I have been very busy this week. It’s Aldo’s fault, mostly.
Aldo mentioned to a lady at his work that I can and garden. She mentioned that she had a concord grape arbor that she does nothing with. Aldo just happened to say that, wow, his lovely wife makes jam and jelly and how we would just love some grapes. The nice lady ran home, picked about a metric ton of grapes and hauled them in the very next day. She mentioned to Aldo that she really likes jelly, as does her 83 year old neighbor who shares the arbor.
Aldo came home with a trash bag full of grapes. They filled the ‘fridge to the brim and the kitchen reaked with their heavy, heady grape scent.
After I gave a few pounds of grapes away, I still had a serious overflow of grapes and no place to put milk. I was not about to spend a whole day making juice, then jelly. I told Aldo that Nice Grape Lady and her elderly neighbor would have to be happy with jam.
Friday after the kids got on the bus I settled down to serious jam making. I put up 18 pints of grape jam, and still had grapes left. I composted them. Don’t tell Aldo. 18 pints is a LOT of grape jam. I used 10 pounds of sugar, used all the canning lids I had and have two tupperware containers of jam overflow in the ‘fridge for immediate use.
Saturday I took the kids and Botanist Neighbor to the composting workshop. For $5 we got a two hour composting education, an Earth Machine and, much to the kid’s delight, cookies and juice drink. I also got a little stab at fame by being (again slightly misquoted) in the local paper; news article. Note; I did not at any point throw our corn stalks or sunflower stalks in the garbage. I burned them.
Today I was surfing the web for home made Holiday Gift Ideas, and came upon this great blog, Hoogliart. She provided me with step by step cup cake instructions. Sarah saw me looking at them, ran and found some felt and requested I give cup cake making a whirl. Right away. Now. Please. With a “blueberry” button on top. After a few minutes, I had produced the universe’s ugliest, most lopsided felt cup cake. Sarah was delighted.
I think that without an anxious 6 year old audience, a litle more time and some nicer colors I could make a dozen or so much better looking ones to give as gifts this season. For today, however, my play food adventures are over. I am going to hang out some wash and go take a nap!
2 Comments
October 7, 2007 at 9:16 pm
I like the lumper, it’s sweet (which is the point, is it not?)
mmm grape jam! I am truly in awe of your skillz, seriously.
October 18, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Hey it looks great! I like the blueberry on top! Making little pretend food is so fun, we play with our pretend cupcakes just about everyday.