canning sux but other things are nice

So much for my vision of myself as a garden-harvesting fruit-canning supermom.

First, we left several bags of plums in the front hall for a week.

Hi, spoilage.

Then, a few days ago, I culled 2lbs and made jam. It was delicious. I didn’t try to preserve it. Just put it in a jar and ate it by the spoonful. Suuuuper yummy.

Emboldened, I decided I would make a double recipe today, and actually use canning equipment. I have all the stuff, from my first attempt, during our first plum harvest four years ago.

Needless to say, it didn’t go well. Four hours, one completely burnt stove, one melted silicone hot mit, three measley jars semi-tipped over in the too-big rack and not quite processing properly in not quite boiling water in a giant pot and then I cooked the jars for 15 minutes so that there was actually some boiling and then they tipped over (are they not supposed to do that) and I couldn’t get them out of the water… But they did make those great popping sounds, so maybe I did okay?

It’s probably going to only be “refrigerator jam” for me from here on out. Unless I take a class, or go somewhere that has a super stove and… something.

* * *

We took this video of Jonah recently. He’s been enjoying learning the alphabet. The song, I’d mentioned, but also now his alphabet floor mat (which had been put away after it’s less than successful introduction around his first birthday wherein it mostly served as a completely inappropriate teething prop) and his new set of alphabet magnet letters, and even the “J” on my necklace — which I tell him is for Jonah, of course.

He’s also obsessed with riding on the bus.

We shot this with the tiny camera in the top edge of Scott’s laptop monitor. So the “moment of discovery” is Jonah actually noticing that he’s basically on TV. Oh and the temporary blackout is Scott’s thumb on the tiny video lens. And yes, those are my lovely feet.