What we did with the blueberries

We made jam! MMMmmmm!

A couple of weeks ago, I posted here about all the blueberries that we had picked. Well, last Thursday, we made blueberry jam. MMMMMmmmm. It is soooo good. I love blueberry jam.

The recipe we used is an old family secret. LOL Not really! It's the recipe in the Surejell instructions. It's super easy to make, doesn't take long and tastes so good.


I had my son doing the most fun part, which is squishing the berries. We don't use a food processor because what fun would that be? Instead, I have this old cone shaped metal thingy that I got at First Monday in Canton years ago. You put the berries inside and just start jabbing them with this cone shaped wooden thingy. It's a real stress reliever. When they're squished enough, you pour them out into a bowl.

Then, you cook them with the sugar etc. according to Surejell package instructions. We ended up with 9 jars. Some were the bigger jam jars and some were little bitty - like for giving as gifts.

Of course, there were berries left over. We ate a bunch of them and froze the rest. I love berry season.

Blueberry TIP: Here is a blueberry freezing tip that I got from Martha Stewart a few years ago. To get your frozen blueberries to maintain a nice round, just picked shape, lay them out single layer on cookie sheets after washing them. Put them in the freezer for an hour or so and let them freeze. Then, you can take them out, put them into gallon ziploc bags and they will stay nice and round.

Our Garden's Bounty and Huckleberry Finn

Well, my son said he wanted to grow cucumbers in our garden so that we could make pickles. I don't think either of us expected so many, so soon. Yikes! We are going to have alot of pickles. I'm going out today to see if I can find the seasonings we'll need. It's been awhile since I canned anything, so it will take me awhile to remember how to do it.

Our garden is really growing. We've already been able to pick some bell peppers and there are alot of tomatoes on the vine that aren't quite ready but YUMM when they are!

See my kitty. That's Sparky. She's my extremely mean and evil kitty. She decided to come outside and help me in the garden that day. She just recently got shaved, so that's why she looks alittle odd. She has really long cotton candy type hair - it's aweful!!!! So every summer, when she goes to the vet to get her shots, she also gets shaved and bathed (she is a mess by the time we get to the vet. She gets car sick, poops on herself - it's really gross.) She actually is way more friendly and even alittle nicer once she gets shaved. She's such a skinny minny without all her hair though. She only weighs 8 pounds.

And here's my pride and joy!!! Huckleberry Finn!! Yes, I know these pictures aren't very good. They are alittle blurry and grainy. All the really good pics I took had other kids in them as well, and I don't want to put their pics on the internet without parents permission. So I had to go with ones that I could crop to just show my son.

Last night was his school play/musical, "Tom Sawyer". It was AWESOME!! The cast of characters included kids from 3-4th grade as well as middle school. They all did such a fabulous job. I was so proud of them. Ben remembered all his lines and he projected so well. They had the little kids from K-2nd coming in to sing songs throughout the play and they were soooo cute. The music teacher did such a fabulous job with all these kids. What a hard job she has! If I had been her, I would have been a nervous wreck. She looked so composed though.

The first pic above shows him holding the box with the dead cat. He is talking to Tom (who you can't see) about how he is going to go to the graveyard to do a spell with the dead cat that will cure warts. He is asking Tom if he wants to go too - "of course, if you ain't afeard." "Afeard, says Tom, tain't likely." That was my favorite line of the play. LOL

The pic below is the graveyard scene. He's talking to Tom here also but again, I cropped Tom out.

I'm so proud of my boy! He worked so hard to memorize all his lines. We had such a great 4th grade year. Now school is out and it's time for summer fun!!

I have several projects in the works of things I'm going to be adding to my Handmade Whimzy shop. Some I'm still working out the details for - they are all sewn items. I'm very excited to be back behind the sewing machine!