birds and book, day 210 (also apricot preserve day)
Truly my subject lines are just misleading sometimes though, on reflection, I will be posting bird photos... But my time for, or dedication to reading have been oddly limited of late; it could be that Seymour is just not destination reading. I'll finish it, however, just so I can move on to something else. I'm not sure what that's going to be but I'll hope it's more enthralling.
Not that it would have mattered today for today we collected 24 pounds of apricot seconds and made preserves. Last year the seconds were pretty indistinguishable from firsts; this year they were definitely good for jam but likely not much else. The preserves, however, are excellent and it was, as ever, a delight to serve, along with elijah_brown in Madame Gradka's Factory, even if we were worried first about not having enough sugar (reducing the amount in each batch by 2/3 of a cup allowed us to squeak by and the fruit was so sweet this time that reducing the sugar was a good idea anyway), then about lacking sufficient lemon juice (the one lemon in the house turned out to be juicy enough to bring us up to the necessary 20 tablespoons), and finally a jar crisis (a search through the refrigerator and shelves to find canning jars being used for other purposes saved the day; we fortunately had overpurchased lids last time out). The current recipe for Apricot Preserves
just shy of six pounds of apricots (roughly 35 apricots of varying sizes)
2.5 cups of sugar
just shy of 2/3 cup of water
5 tablespoons lemon juice
Bring water and sugar to boil; simmer until clear(ish). Add half the apricots (split in half and pitted); cook at low boil(ish) until apricots are falling apart. Add remainder of apricots and continue cooking until apricots are fallen apart/look a lot like preserves. Stir in lemon juice and cook an additional five minutes. Ladle into sterilized jars and seal up tight.
One thing that delayed the start of the jam-making was that we forgot a critical (nonjam-related) item when at True Value buying jars. When we went into the yard, though, we remembered: ladybugs! The plum, which has been having a rough year of it, has developed a serious case of aphids. We headed back to the Junction, carrying a jar of last year's jam to give to the sales clerk we'd seen half an hour earlier, and purchased a container of ladybugs to be released onto the tree at dusk. They weren't frozen and weren't really as asleep as all that; many of them crawled out onto the neighboring leaves as soon as the container was opened. God knows there's plenty for them to eat so I'm hoping they stick around to eat, procreate, and raise their young, clearing up the aphid problem in the process.
Birds
American goldfinches
house finches
house sparrows
black-capped chickadees
pine siskin
crows
pigeons
Book
Seymour An Introduction (page 175)
Today's harvest of preserves (roughly 57 cups worth of sunshiny apricot goodness)
Madame Gradka trusts her workers.
The other highlight of day: hanging the hummingbird feeder that Eli crafted out of an old grappa bottle and some bits of copper pipe and wire; hello, lady hummingbirds! (Male hummingbirds also welcome.)
Today's rolypoly young finch; she seemed to be just learning to eat on her own.
This is one of the photos I took through the kitchen window last week--sadly it was just as blurry as I'd feared it would be. Damned wavy old window glass.
Not that it would have mattered today for today we collected 24 pounds of apricot seconds and made preserves. Last year the seconds were pretty indistinguishable from firsts; this year they were definitely good for jam but likely not much else. The preserves, however, are excellent and it was, as ever, a delight to serve, along with elijah_brown in Madame Gradka's Factory, even if we were worried first about not having enough sugar (reducing the amount in each batch by 2/3 of a cup allowed us to squeak by and the fruit was so sweet this time that reducing the sugar was a good idea anyway), then about lacking sufficient lemon juice (the one lemon in the house turned out to be juicy enough to bring us up to the necessary 20 tablespoons), and finally a jar crisis (a search through the refrigerator and shelves to find canning jars being used for other purposes saved the day; we fortunately had overpurchased lids last time out). The current recipe for Apricot Preserves
just shy of six pounds of apricots (roughly 35 apricots of varying sizes)
2.5 cups of sugar
just shy of 2/3 cup of water
5 tablespoons lemon juice
Bring water and sugar to boil; simmer until clear(ish). Add half the apricots (split in half and pitted); cook at low boil(ish) until apricots are falling apart. Add remainder of apricots and continue cooking until apricots are fallen apart/look a lot like preserves. Stir in lemon juice and cook an additional five minutes. Ladle into sterilized jars and seal up tight.
One thing that delayed the start of the jam-making was that we forgot a critical (nonjam-related) item when at True Value buying jars. When we went into the yard, though, we remembered: ladybugs! The plum, which has been having a rough year of it, has developed a serious case of aphids. We headed back to the Junction, carrying a jar of last year's jam to give to the sales clerk we'd seen half an hour earlier, and purchased a container of ladybugs to be released onto the tree at dusk. They weren't frozen and weren't really as asleep as all that; many of them crawled out onto the neighboring leaves as soon as the container was opened. God knows there's plenty for them to eat so I'm hoping they stick around to eat, procreate, and raise their young, clearing up the aphid problem in the process.
Birds
American goldfinches
house finches
house sparrows
black-capped chickadees
pine siskin
crows
pigeons
Book
Seymour An Introduction (page 175)
Today's harvest of preserves (roughly 57 cups worth of sunshiny apricot goodness)
Madame Gradka trusts her workers.
The other highlight of day: hanging the hummingbird feeder that Eli crafted out of an old grappa bottle and some bits of copper pipe and wire; hello, lady hummingbirds! (Male hummingbirds also welcome.)
Today's rolypoly young finch; she seemed to be just learning to eat on her own.
This is one of the photos I took through the kitchen window last week--sadly it was just as blurry as I'd feared it would be. Damned wavy old window glass.