Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Apricots, ginger and honey – jam!
Although we were just in the interior, we were too far North for cheap fruit purchasing and I was too exhausted in the hot drive home to want to add 5 hours to go via Keremeos (where we buy for canning every year). Instead we have opted for less-intensive canning and more small batches throughout the year which isn’t as cost-effective (by a long shot) but also isn’t so exhausting.
So, smaller recipes – which means more variety – including this sweetness I concocted last weekend:
(Please follow all safe-canning rules that you normally would: sterilize jars, etc. etc.)
Gingery Apricot Honey Jam!
Yield: 9 250-ml jars
10 cups of Apricots, pitted and diced small
2 cups of sugar
2 cups of honey
2 packages of no-sugar needed pectin
3 tbsp grated ginger
1 thin slice of ginger for each jar
- Add apricots, ginger, sugar and honey to a pot. Boil until you can crush the apricots down into a jam-like consistency and the sugar is dissolved.
- Add no-sugar needed pectin, bring back to a boil and let it hard-boil for one minute.
- Take off the heat and ladle into jars. Before putting a lid on the jar, put one thin slice of ginger atop your jam.
- Process in a boiling water bath 10 minutes.
Cape-let (sans hood).
One of the many great things about our recent vacation was that it involved a lot of sitting around on the beach and by the campfire. Which gave me a chance to finish crocheting this wool-silk-bamboo capelet for fall wear. Originally designed to have a hood, I didn’t like the way it looked and so I left the hood-piece as a large collar, finishing it with some turquoise edging and buttons to give it definition. As much as I think that ponchos and capes “make me look fat” I am in love with this warm top-layer and hope to give it lots of use in the fall. It is so warm! It still needs washing and blocking, but I won’t get to that for at least a week, and I wanted to share anyway.
This piece marks a major achievement in crochet for me: 1) I managed to follow a (strangely-written) pattern (with help from someone on Ravelry) 2) I made more than a scarf – this piece involved some actual shaping in the form of decreases and 3) I managed to complete this whole piece with only one missed stitch (which I corrected as soon as I found it). My goal for the winter is a sweater, and this was my “working up to it” piece. Very happy with how it turned out!
A little boat story.
On a trip down a logging road in the North-Interior, Brian spotted some access to a pretty little lake. Abandoning the car by the side of the road, we walked down the twenty-foot dirt track to find an excellent site for future camping. But even better than that was a boat, long-tied-up and full of water with the weathered oars sitting on the bank. Not daunted by the fact we had no bailer, Brian went to the car and got his travel coffee mug – which he used to great effect over half an hour or so (while I picked the wild blueberries which lined the shore). Once it was emptied out, it became apparent that the boat was not taking on water from below, and despite its rickety (and patched) nature, was still somewhat water-worthy. So we took it out fishing even though it wasn’t the best time of day for it. Later on in the week when our friends came to join us, we took them to the pretty little lake and they got to enjoy “our” boat too. It was a magical discovery, and I hope the next time we are up that way our find is still there, tied up to the shore.
Just one of our little vacation adventures….. more coming soon.
Vacation, partie deux.
This is a photograph from our last vacation – Hornby Island (Helliwell Park) – at the beginning of July. Tomorrow we start part two of the summer vacation tour which will take us up into the central interior of BC through 100 Mile House to Mahood Lake in Wells Gray Park. On our way home, we will traverse through Kamloops and then drop into the the southern borderlands to take our annual fruit/veggie buying trip in Keremeos before heading home through the agricultural heartland of the Fraser Valley. Thence shall follow several days of canning before taking another small trip south to visit a good friend.
The end of summer looms!
But before that – we have this next week to swim, fish, hike, camp, visit with friends who are joining us, and enjoy the bounty that is BC summer. I’ve never been to the area that we are going, but I’ll tell you all about it when we get back!
Dahlia bloom.
In my union capacity I just met with someone who is terminally ill and may not live past December. Thinking about the delicate and impermanent state of being human — the illusion that our lives are somehow up to us in the first place — and that despite our fitness regimes, health foods, and moralizing none of us get to choose when or how we die. We can only hope it’s with dignity when we do.
Red Cedar 