A Taste of June

As Ski mentioned, Curly Girl, Lyd, Iz and I went berry picking.
Silly me, I forgot to bring a camera.
We were there for 3 hours I think. Iz picked about 20 berries and grew tired. We had to hunt for them. Curly and I were constantly being asked...."Is this one good?" when we were halfway down a row from them. I had never gone berry picking before so this was completely new for me. Oh wait, there was one time when my mom made us pick elderberries off of an highway exit ramp. And of course, my grandmother always had blackberries to pick at her house. But I had never been STRAWBERRY picking. We had no clue. But, once we got hunting, we figured out which ones were good to pick. The worst part of it was that none of us tasted any of these berries until after we were done. We went along drooling like mad over these luscious looking things. It was a HOT day. I did bring water along, but I left it in the car. I basically picked two gallons and Curly picked 1 3/4 gallon. Iz and Lyd ended up playing on swings. When we finally had our 4 gallons, we went to pay and then went out back to wash a few off to try. Oh my!!!! They were the sweetest berries that I have ever had!!!

I immediately made 2 pies for Ski's birthday.
I also thought perhaps I would make some jam. I called a friend for pointers and she invited me over. Since the next day was Ski's birthday, we decided the following day would work. Turned out her dd was sick so I couldn't come over. So.....since I am adventurous, I decided that this jam really needed to be made so I did it myself!! I really can't believe that I did it. I had no clue what I was doing. My mother made elderberry jelly out of the TONS of berries that we picked. It took so long to take them off of the clusters that I did not stick around for the jelly making. So I was flying blind, but my friend answered my questions and I am grateful for that. I did not take pics of the process because I felt like I was doing 100 things at once so you just get an after shot :) I am so proud of my jam!!! Well, actually, it is Ski's jam for his birthday. It jelled and it is soooooo good! I only had two jars that didn't seal so Ski is happily eating it. YUM!!!



My other berries are frozen except for some that are saved for company. Now I just have to decide what to make. More pies or shortcake. Mmmmmmm!!!