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| Looking west across the north field |
Even
as I write, I’m eating tasty sweet elderberry jelly on crackers. Wish you were
here.
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| "Motley Crew" |
I
made three batches of jelly on Wednesday using MCP pectin -- 3 cups elderberry
juice, ¼ cup lemon juice, and 4 ½ cups sugar. Taking MCP’s word for it, the
result was 15 cups of jelly. I had to finagle in order to put together enough
jars, and they stand a motley crew of various shapes and sizes. I was short
jars and regular rings, so I “robbed Peter to pay Paul,” removing rings from
jars already sealed. I also scraped open jars of jelly in the fridge into non-jelly
jars. There’s no reason not to buy more jars and rings. I just failed to
realize I would make so much jelly.
I
was tired as I made that third batch of jelly. Mistakes will happen when one is
tired, but nothing bad happened with the jelly. The trouble happened as
I made an Impossible Pumpkin Pie for dessert. When it came time to add the spices,
I decided to empty several small containers of pumpkin pie spice. As I measured the spice, I noticed one
container was lighter than the others but thought nothing of it, assuming it
was just my homemade blend.
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| Toward Little Canyon from under the maple |
As
the pie was baking, I gathered two small zucchini from my garden and set about
making my favorite zucchini mélange. That’s when I discovered I had
inadvertently used up the allspice in the pumpkin pie. A little allspice goes a
long way, so the pumpkin pie is spicy but not ruined. And as for the zucchini
mélange, which calls for a small amount of allspice, I substituted cinnamon and
it was different but good.
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| The Family Home in 1959 -- not so pretty now |
As
we left town on Tuesday, I called the roll of necessary items: phones, laptop,
iPad, iPod, glasses, camera, etc. I never would have thought to say, “dog food,”
but we had walked off without it even though it was packed and ready. This
kind of thing will happen, let me tell you. We had just enough dog food on hand
to feed Bess and Nell Tuesday night, so Mike went to Orofino Wednesday
afternoon to buy some. As he left the yard, I realized he wasn’t driving to
town. He was riding the 4-wheeler. I could just see the headline in the
Clearwater Tribune: “Warnock cited for riding 4-wheeler through town.” However,
he returned in good time, saying that he stayed off the main drag and no one
gave him a second look. He had ridden through my old neighborhood (Brown
Avenue) where he encountered swarms of blue aphids, and I was reminded of how
thick they were there back in the day. I guess some things never change. But other things do
change. He said that the old family home as well as the neighborhood in general
is looking really rundown. I know this is true, so I seldom go there,
preferring to remember it as it was.
And
as evening approached, we torched the slash pile above the lane. It was hard to
start and Mike admitted it didn’t have enough small stuff to ignite. He said he
wished Hallie were there to get it going. “Find some twigs,” he said; “that’s
what Hallie did.” So I picked up twigs and pieces of light bark, and the
bonfire was soon burning merrily. 
It’s good that we burned when we did. It
rained lightly at bedtime and when we got up, it was foggy. KW
Aww! That's sweet that Dad recognized my twig gathering efforts as helpful. I figured he would have just thought I was fooling around.
ReplyDeleteI am impressed that you made 3 more batches of jelly. We will resupply your jar reserves. Did you have to pick more fruit?
No, he said, "We need Hallie here. She built a hot fire."
ReplyDeleteYour dad was willing to pick more berries, but I said I thought we had enough juice. I pulled the two "quart" jars out of the freezer and thawed them. I had forgotten that I also froze a pint jar, but I discovered it, and that's what prompted the third batch. I added hawthorn berry juice to make three cups.
My jelly is very firm, which doesn't matter to me as long as people are not disappointed in the taste. But next year I'll use Pomona's Pectin and add more sugar.
I've driven by your old home many times the last year and more, and each time I'm so sad. I told Dan it makes me want to buy it and fix it back to what it was. I don't understand how people can treat houses so badly. And such a wonderful house as that one.
ReplyDeleteHi Chris! Nice to see you here.
ReplyDeleteThe old house was in need of maintenance when Mother moved in 1991. We were disappointed that the purchasers were people of mature years who bought it as a second home. They thought it was wonderful just the way it was. And now it appears to have lost its dignity, reminiscent of Hallie's Tudor. The thing is, the region is so depressed now that I don't believe it's apt to come back.