3 A berry busy day

One of the best sounds in the world has to be the sound home canned jar lids make when they seal. It is so satisfying to be cleaning up after slaving in the hot kitchen for hours and then you hear the random 'pops'.
It looks good sitting on the counter in my now clean kitchen, but boy was it work.

Berry Prep:

• 1.5 hrs picking both berry patches
• 0.5 hrs triple washing berries in hand freezing water
• 1.0 hrs 'picking over berries' i.e. taking out the stems
• 0.5 hrs food processing berries
  

Double batch of Strawberry Jam: (1 hr)

• Start with largest pot I own
• Stir 2 boxes pectin into
  
• 10 cups food processor sliced berries
• Bring to a full, roiling boil
  
• Quickly stir in 14 cups sugar
• Bring back to roiling boil for 1 min
• Fill 14 pre-washed (pint & 1/2 pint) jars
• put on new, boiled flat & ring
• turn jars upside down for 20 min

Yes, you read right that makes about ONE CUP sugar PER jar of jam, and they were small jars, but boy is it GOOD!

Kitchen clean-up: (1 hr)

I left some of the sliced berries in a bowl in the fridge. It was divine on vanilla ice cream and we will have some with whipped topping on waffles in the morning. The rest of the berries went into two ziplock bags in the freezer to use later.

Oh, the voice is just hanging on my a thread, but I was able to get the lawn mowed.