I had to take a picture of the freshly canned jars of plum jam on my kitchen counter today. It is very satisfying to see them there…the finished product of a long afternoon of stirring, burning my fingers on hot jars and dried out hands from washing all my pots 3 times for 3 batches of jam. This all started a few days ago when I was rummaging through my freezer for some idea of what to cook for dinner. My freezer is a chest type that is very deep (in order to reach something at the bottom, my feet come off the floor), things can become lost in there, lurking at the bottom. So I was pleasantly surprised at finding some plum puree that I had made last Fall! (talk about procrastinating…heh) I looked at it, deciding it wasn’t freezer burned or too old, pulled it out to thaw and went looking for my canning equipment.
I haven’t canned anything in years….between summers here with no air conditioning, busyness at the beginning of Fall when I used to can stuff, and the high cost of produce here, it didn’t seem worth the effort. So when I was given a huge box of plums last Fall, I dove in washing, pitting and dicing plums for a couple of afternoons! Then I promptly put the puree in the freezer, thinking I would make jam when the weather got cooler…enter going to work every day last Fall and you have forgotten fruits.
Like the Little Red Hen, I asked each of my older kids if they’d like to learn how to can…..rejection. Maggie, my 8 year old, buzzed in and out of the kitchen wanting to help, but due to ill timing and boiling hot jam that needed constant stirring, my one willing helper was shooed off…..oh, the rejection. This all turned into a marathon jam event and by the third batch, I was slopping the sticky stuff into jars as fast as I could so I could rest.
I have to say though, that it was worth all the work to see the finished product, all pretty, lids pinging into preserving perfection, all lined up on the counter. My daughter commented that we still had some jars of jam in the cupboard and pulled out about 8 jars with handwritten labels on top: blueberry jam, applebutter, apricot. Now I know that the only jam I have canned since moving to Arizona is the applebutter, so that meant the other jars were over 8 years old! Gross! I threw those out, but let her open the applebutter. It was several years old, I know…but it was still sealed and made the appropriate poof noise upon opening, but it looked kind of iffy. I guess it was fine because she ate some and was fine, but I couldn’t bear to have any myself.
The fruit of my labor years ago was not very appetizing….kinda stale and funky, but there is a fruit that will never spoil and always looks good and pleasant to experience wherever it is cultivated:
Have you ever driven by a school around 7:30am on a Wednesday morning in September and seen a group of kids crowded around the flag pole? Did you know they were praying…..exercising their religious rights and praying for their school and classmates around the mainstay American symbol of freedom…their flagpole. Tomorrow is See You At the Pole 2005. Christian school kids in every city in the US are encouraged to get together to pray. It is an awesome thing to see, if you take the time to drive by your local school tomorrow around 7:30am. Last year, as a leader in our youth ministry, I decided to take pictures of the kids as they gathered around the poles at our high school and our middle/elementary school. I knew the kids from our youth group were planning to be there…but when I drove up to each of the schools, I saw a large crowd on each campus. Word had spread and there were a lot more than I thought there would be.
It is a powerful event….these kids are under attack every day, they not ‘allowed’ to share their faith or pray publicly at school. This event of gathering publicly to pray for their school and declare their religious freedom is not a popular thing from the enemy’s viewpoint. We need to pray for these kids as they make a bold stand this tomorrow…for their protection and that they will hold strong to their faith when adversity comes….because it will. And God will use it for good.
Once the weather gets cool, I consider it Fall. We get Fall weather here in the mountains earlier than normal. So I am already in the Fall mode….thinking about mums in my garden, looking for changing leaves, and rooting out my Fall recipes. Pumpkin bars, apple pie, soups, aaaaaaaaand the ever Fallish of Fall recipes….ginger snaps. We lived in New Jersey for almost ten years and every Fall we would go to the store and see tall stacks of orange boxes at the end of the grocery isles…..boxes of Sweetzel’s Spiced Wafers. By the second Fall we lived there, I had to buy a box of them since there were so many stacked up in every store you went to, that it made you curious as to what was so special about these cookies….well it made me curious anyway. From the first bite, they became my favorite cookie. They weren’t like other ginger snaps…..they were almost black with spices and hard as a rock, so you has to dunk them in your coffee or milk, which just added to their charm.
Sift together the spices, flour and soda. Add the dry ingredients to the molasses mixture. Mix well. Refrigerate overnight. When thoroughly chilled, form into small balls about 1 inch in width. Roll the top side of these balls in sugar. Place on greased or parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Makes approximately 6 dozen cookies.
I was called a spazz today.
It is beautiful Fall weather outside here....high 69, breeeeeeezy, crisp, leaves rustling, faint smell of a fire place in the air...mmmmmmm. It is so refreshing! I am sitting at the kitchen table, listening to Maggie read her story for the day...I'm only getting that it's about a frog and the 'tools' he has to help him swim and survive in water.
kids who don’t like pieces of onion in their food. I have a mini food processor that I grate onion up in and it almost liquefies it. You can use this method to add onion flavor to salsa, homemade salad dressings, soups, spaghetti sauce, meatloaf, potato dishes, omelets and anything else to which you normally add onion.
I found this meme on 
**Disclaimer** I apologize profusely for the music of my senior year. =(
Thank you for your prayers. We are going to be fine. As I told you, keep your prayers for the people who have nothing to start with. I do have a roof over my head but many are sleeping in tents. God is good. 
My pastor, who happens to be my husband, was preaching this morning. We have been watching coverage of the hurricane relief efforts and all the media hype that goes along with such a major event. So many people are pointing fingers saying it was God's wrath on New Orleans or they are blaming the government, judging the motives of relief workers, the President and FEMA. He said he thinks it is God's wake up call for American Christians....to wake up and see the desperate needs of each other and reach
I can’t believe we have not yet received information overload on New Orleans and the recovery effort there. We have had the television on to CNN and FOX news channels, almost constantly here, and I am held riveted to it. The news stations are doing a really good job of making this catastrophe personal….all the individuals they interview, the pictures of people walking around looking desperately for their loved ones, pictures of the squalor they were rescued from. The media is our link to the disaster….it compels us to donate, to pray, to feel for these people. The same thing happened when 9/11 and the tsunami in India were reported on. Trying to describe how catastrophic this is to my kids this morning as we had our devotions before starting schoolwork, I got this huge lump in my throat and tears in my eyes, having a hard time describing it to them out loud somehow made it more real to me.