauce that was hands-down the best applesauce I've ever had. It seems to be almost that time of year again. There's something really satisfying about canning food for the winter. Seeing all the jars lines up on the shelf with different colored foods inside, waiting to be eaten, ready to sustain you during the winter when fresh foods are harder to come by.
