Snow Joy!!

We got our first significant snowfall yesterday. Noah and Nathan started doing the "Snow Dance of Happiness" as soon as they saw the flakes starting to come down midafternoon. We walked home from the library enthusiastically catching snowflakes on our tongues. We then ran around the yard grabbing bikes, scooters, and all manner of outdoor items we hadn't quite got around to bringing in the house for the winter yet.

The boys tried to scrounge up enough snow for a snowball fight while they waited for their friends to get home from school. The whole gang then proceeded over to the toboggan hill (a 5 minute walk from our house) and I didn't see Nathan again until after dark. The snow accumulation was not huge but the kids were determined! By the end of the day both boys were rosy cheeked and wet from head to toe, full of sparkly-eyed excitement at the official onset of winter.

I have no photos to mark this occasion because my camera batteries died again. We picked some up last night, but by this morning the sun had come out and melted away most of the snow. I'm sure there will be more soon so I don't think I need to worry too much about getting a good photo op!

With the arrival of the snow I feel the stillness of winter settling in. It's a welcome feeling, as life has been particularly hectic of late. In the space of five weeks (between the end of September and the beginning of November), we celebrate both of the boys' birthdays (involving 2 parties for *each* boy) plus Canadian Thanksgiving and Halloween. This mama is looking forward to some quiet days snuggled up under lots of warm blankets, reading books and watching movies together! Of course, it's time to start thinking about Christmas celebrations as well, but I am determined to keep our holiday as peaceful as possible this year.

Late Summer Potpourri

A hollyhock in our front garden

So much for life slowing down! We have been incredibly busy since I last posted at the end of August. And yes, it's still technically summer until the equinox tomorrow!

Since I last posted, our family was interviewed and photographed for an article in our local paper. I was not entirely thrilled with it, although it was generally favourable towards unschooling. They left out all the most interesting and relevant stuff I told the reporter!

In the last couple of weeks we have also cheered Nathan on at his end-of-season soccer tournament in the pouring rain, celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary, and attended our local homeschool group's Not Back to School picnic.

The most exciting thing we've done lately is visit our unschooling friends at their farm in Upstate New York. We all had a blast - that includes the dog who seemed totally in his element as a "farm dog" despite his entirely urban existence. We made butter and mozzarella cheese with fresh-from-the-cow milk, and Nathan learned how to pick up a chicken and groom a donkey.

The boys engaged in lots of swimming, gaming, and trampolining!

Aric helps Nathan groom Jenny the Donkey

Kirsten milking her cow Becky

Joe getting to know Rumpus (Marley looks interested, too!)

During this flurry of activity, I have tried to stay on top of the fall garden, whipping up several batches of tomato sauce and wondering what the heck I am going to do with several dozen jalepeno and banana peppers (the only crops in my garden that seems to have really thrived during this cold, wet summer). Suggestions, anyone?

As if all that wasn't enough, yesterday I had the opportunity to attend an Abraham-Hicks workshop in Toronto - what a thrilling experience that was!

Life is so full and so good here and there seems to be a perpetually long list of upcoming events on our calendar!!

The Days are Just Packed

To borrow a title from one of my favourite cartoonists (one of Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes collections), the days have felt completely jammed full lately - thus a lack of recent updates here!

Aside from all the laundry, cooking and eating (all of which seem to have increased exponentially of late) here are a few of the things we've been up to:

Water: The boys spent the entire month of June playing with water - water gun and water balloon fights, swimming in the neighbour's pool, squirting the hose at each other, and generally remaining as wet as possible for the majority of their waking hours! The neighbourhood pool and splash pad opened last week, so I don't expect to see them fully dried off until September :)

Nursing languishing electronics: It seems that our house has turned into a graveyard for electronic thingamajigs in varying states of repair. We now have four (yes, four) printers of dubious vintage and degrees of functioning taking up space (I am still determined to get one of them to work - cross your fingers for me!) Anyone know what's the best way to dispose of dead printers?? Our digital camera also bit the dust recently (so expect a dearth of photos here for a while). Luckily, it seems we will at least be able to trade this in locally and get a portable CD player for the van (to replace the one that got stolen last summer). Joe has also been trying to revive a TV he dragged home for free - not sure how that one's going to end yet!

Learning piano: Our one successful revival thus far, we finally have our music keyboard functional again. We just got it up and running yesterday, and all four of us have been clamoring around, eagerly awaiting our turn tickling the (non) ivories. I haven't played in over a decade now (I can't BELIEVE it's been that long!) but so far I've managed to bang out a half-decent Ode to Joy and stumble along with Edelweiss. I'm looking forward to spending some regular time playing - I was never a natural by any means; I have to practice, practice, practice on even the basic stuff. Nathan is already gracing us with his own spontaneous compositions!

Writing (other places than here!): I've been devoting what little blogging time I've had lately to my cooking blog, The Speeding Kitchen, which I hope to expand on in a few directions. I've also got some other (offline) writing projects going - more news about that soon!

Playing with EFT: I've known about EFT for a while, but never really delved into it further, or learned how to do it. In the last couple of weeks, I've spent a lot of time reading about EFT, watching YouTube videos, and tapping like a fiend. So far, I am very excited about this process and think everyone should know how to do this!!

Now we are gearing up for some Canada Day celebrations, lots of fun things planned over the next couple of days, so I should have plenty to report by July 2nd!!

Yard Sale Booty!!

[SPOILER ALERT: If you or someone you are related to is on my gift list, please don't read this post, you might ruin a surprise or two!!!]

I am a die-hard yard sale shopper. Every spring I wait impatiently for the fun to start again. I've been out almost every Saturday morning for the last 4 or 5 weeks now, and I'll be going until the end of September - then the fall church rummage sales will begin, to keep me going for another month or so.

I love the "thrill of the hunt" - you never know what great bargains you might find. I have a knack for finding the exact things we need, when we need them. This season, I've already replaced our languishing drinking glass collection with an entire set of gorgeous matching glasses (identical to the kind I had in mind!) and found a replacement winter jacket and snow pants for Noah for next winter, along with quite a lot of other great stuff.

It seems every week ends up having a bit of a theme to it, and this week it was "books and stationery week".

Yesterday's haul included:
-2 unopened boxes of Christmas cards (cute ones that I really like!)
-4 brand new, still in the package fancy greeting cards (2 are new baby cards and I need those right now!)
-BRAND NEW copies of Eat*Pray*Love and Rodney Yee's Yoga: Poetry of the Body
-2 like-new condition children's books (one hardcover)
- a felt story board with 2 sets of felt figures
[these last 2 items are for a certain toddler's birthday and Christmas gifts]
-a set of plastic dishes (to replace our really old and beat up camping set!)
-a set of "magic boxer shorts" (add water and watch them grow!) for Joe's Christmas stocking

I estimate this lovely collection of items would have cost me $125 at retail prices. My yard sale total? $16.00

Have I mentioned that I love yard sales??

Simple Pleasures of City Living

While much has been written about the simple pleasures of living in the country, I'm not sure enough has been written about the simply joys of city living! We haven't done anything "big and exciting" lately, we've just been sharing lots of those small but enjoyable moments that make life so worthwhile.

I never expected to end up living in a city of a half a million people, but I've been here over 15 years now and love it. While we live in the city proper (not a suburb), the neighbourhood we live in (about 16,000 people) has a really small-town feel to it, despite the fact that it's only a five minute drive or 30 minute walk to the downtown.

Our neighbourhood was one of the first "planned communities" in Canada, which means it's extremely walkable. I do most of my day-to-day errands on foot, which means I often end up stopping to chat with a neighbour or two, or even one of the library staff, who know all the members of my family on a first name basis!

Nathan has started soccer for the season, and the soccer field's a 10 minute walk from our house, at the large community park. Along the way are all manner of flowering shrubs and trees (they planted over 150 new trees in the park last year alone!) and it's just such a beautiful community space I feel blessed to live so close by.

And then there's our front porch, which we lovingly refer to as our "summer living room". I can (and do!) spend hours out there, reading, knitting, drinking coffee (iced, if the temperature climbs too high), playing backgammon and Uno with the kids, and generally whiling away a hot summer afternoon. It's also the place we sit and eat ice cream when we get back from our daily afternoon swim (another great bonus - our community pool's a five minute walk from our house!)

The street we live on is located adjacent to two major bike routes (one of which is the Waterfront Trail, which is also popular with walkers, runners and Rollerbladers) so a lot of that "traffic" ends up going down our street. It's all part of the fun of porch-sitting to watch the community roll right by our doorstep (and often, someone we know will be going by and stop for a chat!)

I also spend a lot of my porch-time just watching the kids play - there are about 20 kids on the block, and they are out on the street playing until after dark every night now that it's nearly summer. Sometimes scooters and bikes go flying down the sidewalk, often there's a street-wide game of hide-and-seek going on, or there could be some sidewalk-chalk street art being created.

You never know what might happen next around here - a few nights ago I poked my head out the front door to see what the boys were up to, and found them talking to a cockatiel named Gonzo!! His owner lives around the corner from us and had brought the bird out to enjoy the gorgeous early-evening weather.

I can't imagine not being a part of this thriving, friendly, family-loving, diverse community and all the daily blessings, large and small, that go along with it.

An Unschooling Moment inTime

When people find out we are unschoolers, they often wonder exactly what it is we do all day. That's a hard question to answer, as every day is different. Some days we have more structured experiences (like attending a class or field trip), but much of the time we are just living in the moment and flowing from one discussion or activity to the next. Here is a moment in our lives from yesterday afternoon:

When: 2:10 p.m. on a frigid (-10 degrees Celsius!) but sunny Thursday in February 2008

Where: Living Room of McLaughlin Manor

Who: Karen, Noah (10) and Nathan (8)

What: Iggy Arbuckle is playing on the TV, the Juno soundtrack is blaring, Nathan is on the couch playing his DS (still in his pajamas, as is Noah). I'm helping Noah play with the Geosafari Laptop our neighbour gave us this past weekend and reading snippets from half a dozen different books I hauled home from the library earlier today. We're all working intermittently but with great zeal on a poster size Pokemon puzzle.

How: Loud (very loud!) and silly

Now, maybe nothing about that moment seems especially noteworthy to the casual observer. But I can tell you, there was definitely a lot of learning going on at several different levels. It just so happens that what it looks like from the outside is a family having a joyful, carefree time together. Half an hour earlier or later, and the scene would have shifted to something else. But the undercurrent of living and learning in joy and freedom while enjoying each other's company is what runs through ALL of our days together.

A Cure For the February Blahs

February is usually one of those months that seems like it's never going to end (despite the fact that it's always the shortest month, even when -like this year- it's a leap year). This has been a particularly challenging year, though, due to the persistent sub-zero Celsius temperatures and the regular delivery of more snow. Needless to say, we've had a bit of cabin fever lately!

That's why yesterday was such a glorious gift. No, it wasn't suddenly beach weather, but it was definitely bright and sunny. Joe cooked up a batch of waffles, and we sat in our cheery, sun-filled dining room and enjoyed the waffles with homemade syrup and hot coffee. We then headed down to Princess Point for a family ice skate. I'm embarrassed to say that we've lived in Hamilton for over 15 yrs (and in our current neighbourhood, within walking distance of Princess Point, for over 10) and this is the first time we've skated there in the winter. Now I'm wondering what took us so long to get around to it! Unfortunately, I was suffering from "camnesia" (forgot the camera AGAIN!) but we had a fantastic time.

It's interesting to see what a different perspective you get of the area when you're skating around on what is usually marsh. The views are quite different than when you're on shore. There were several games of shinny going on, and Joe joined in on one for a while. The boys and I skated out towards the Carp Barrier. It was fun to take a look at it from the other side. While we were way out in the middle of the marsh, I noticed what at first appeared to be a very large dog walking along the adjacent Waterfront Trail. As I turned to get a closer look, I realized it was a horse pulling a small sleigh along! That's definitely something you don't see around here every day. There were many other families out there enjoying the beautiful late-winter weather, too. In Canada, we know that if you can't beat the weather, you might as well join it!

After we were all skated out, we came home for leftover pizza (and more coffee for the grownups). We had a nice family laze-around for the rest of the afternoon, then after a leisurely dinner, Joe headed out for his usual Sunday night hockey game, and I watched the Oscars while the boys amused themselves with Legos and DS's (Nathan joined me for the final 45 min or so of Oscar excitement).

All in all, it was one of those days you wish could go on forever.

Winter Wonderland

We finally have a serious amount of snow! It started falling late Saturday night, and by Sunday morning there was lots of shovelling to do. The boys put on their snowpants as soon as they woke up yesterday and ran outside to romp around in it with their friends.

They hit the toboggan hill with their dad later in the afternoon. Unfortunately, it had started to rain by then and everyone got really messy and wet. I took the dog for a nice hour long walk in the rainy sludge so we were both soaked too! I thought the snow was going to end up disappearing but thankfully the temperature dropped later in the day so there's still lots of white stuff on the ground.

After we came in and dried ourselves off, it was time for some hot chocolate. We go through a LOT of hot chocolate during the winter, so I'm thankful I know how to make it cheaply. I use skim milk powder, with a teaspoon of cocoa powder and 2 teaspoons of sugar for each mug. A pinch of cinnamon adds that little "extra". I top each mug off with a few mini-marshmallows if we happen to have some around.

We all snuggled under blankets and thawed out watching Back to the Future II - it's been quite a while since I'd watched the BttF movies so I thoroughly enjoyed myself. We took a break from the movie long enough to get some bread in the oven (thank goodness I had made up a batch of Refrigerator Bread Dough late last week) and a batch of lentil soup bubbling on the stove. Hot soup and bread fresh from the oven - the perfect meal after a day spend outside frolicking in the snow!

The boys burned off so much energy playing outside all day that they are still sleeping right now at 10:20 a.m.! I'm sure when they do finally wake up they'll be ready to head right back out to the toboggan hill.

It Must *Really* Be Fall!

Although it's almost Halloween, it hasn't really felt like fall around here until the last couple of weeks, due to the unseasonably warm weather.

Now, the signs of fall are unmistakable. There are leaves on the ground at last! The frost is coming (probably tonight), and we went apple picking at a local farm this afternoon (the same one we went to last year).

One of my most favourite things to do at this time of year is watch Noah and Nathan romp around in the leaves for hours with their friends. Yesterday afternoon, most of the neighbourhood boys were in my backyard, building a HUGE leaf pile. They were very industrious, carting in leaves from all over the street in recycling bins and milk crates.

Ahh, FALL!

Toboggans, Freezing Rain, and Blackouts

Today was one of those calm and peaceful winter days that make winter worth having! The snow finally showed up yesterday, which was fabulous; however, it changed to freezing rain overnight which left everything as slippery and crunchy as could be. The schools were all closed today, so the neighbourhood was much quieter than usual without the hustle and bustle of kids being picked up and dropped off from school. Once the freezing rain finally stopped after lunch, the local toboggan hill was booming though! We spent a good hour flying down the hill and clambering back up the slippery slope again and again.

Just as I was about to start making dinner, the power went off. We waited 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes. Nope, the power wasn't coming back on any time soon. We cooked and ate dinner by candlelight, which was kind of cool. Luckily for us, we have a gas stove, so we were able to cook on the burners, otherwise it would have been peanut butter sandwiches for dinner (not exactly satisfying after an afternoon on the toboggan hill!). After we cleared the dishes away, we decided to continue our game of "semi-perpetual Monopoly" by candlelight. We started the game a few days after Christmas, but because it takes *so* long to play the game to the end, we've just played for 1/2 hour or so at a time, and put the game aside until we're in the mood to play again. It's interesting how the darkness adds a totally different feel to routine, everyday activities. We hadn't gotten far with the Monopoly when the power magically returned - by then, the lights had been out for almost 2 hours and the house was starting to get noticeably chillier than usual. I wouldn't enjoy not having power on a regular basis, but it did add some interest to the day, and added to the quiet and calm feeling (no TV, computer, radio or lights for a couple of hours-ahh, peace!)

An Urban Wildlife Adventure

Earlier this week, our local paper ran a story about a beaver (possibly *2* beavers) having set up house in the Hamilton harbour. This is very exciting for our community as it signifies a major improvement in the water quality (the last 15 years has seen a lot of work done on restoring our once extremely industrially-polluted harbourfront area).It's also pretty darn cool to have a beaver build a lodge in such an urban location (right on the edge of one of our biggest city parks). As soon as we read about it, we were all super excited to go check it out, but our family schedule didn't give us a chance to do it during daylight hours up until today. So, we all bundled up early this afternoon, and off we went to the Harbourfront to track down the beaver lodge. We didn't have any trouble finding it, and were able to walk up very close to it to take a good look. We didn't actually have a beaver sighting (they usually only come out at night) but we pointed out to the boys where the beaver(s) had chewed down small trees to build the dam (as well as one that had been partially, but not totally, gnawed through). This resourceful urban beaver also scrounged up several used planks of wood to use in building his lodge! The city is considering planting some willow trees in the spring to help keep the beaver(s) from taking all the shade trees. Apparently, willow is a favourite of the beavers (something I didn't know before!) We've seen beaver lodges in zoos before, but this is the first time we've seen one "in the wild" (if the middle of a city of nearly 500,000 people can be classified as "wild"!)

[Here is where I had planned to insert a photo of the beaver lodge; apparently blogger has other ideas right now as I can't get it to upload-arrgh!]

While we were down by the harbour, we also had some fun observing the winter waterfowl. We actually "discovered" a new species that we'd never observed before. When we got back, we got out our bird books (while enjoying a round of hot chocolate to warm us back up!) and identified it as the American Coot. We found out that we'd never seen them before because they overwinter on the harbour, but leave in early spring, and we're usually not spending much time down there until late spring/early summer. Up until we hunted down that piece of the puzzle, I had been wondering how there could have been such a large number of them on the water when I'd never seen even *one* before!!

Learning All the Time...

As the great John Holt said, we really are learning all the time - I just haven't had the time to blog about it lately! Life has been all aswirl with busy-ness and most nights I have been falling into bed exhausted (but content) at the end of the day.

Earlier this evening, I was sitting in the living room knitting, the Just Like Heaven soundtrack was blaring, Nathan and the dog were wrestling together (loudly), and Joe and Noah were debating the relative merits (or lack thereof) of the Spongebob movie.

A short while later, we were all (including the dog!) packed into the kitchen making gingersnaps and goofing around. And I just finished snuggling in front of the fire and watching 50 First Dates with my honey while the kids drifted in and out intermittently to join in the snuggle.

I love my life...

And now I need to go to bed once more!!!

Fall Fun, Featuring Noah the Horse-Headed Boy!

We went on another jaunt to a local apple farm yesterday and I snapped this hilarious pic - the horse put his head right in front of Noah just as I snapped it! We were laughing so hard at the resulting photo that another family asked to take a look at our camera to see what was so funny.

Okay, so we are easily amused but this has all the makings of a classic McLaughlin family photo.





Joe also got a good photo of both boys (with their own heads!) hanging out with the bunnies at the farm. As you can see, Noah's already getting geared up for Halloween (Halloween runs a very close second to Christmas in holiday importance around here).









And oh, yes, I remembered to get a pic of this sign that I missed out on last time as we were sans camera.

Love it! I think I should make one to hang outside my house.

Community Connections

Yesterday was one of those days where you could just feel the forces of "abundance" at work.

First, we decided to hold a "freecycle" day to pass on all the stuff we no longer need. We got up early and hauled out boxes of toys, housewares, videotapes (our VCR finally died and won't be replaced since we have a DVD player), clothes, furniture, and lots of other good stuff. We put out a couple of big signs indicating that everything was FREE but we still got a lot of people coming up and asking us if we were sure we didn't want money for anything, or *why* the stuff was free. We've gotten a lot of good stuff from our local freecycle group (including a washing machine when ours kicked the bucket) so we were more than happy to "pay it forward" and pass on our unneeded items. Most of the stuff cleared out by noon, and the remainder was posted to our local list.

By mid-afternoon, we were up at a local farm (Myer's Apple Farm) picking - yes- apples! I was a bit disappointed that my favourites (empires) weren't quite ready for picking yet, but we came home with a large bag of Cortlands which are pretty tasty too. We forgot to bring the camera, which I was already bummed about, but I was really annoyed with myself when we got to the farm and saw this great sign: "Drive Carefully - Children Being Children". Hopefully we'll go back and pick some empires, and I'll make sure to get a pic then!

From our apple picking excursion, we continued on to our CSA (Plan B Organic Farms) for their end-of-season barbecue (we'll continue to receive shares until the week after Thanksgiving - that's Canadian Thanksgiving by the way). We got to take a tour of the farm, which has been expanding every year. There are now 400 shares per season; just a couple of years ago it was closer to 250. Plan B has made great efforts to develop relationships with other local farmers so we get the most variety possible in our food boxes - fruits and some vegetables that they don't grow themselves. They also offer a "local fruit box" option - although they don't grow any of the fruit themselves, it is all from local farmers.

After the tour we had a fantastic meal at Plan B - organic meat, a variety of salads from Plan B's harvest, watermelon and organic ice cream (Mapleton's - totally divine). There were about 200 people there (about 50 of them were kids!) and it was just a great community-feeling experience. We got to chat with a few friends we hadn't seen in a while, and make some new friends too! The kids all had a blast running around and playing with the assortment of friendly farm dogs. Again, really too bad we forgot our camera!

When we came home from the farm, the rest of the stuff we had left out on the curb with a "free" sign was gone, and my neighbour had left a bag of clothes on the porch for the boys (full of pants with intact knees, which my guys desperately need!) I had also received an offer from another freecycler of some books I was looking for - very cool.

The theme for the day was definitely Sharing Always Creates More - more friends, more fun, and more abundant living.

Life is Good

This weekend was one of those truly wonderful (and not-common-enough) ones of which summer memories are made.

Nothing spectacular happened. Just full of those simple, small but contented moments that, strung together into a couple of warm, sunny days, are exactly what we all long for when we're pining for summer in the middle of January. The kids ran up and down the street all day playing with their friends, and I got some time to do a few things on my own (in between intermittent supervision of the swirling mass of children).

I went for a glorious bike ride full of hills, puttered around the garden, strolled over to the library, and just basically did what I felt like for most of Saturday (is there anything better on a warm Saturday afternoon than sitting on your front porch, sipping a coffee, and knitting, while watching the world go by? No, I didn't think so.)

Saturday night we all went to see Ice Age 2 at Dundas Valley Conservation Area. This is a really cool thing - all summer long they do a "Films in the Forest" program, where you get to see movies outdoors on a giant, inflatable movie screen. And, if you have a Conservation Area membership, like we do, it's only $2.50 for the whole family to get in! What a great deal, and a whole lot of fun.

Sunday morning we got up late, strolled down to the park (with Marley of course) then came back to hang out on the porch when it got too hot. We did a bit of errand running in the afternoon, but as boring as that sounds, it was highly satisfying since we actually got everything we were looking for (how rare!) - and I snagged two new knitting magazines at Chapters.

Most importantly, the raspberries are here!


To my great delight, the canes I planted this year have yielded a (very small) but luscious little crop of raspberries. Not enough to do more than nibble off the bush this year - I don't know how long till I have enough to make jam, but I'll surely enjoy whatever we get. Did I mention raspberries are my absolutely, positively favouritest fruit of all?







The rest of the veggie garden is shaping up nicely for the most part too (although there are some scruffy areas in the main bed as I had to pull a bunch of bush beans which were succumbing to something or other, and all my broccoli bolted right off the bat without producing anything edible ::sigh::)

In this photo you can see a zucchini plant in the middle (it's enclosed in a mesh "cage" to keep it from taking over the entire bed, that's why it looks so tall) Potato plants (also in cages) are to the left, with bush beans, peppers, and assorted herbs somewhere in the mix too. In the hanging bucket is one of our "upside down" tomato plants, which seem to be doing all right so far - they are starting to flower and a couple of itty bitty tomatoes have formed. If all continues to go well, we should be up to our armpits in summer squash, beans, peppers, and tomatoes in no time.

Ahhh, summer!

A Sticky Canada Day Tradition

Okay, I'm cheating a bit (all right, a lot) here by writing this post over a week after the fact, but hey, at least I've finally managed to get it done!

We continued our long-upheld Canada Day tradition - making strawberry jam. It is one of nature's cruel little quirks that it needs to be *hot* for strawberries to grow, thus forcing strawberry jam making activities (including the picking of 12 quarts of said strawberries) to be conducted in the most blistering heat ever seen in Canada. I swear there is nothing hotter on earth than the middle of a strawberry jam making session. I always feel like I've lost about 15 pounds by the end (yeah, sure).



While I was in the process of cleaning up my jars in preparation for sterilizing them, I came across this label still attached to one of the jars (I took it off and stuck it onto one of the completed jars afterwards).

Although you can't make it out in the photo (well, if you look *very* closely, you can just make out the swirly loop of a "J") it says in very faint ink "July 1985". In my handwriting! I was 14 years old in July 1985 - that must surely have been one of the first batches of jam I ever made. Cool. And the jar's still in service 21 years later. That's cool too. Canning is one of those activities that connects you to the past in so many wonderful, mysterious ways. And the jam is darn tasty too.

The final product:



We cranked out 20 jars altogether, plus a bit more which went into the "surplus" jar then straight into the fridge!

YUMMY!


Happy Canada Day everyone!