End of August update

The river on a late summer hike

 This morning had a bit of unexpected excitement.  When I put my glasses on when I woke up, I realised that they were broken!  They were fine when I took them off at bedtime.   Of course without my glasses I couldn't see what was wrong with them, although I did find the missing lens and knew that the frame was unattached at the earpiece thing.   Luckily hubby figured out that a tiny screw had fallen out and by disassembling an old pair of glasses, he was able to fix mine with the scavenged screw.  I was so happy to be able to see clearly again without old glasses or sneaking hubby's glasses, which worked okay in a pinch, although not perfect.

Yesterday I harvested some garden tomatoes.    They are finally starting to ripen.  I've eaten a cucumber and cherry tomatoes for lunch for half the summer, which was lovely.   I've gotten 1.25kg of blackberries in the freezer.   I could easily get another 1 or 2 pickings in,  but I'm not sure it's worth it.   This time of year the seedy berries sometimes get even seedier and they are smaller pickings, for the same amount of work.   I have more than enough for a good batch of jam.

Last time I made blackberry jam, I pressed all the berries though a sieve with a wooden spoon. I've been looking for a Foley's food mill to make that job easier but they don't seem to be available any longer.  These are the metal cone mortar and pestle shaped ones.   The last time I saw one in a store a couple of years ago, I was very tempted to buy it as I've wanted one for years, but the price was really crazy high.   Amazon has one but it's fairly small  and almost $100.   I'm not sure I want to spend that much for a tool I'll only use a few times a year.

 Second choice is a grinder type food mill.   They are more reasonably priced.   When the kids were young, a friend and I would get together a couple of nights in the fall to freeze corn and make apple sauce.  It meant that we each had a freezer full with only a couple of hours of work and fun.    She had a food mill, which was old but really sturdy.  It ground up the apples in no time.   I'm hoping to find one as well built as that.  

I'm ticked at myself for not buying Plums when they were in the store.   Prune plums make spectacular jam.  If you chop them fine enough, you don't even have to peel them, as the peels will dissolve while cooking.   Maybe there will be some left at the market.

On a grey, damp day we went for a walk through the antique mall.   One booth had a few copper moulds in it.  One was $25 and another shopper and I commiserated over that being a ridiculous price for a jelly mould.   She would only pay $5 for one, and because I will pay a couple of dollars more if it's one I really like and don't have, I found these 3.  The strawberry one had some gunk on it, which the $25 one, the same strawberry mould didn't have.   I paid $8 for these and the gunk washed right off the mould with no scratching, discolouration or residue.  I was happy.