Jelly Joy

The day Grandma and I made jelly was a little dark and a lot of rainy. This is the view out the kitchen window. If you look closely you can see the raindrops distorting the view.


Here are the berries Grandma pulled out of the freezer, still congregating in their frozen lumps as they slowly heat up on the stove. Raspberries from the yard and blueberries from the ski slope.


After the berries are hot they go into the squisher - otherwise known as the cone shaped colander that aids in the separation of the berry juice from all the other berry bits. It is prudent to stand as far from the squisher as possible when pouring the hot berries in, as the splatter will stain, and red spots aren't all that fashionable nowadays.


We canned the Raspberry - Blueberry juice to make into jelly later, but that is not necessary. We could have just made it straight into jelly. Instead we made this Salmonberry - Rhubarb juice into jelly, cause we could cook the Jelly while the other berries were heating up.


The first step, after juicing, is to add pectin, which is what makes the juice thicken into jelly. Then you heat it to a boil, all the while stirring hard enough to make your arms sore so it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot and burn.


Cups and cups of sugar are added into the hot juice. And the stirring continues. Never stop stirring!!! Nobody wants burnt jelly!


Before the jelly is put into the jars, the jars are heated in the oven and the lids boiled to sterilize them and help them seal.

Grandma turns the filled jars upside down for a couple of minutes to help with sealing.


After the jars are turned back over the next half an hour or so is interspersed with the soft metallic pops of sealing jars. A nice sweet melody accompanied by the symphony of raindrops on the roof. Sorry, didn't mean to wax metaphorical on you.

I think Jelly making is best on dark, rainy days. The kitchen feels so warm and cosy when you look out the window at the soft gray sky and the soggy fireweed fuzz.

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Later in the week we canned carrots, all of which came out of Grandma's garden. I spent several hours that day cutting up carrots at the table with Grandma. Just look at all of them. And carrots do not float!