Odds & Ends

Levi *loves* harvesting seeds & precisely labeling them & putting them in the dedicated 'seed' drawer in the refrigerator.  Here he is rubbing off kernels of White Eagle Cherokee Corn.  Next he shakes the seed in a colander to clean them.

This is the 'after' shot from all those pears in the previous post.  Actually, this plus the 3 pints of pear sauce the kids have already scarfed down.  We've gathered over 50 pounds and I quit weighing after that.  There is one more sink full of pears to work & I'm done looking at pears.  Above is 3 batches of pear sauce (one with raspberries added) and three batches of pear jam.

Pints, left to right:  pear jam with very fine orange zest added & a few tablespoons of orange juice (all from one orange), plain pear jam, pear jam with about 1/2 cup sieved raspberries added.

My latest knitting : a shawl for *me*

I bought 20 pounds of scuppernongs from a local vineyard & tried this jelly recipe, as I am no fan of grape jams.  It turned out so-so.  The cooked taste of the juice isn't as good as the fresh I thought.  And even though I checked my temperature precisely (with 3 different candy thermometers in fact) to be certain I reached 220 degrees, the jelly still set very softly - it did not have a good gel.

Dad shows me the ropes on how to make feta cheese.
He brought me 4 gallons of raw milk from home.

Levi pointed this out to me on today's stroll to the pear trees & oh, goody gumdrops I've never seen one before!  Still trying to figure it out.  It is some type of moth.