Jamming/ School & Blackberries

 Jamming/ School

 My summer is almost over.  Last month I began going back into my classroom one or two times a week to slowly start getting things ready for the coming year, but now that it's August the pace is picking up.  Next week my teacher meetings begin, by Thursday my room must be ready for Back to School Night and I attend a workshop on Friday.  The following Monday my new crop of 4th graders files in.  And it begins.

    This is as it should be, and I'm grateful that in these tough times for education I don't have to worry about losing my job.  Even so, I'm going to miss the luxury of having so much time to wander around Frogpond with my camera in my back pocket and my eyes open to all the stories that are unfolding in this little world.  Gone too, will be the large swatches of solitude so helpful in getting my thoughts sorted out as I write.  Once school starts, all the empty spaces neccesary for any sort of creativity become so filled to overflowing that there is little room or energy to do or think of much anything else.  That's just the way it is.  So I'm realistic enough to know that I won't be posting here as often. 

    That said, my plan is to carve out enough time for myself to keep this blog going.  My grand hope is to gradually move on from writing Frogpond summer stories, to autumn and then winter stories.  If I make it all the way through to spring stories, it will be a victory indeed...There's more to life than summer (just ask a grasshopper - or an ant) and I'm setting my sights on writing my way through the seasons.  You heard it first here, folks! 

But, for now, it's back to another summer story about...can you guess?  No, not ducks!  This time it's about...



Jamming/ /Blackberries

I've sent a giant Bronx cheer to all the poison oak out there and gone out blackberry picking again - both on the dam (where the poison oak is) and below the dam (where the mud waits to suck me down and the ticks are lining up to hop aboard).  Who would not be seduced by such plump beauties weighing down every thorny branch?  Who would not risk life and limb for this?  Obviously not me.





{Come to think of it, I know who isn't tempted by all this bounty.  The birds.  The hoards of  little feathered pigs that call Frogpond home aren't the least bit interested in the masses of ripe blackberries.  I have a theory that this is because they're ruining their appetites from eating all the plums in the orchard by taking exactly one sharp peck out of each one and then dropping the rest of it for me to step on. Or because they pick off every single last baby fruit from my carefully watered squash plants, just as it forms. After stuffing themselves on everything I've laboriously struggled to grow in my garden, they're full.}  








The blackberry picking was fairly uneventful this time.  I (ever wishing to make a bold fashion statement) decided that this time it would be a good idea to wear my black rubber muck boots.  The idea was that they might protect my legs a bit from being brushed by poison oak (the gauze bandage in the picture is covering my first encounter), plus boots would stay on my feet better than clogs while standing in the mud below the dam. As it turned out, they weren't needed: I was so hyper-aware of any and all poison oak that I never got anywhere near the stuff, and the sea of mud has almost completely dried up in the heat of these past few weeks.  And all the ticks must have been off on a picnic on someone else, because not one visited me.



 This time I had the able assistance of Mulligan who bravely came down to the lower pasture and kept me company.

In less than an hour I decided we'd picked enough (besides, it was getting hot in those boots and the cat was laughing at me).

After a much needed cup of tea, I commenced jam-making.  Berries are messy fruit to work with, but they are quick to prepare.  The kitchen went from this....











...to this in short order.  That's my kind of cooking!  It's also an immense satisfaction being able to cross "Make Blackberry Jam" off my summer to-do list.

{Now I just have to weave 12 scarves, clean out the garage, hose down the barn, finally actually get up on the horse and finish weeding the herb garden.  Before next week.

Or not.}






Crackers with Blackberry Jam on Homemade Chevre Cheese






Before I end, here is yesterday's breakfast:

(because it's made from wild berries, the jam is rather seedy.  Even so, it's got a lovely, tart flavor.  Just be sure to brush your teeth well afterwards)






                                                       I've got to say, it's been a fine summer!