SUMMER BERRY FEST

Beautiful Serviceberries

Several years ago, Hallie and her husband Nick located a blackcap patch in the “scrub” patch behind the house. Thursday she picked berries there. I wasn’t up to dealing with the heat of the afternoon, the grass-covered bank, the mosquitoes, the thistle, etc., and opted out, but I did wander back there around the edge of the upper field to check on her and found three bushes of wonderful plump serviceberries, ripe and ready to pick. “Tomorrow morning,” I said to myself.

When Hallie arrived back at the farmhouse, I realized she was determined to make jam – right now! I hadn’t quite expected that, so my kitchen wasn’t ready.

Serviceberry tree

“You have raspberry juice, yes?” she asked, forging ahead. She mashed the black caps, measured them (3 ½ cups), and we added 1 ½ cups of raspberry juice to make the required 5 cups of fruit. And then while she was cooking the magic elixir, I was running to keep up – measuring sugar, finding jars, finding lids, finding our canning tools, heating water. I don’t know why I didn’t suggest we take five minutes to get organized.

Backside of the grove

Hallie was stirring away at the stove, waiting for that second rolling boil, when out on the lawn there arose such a clatter that she sprang to the window to see what was the matter. “Oh no!” she exclaimed, her stirring forgotten as she ran outside and grabbed her dog Primo to keep him away from the baby rattlesnake. Mike was already there, and I kept an eye on the snake while he dashed to the woodshed for his snake tongs and bucket. Unfortunately, the snake slithered into the violet leaves and disappeared.

Back to the stove I ran, and the jam was boiling. It’s supposed to boil for exactly one minute, and I had no idea if it had just begun to boil or had already boiled for two minutes. I rather suspected the latter, so I turned off the heat. The outside excitement was over, we hoped, so we ladled the beautiful jam into prepared jars, put on the lids, and commenced to process the jars in the canner.

It turned out just fine. I think we had eight jars of beautiful jam. The jars all sealed, and the jam tasted great.

No easy way to get there

Hallie & Kathy pick serviceberries

This morning (Friday, July 12), I arose before 5:30 and got dressed. In fact, we all got up. We breakfasted on scrambled eggs, bacon, biscuits, and the new jam. And then we headed behind the house to pick the serviceberries, coming back with almost two gallons. It’s not easy to get to those trees, and I anticipate that next week it will be even more difficult because of the crop / weed development. Good that we picked now.

Kathy and Hallie

Full picker pails

Hallie left at 9:30, and then Mike and I also loaded up and headed to town. I brought the serviceberries with me to process into juice. I’ll make jelly on the next trip to the farm.