Jelly Weekend

Duane and I headed to Tingley this past weekend for our annual jelly making EXTRAVAGANZA!! It's a tradition I vowed to "keep alive" after my grandma Reynolds died a few years back. She "put up" wild plum jelly and strawberry jam for DECADES, and it was always a treat to descend the dark, creaky steps to the CRAMMED FULL OF EVERYTHING basement, to retrieve a jar or two to take home with us after our visits.

I USUALLY make wild plum jelly in her honor, but this year, the wild plum crop was NON-EXISTANT. It's a challenge EVERY year to find wild plums in the ditches along the gravel and dirt roads around town, but this year it was IMPOSSIBLE. Mom and dad have been looking for WEEKS, and only found ONE tree with just a few plums on it.

I've heard that the wild plum crop flourishes every OTHER year. We found a WONDERFUL thicket of wild plum trees last year (across the road from the cemetary featured in a previous, recent blog entry), but this year there wasn't a single wild plum on ANY of those trees. I'm hoping NEXT year we'll find the trees full of plums, once again.

Luckily, a few years back, I also started making crabapple jelly, because the tree in my parent's neighbors' yard is always JAM-PACKED ("jelly-packed"?) with these AMAZING, bright red, juicy crabapples, and because I like having two varieties of jelly to eat, and give as gifts. So...this year we JUST made the crabapple.

We got up bright and early Saturday morning to pick, stem, slice, boil, strain, boil again (with pectin), sugar, and jar crabapple jelly. We made FOUR batches (about 12 jars in each batch), and worked at it from 8:00 a.m. to about 9:00 p.m. (with breaks for lunch, dinner, and a trip to Mt. Ayr to buy a sofa...).

The AMAZING thing to me, it that we barely scratch the surface when picking crabapples from the tree every year. A few years ago, an Amish family came and stripped the tree bare. I have NO IDEA how they did it! They must have worked like CRAZY to get them all prepped for cooking and canning!

Here are some shots (courtesy of Duane!) of the process:

It was a TON of work, and my back and knees are STILL killing me, but I SO love doing this. It's stressful, but theraputic at the same time. I LOVE thinking that the jars of jelly on the counter were fruit hanging from a tree branch earlier that same day, and I LOVE keeping the jelly making tradition, carried out for DECADES by my grandmother, alive in our family.

I'm not sure HOW I managed making it before Duane was "in the picture". He was an AMAZING help, and it was really fun to do it together.

Here's hoping YOU have a family tradition that brings meaning to YOUR days, and that you find it as rewarding as I do!