Photographic evidence

Back from camping, and evidence that Cobblestone is done, blocked and used:

Posing on a huge eucalyptus log (site of many campground games)


And in action, with my sister being Running Woman:






The camping trip was great, although my most apparent souvenir is a walloping head cold. Cold or no cold, laundry goes on -- camping trips seem to about quadruple the amount produced. Fortunately it's a lovely day here to hang out lots of wet clothing.

It's good to be home.

Specs: Cobblestone, by Jared Flood
12 balls of Debbie Bliss Aran Tweed in color 06
size 7 needles
Mods: went down a needle size on cuffs; added waist decreases

I'd go down an additional 10-15% in the sleeves and perhaps the body as well -- it's definitely a guy's sweater, and she's thin enough that it's a big sweater to wear over other shirts. Good for camping!

16 cups

. . . or maybe 18. At any rate, enough for three full batches of blackberry jam. And the price? Free, well, except for the slashed hands from huge thorns and the whining perpetrated by children who don't love berry picking as much as their mother and aunt. We walked to the first patch.


I kept thinking, "A woman's reach should exceed her grasp, else what's a berry patch for?" and then realized I'd feel like an idiot if I fell face-first into a thorny bush on a fairly busy street.

It wasn't as full of berries as I'd hoped. So, after getting everything we could reach, we headed out to a soccer field we remembered as having lots of berries last year. This year? It was better. By standing on a metal trash can, my sister and I could reach the fat, thumb-sized berries. Talk, talk, talk, pick, pick, pick. We share enough brain to mean that when one of us says, "Now, Sal" to the reaching-for-a-berry-in-the-bowl child, the other one says, "Mother wants to can the berries for winter," and we dissolve in laughter while the child stalks off in high dudgeon.


Best quote of the day was when my sister said, "If we get stuck in the woods, we eat Thing 2 first," because she was whining so actively.

We may actually go back in a week for more. "Too much" and "blackberries" don't actually work together for me. Maybe this time we'll do it solo. It might be worth paying Miguel the Wonder Sitter for some peace and quiet. I wonder if he'll take jam as payment?


This is the jam hoard before the jars of blackberry. There's yellow plum, red plum, strawberry, and a couple of precious ollalieberry jars. Every once in a while, a child will insist that we have "enough" jam, and I stop to think. Am I being crazy about making jam? Every time I see a glut of fruit, I think, "Preserve it!" so there definitely is a bit of knee-jerking going on. But it's more than that. In these jars, I see a Christmas free of shopping either online or out in the world; I see ounces of summer sunshine vacuum-sealed under a two-piece lid; I see something done ourselves instead of shipping it out to a company "out there;" I hear me saying, "Go downstairs and pick a jar" to a child when we've scraped the last of the open jar onto some homemade toast.

Not infrequently at all, when I'm buying yet another dozen jars, someone will stop me and ask me if I'm making jam. "Why yes," I answer, and usually can't help myself, adding, "It's really easy and fun." Most times I get some variation on why the person can't, and how much they wish they could.

I feel like a member of a secret underground society -- those who read the recipes in the pectin boxes! And I get kind of sad. I know I tend to jump right into things, but come on, people, it's jam, not home appendectomy! There are even classes if you're into being taught things that people used to just do. [Wonder if they'd hire me to teach home bread baking -- strangers often act like I'm a Dark Arts practitioner when they hear I make bread.]

Generally, I'm a really optimistic person. And I don't know where the world as a whole is going right now, although it seems to be heading for some difficult times. I just have a pretty strong feeling that I'm not going to be as much of an outlier, jam-wise, in the coming years.

I just hope there's room on the soccer field for me then.

Word to the, well, not so wise

Note to self: When you're running around, making bread, hanging out a load of laundry, doing another load, picking up, and getting ready to make jam with your sister this time, maybe it's not such a good idea to push the wire-surrounded clothes hamper with one foot while also putting more than half your body weight on that foot.

Trying to pull out the stuck foot while hopping off balancedly on the other foot was both painful and funny. The only person who would have utterly understood and also found it funny is my sister, because she does things like this too.

She just said to me, "It's a wonder we have even survived to reproduce. Maybe that's why the birth thing is so easy."