Strawberry Jammin'

Yesterday was my day to put up strawberries. Here in our small community there are several farms that sell berries. My dilemma came when I tried berries from two different farms only to find to my dismay that they were sour and tasteless. The other farm was way too expensive. I happened to mosey over to our local nursery (who also has a farm) and they had some of there berries for sale. I sampled one and to my delight it was sweet. To put the icing on the cake or the strawberry on the shortcake, they were reasonable priced (well, as reasonable as $15 a flat can be).I love this jar. I called them a few days later and ordered 7 flats. Thursday morning rolled around and I headed up to get my berries and other needed supplies. I had to go to three places (and in our small town, 3 was about all there was and that was pushing it). Sometimes I just hate buying things here. Everything is just so much more expensive. I cannot wait for Walmart to get here (yep, our small town is supposed to get a walmart next year). So, anyways, after purchasing the much needed supplies, and berries I headed home to get started. Kat blew out her soccer shoes on Wednesday and has a tournament this weekend so she went with my hubby to buy new ones yesterday (how does she manage to get out of hard labor?). Does anyone know how stinkin expensive soccer shoes are? VERY!! They went to a "soccer" store in Portland called Tursis (hubby bought stuff for Nans team there). She found a pair that were $180 regular price, then they were half off. Hubby went up to the counter and asked if that was the best price they could do...(they dropped them down to 76.00). Way to go hubby!!

Nan was a huge help. She helped with every step there was!

I am getting way off track with strawberries. Sorry....back on board! I got busy washing berries and readying spots on the counter. A spot for slicing and bagging, and a spot for jamming! A friend was coming over to help us out. I showed Nan how to do the jam and honestly she did most of it herself. She helped stem the berries, I crushed them (in my blender....way quick and easy) and then she did the rest, even setting the timers and mixing the pectin.

The temptation was too great. She dipped her bread in the fresh jam and ate it!!

I like to use Sure Jell pectin. It's the one I've had the most success with. It almost seems fail proof. I've tried different brands but was never quite happy. I know everyone has their favorites, this is just mine. We started at 10:45 and I was done by 3:00 and that was taking a few breaks. When all was said and done, we had 21 jars and containers of jam and about 28 bags of sliced berries **Note: My internet has been really slow at the house the last few days. So I'm sitting in the car, in a grass field before Kat's soccer game, uploading these pictures and updating my iphone. I hope to post on her games tomorrow. We've had some crazy weather here in Oregon and Washington. With Joy UNquenchable,