Peeking into the rock

I collected about two liters of blackberries along the Arroyo Seco path by University Terrace Park today, and came home to make jam.  I almost lost it from spacing out.  But the jam, while too thick, is not burnt.  There's burnt jam on the bottom of the pot, but the rest of the jam tastes good (not amazing).  I think I should make another batch with the berries from Emma's house.  Also, since I am not scheduled at work this week, I think I should get strawberries and make strawberry jam for Emma.  And that will be pretty much it for jam.  Well, and lemon marmalade.  I'm not making apricot jam this year, because except for the strawberries I have a policy of not buying fruit for jam this year.  I've used wild plums and blackberries, and I can use my own lemons.  I decided that jam is not the best use for the Satsuma plums.  I have plenty of other projects for those.  And for the apples.  I used to think home canned applesauce was kind of a waste, but I ate all my applesauce last year and wished I had made more, so I suppose I will make more this year.  If the apples and pears at Emma's house are any good this year -- last year they weren't, and I don't know why -- I can do something with them too. 

I also have figs coming along, but Zack will account for all of them in desserts he makes for the Wednesday night game meeting at Connie's house. I have been dropping by there for a half-hour or so after I walk the dogs at Ocean View park, which has a little hillside path leading out of the dog area.  It overlooks the river and the Boardwalk on the other side, which is quaint and nostalgic for me because Ted and I used to live near there for a few years and when we worked at the Boardwalk we used to go there by crossing the railroad trestle near there.  You're not supposed to take your dogs offleash on the little hilly path but I had gone there several times and met several other offleash dogs there before I even saw the sign.  So I ignore it.


We spent two hours at the berrying today.  The dogs actually got bored after a while and came and stood around me with eager expressions -- like, Can we go do something else now? But when other dogs came along the path they were happy.  I think that's the only place in Santa Cruz city where you can take your dog offleash and get in a mile-long walk.

I'm killing time because I'm getting Emma at about one o'clock in the morning and I didn't put myself to bed earlier and now there's no point.    She's essentially working a double shift this week, and by double I mean double. I did that once -- I worked spinach season at the freezer plant and ten hour days at the small leather goods factory.  I did it because it seemed romantic and I thought it would only be for three weeks because spinach season was really short.  But it went on for more like two months and I was really wiped.  And then one year when I didn't get a teaching job and I was subbing half-heartedly and we were pretty strapped Ted worked as a manager at a fast food joint at the same tinme as he was a cook at the University.  He did it for a few months and then I put my foot down, because while he was doing that I couldn't get a real job because there were the kids and all the stuff around the house to take care of and he was exhausted all the time and I had to take care of him, too.  Most people who moonlight for a long time take on a part-time job for their second job, not a full-time one.  But Emma's only doing this for a week, fortunately. 

I always think in ":we" instead of "I" when I think about doing things or going places, even though "we" has to mean me and the dog(s) nowadays.  Sometimes I remind myself of that Star Trek Next Generation episode where they captured a single Borg soldier and he was completely freaked out about being separated from his pod or whatever it was called. 

I'm all sticky from handling the blackberries. 

Another project I want to do is to take cuttings from the prune tree in Emma's yard, because those are very nice and you don't see that variety around here.  Most of the fruit in Emma's yard is suffering horribly.  I suppose it's from neglect but I have seen neglected fruit trees that had better and more abundant fruit.  I don't see any sign of disease: just mostly empty branches, and last year most of them except for the plums and blackberries did not develop much flavor.

She's ready!  I'm going to get her now.

I made another batch of peach leather, this time not as a side project to canning peaches. Yield: one big mesh orange bag of windfalls makes five trays of peach leather. Remember to line the trays with the drying mesh and the parchment. The mesh orange bag is for selling ten pounds of oranges, but peaches are much denser than oranges because of their respective peels. Connie still has too many peaches and I don't know if she wants me to make them into things. She could do peach wine, I suppose. I'm not going to. Anyway, lots and lots of them are windfalls, only really good for leather and sauce and stuff.

I racked the wine on Monday. This was eight days after putting it in secondary. It tasted, Frank said, "like Smirnoff ice." That is, it was sweet sweet, and kind of harsh tasting, but probably not very alcoholic. It was a raspberry-magenta color, and less murky than before, because it had left a pink smear on the bottom of the carboy (and the extra-wine jug, which is also fitted with an airlock and so therefore is getting almost the same experience as the carboy), but it is still opaque. I guess it must have some translucency because it looks less murky than before. It's rapidly fizzing yet. The nice lady at "Portable Potables" says we should let it get as alcoholic as we want it to be, and then kill the yeast with Campden tablets and adjust the sweetness. I like sweet wines more than I used to, but we'll see.

Emma's Jason's mother has too many Asian pears and I don't like the recipes for them I find online, but they make nice tasting juice. My too many apples are still coming online. I still havde some thinking to do. I think I may take Robyn's too many Asian pears and my too many apples and, surprise, make wine of them. Since I won't make cider. I do have another carboy so I can handle another five gallons of juice.

There are too many grapes coming along but not enough, and not consistently enough, to manage anything spectacular. I'm thinking odd bunches of raisins, maybe. No, I can't just eat them. There are too many. We will also have too manypomegranates this year and I really don't know. The pomegranate liqueur was good but we just aren't big liqueur drinkers.

Those are my fruit progress notes for September 5, 2007.

Also: I have pruned the plum tree way down. I have done almost half the work of pruning the apricot tree way down, including removing the stump of the diseased branch. I have initiated work on the apple tree, thinking that I'd really like to borrow a guy with a chainsaw because I have to remove some large stuff. The almond trees are going to be a big deal again. I'm planning a big attack on the pomegranate after the fruit is done, but I can do all that myself because the pomegranate is all small limbs except for a couple which are close to the ground. I need a new limb saw: Ted says the old one is too dull, and I don't think we can afford to have it sharpened (they have complicated teeth). Also the grape needs severe discipline, and a real arbor, not the haywired one of plastic piping and twine. I also pruned both lemons.

And the lemons need feeding.