Be Prepared - This is the best scouting motto around and one that I'm slowly starting to own. I think this slogan doesn't mean you carry a 100# backpack with all your worldly goods around with you, but perhaps to be ready to use the resources around you to your best advantage.
Today I was prepared. I didn't have a pocket knife and some all-weather matches on me, but I was prepared to jump at opportunities, I was prepared to change my plans to tackle new challenges and prepared to do the work necessary to make a positive experience for my family. I felt like the wife from Proverbs (31:10-31).
Today I was prepared. I didn't have a pocket knife and some all-weather matches on me, but I was prepared to jump at opportunities, I was prepared to change my plans to tackle new challenges and prepared to do the work necessary to make a positive experience for my family. I felt like the wife from Proverbs (31:10-31).
I'm not always prepared. Sometimes I can barely function. I think I'm an inherently lazy person. I tend to live in a bit of a fog 75% of the time with scattered moments of clarity. Today I had clarity and it's rarity makes it more recognizable.
Let me start from the beginning of my day. Today I found bananas going bad on the counter. I made whole wheat banana bread. Delish. We are, as always, low on money. The cereal saved by the prudent use of those bananas roughly equals one entire box. Yes, my family members are cereal pigs. (for the recipe - just reference Joy of Cooking and substitute whole wheat and add yummy toppings to the loaves like chopped prunes, pecans, or chocolate chips.)
After making banana bread I took two little girls to the High Desert Museum with a picnic lunch that was made while the banana bread baked. The trip was free due to a pass that happened to be on hand. While we were chatting up the otter that lives there I received a phone call from Janelle, my oldest daughter's piano teacher. She has a friend who has a rental with loaded Italian plum trees around it and wanted to know if I wanted to shake down a few. Suddenly my imagination is filled with all the great things I could do with this windfall of free fruit. I grab the two little girls, Bella and Geneva, and pick up Ann and Simon from school. Within a half an hour the five of us are standing in the yard with boxes and buckets found at Ann's school office and in the back of my car.
The kids and I went from tree to tree. I would clammer up the ladder and shake the tree as hard as I could and the four kids would scramble for the plums as they came tumbling to the ground bouncing off their little heads and rolling to rest in the lawn. All four of the kids were thrilled and squealed when pelted with the falling fruit. They called it an Easter egg hunt. They got sticky with plum juice and had bark and dirt from the trees clinging to their hair and clothes. All of us were astounded by the bounty of our urban cache.
Let me start from the beginning of my day. Today I found bananas going bad on the counter. I made whole wheat banana bread. Delish. We are, as always, low on money. The cereal saved by the prudent use of those bananas roughly equals one entire box. Yes, my family members are cereal pigs. (for the recipe - just reference Joy of Cooking and substitute whole wheat and add yummy toppings to the loaves like chopped prunes, pecans, or chocolate chips.)
After making banana bread I took two little girls to the High Desert Museum with a picnic lunch that was made while the banana bread baked. The trip was free due to a pass that happened to be on hand. While we were chatting up the otter that lives there I received a phone call from Janelle, my oldest daughter's piano teacher. She has a friend who has a rental with loaded Italian plum trees around it and wanted to know if I wanted to shake down a few. Suddenly my imagination is filled with all the great things I could do with this windfall of free fruit. I grab the two little girls, Bella and Geneva, and pick up Ann and Simon from school. Within a half an hour the five of us are standing in the yard with boxes and buckets found at Ann's school office and in the back of my car.
The kids and I went from tree to tree. I would clammer up the ladder and shake the tree as hard as I could and the four kids would scramble for the plums as they came tumbling to the ground bouncing off their little heads and rolling to rest in the lawn. All four of the kids were thrilled and squealed when pelted with the falling fruit. They called it an Easter egg hunt. They got sticky with plum juice and had bark and dirt from the trees clinging to their hair and clothes. All of us were astounded by the bounty of our urban cache.
To top off the day, my friend Trina dropped off a bag of upholstery remnants from a furniture store she works at. I had been worried about how we were to afford to give money to Marina for Christmas presents. Thankfully, my oldest daughter is becoming a wonderful seamstress and she decided to make presents with those remnants. (Way to be prepared, Miss Marina!)
Tomorrow I'm completing the unexpected project and canning plums. For anyone who has never preserved their own fruit - it's one of the easiest ways to stretch your families budget. You can buy or pick fruit in the summer and fall, when its cheapest, and can it for the winter when plums are $2.99/# or apples are mealy. There is nothing better than topping your oatmeal with warm plums and honey in the middle of a cold, long winter.
Here are the simple steps to canning:
Tomorrow I'm completing the unexpected project and canning plums. For anyone who has never preserved their own fruit - it's one of the easiest ways to stretch your families budget. You can buy or pick fruit in the summer and fall, when its cheapest, and can it for the winter when plums are $2.99/# or apples are mealy. There is nothing better than topping your oatmeal with warm plums and honey in the middle of a cold, long winter.
Here are the simple steps to canning:
- Load your dishwasher with canning jars - quart or pint and sterilize.
- Get out a sauce pan and fill half way with water, a stock pot and fill with four inches of water and a third pot filled with sugar water (ratio 1:2 - sugar to water). Bring them all to a simmer.
- Nestle the canning lids in your jar rings and gently place them in your sauce pan of plain water.
- Pack your sterile jars with clean, peeled or pitted fruit - apples, peaches, pears, cherries or plums. Don't bother peeling the plums - I don't even pit them. Fill the jars with the sugar water. Leave about an inch of room at the top of the jars.
- Wipe the rims of your jars clean.
- Place a lid and ring on the jar and barely tighten them.
- Use a jar lifter to place the jars in the stockpot. Add enough water to come up to the neck of the jar.
- Bring the water to a boil and then set the timer for 25 minutes for pints and 30 minutes for quarts.
- Remove from the canner and let the jars cool. Then check the seals by poking the middle of the can. If it "pops" your jar isn't sealed and you should eat the food in the next week or re-can with a new lid. Otherwise put them in the cupboard and enjoy your home-canned fruit.
I hope that canning doesn't die out as a lost skill. It's a great feeling to know how to prepare your own food for storage. With all the horrible genetic mutating of our foods and the preservatives and additives used by manufacturers, the closer you get to knowing your food source the better. I know exactly what went into my home-canned food and I'm looking forward to eating my applesauce, peaches, pears and plums this year.
The picture above is quart jars of applesauce made last weekend---below is the process of making it.
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