It's Strawberry Pickin' time!

We love this time of year for so many reasons, one of them being strawberries! For the past 3 years we have picked strawberries at a local strawberry farm. This year they were especially big and very sweet! (I'm thinking it's from all this rain we have been getting!) Nathan loves to pick strawberries, and eat them. The first time we went this year we picked a little over 10 lbs!!!! Yep, you read that right....10 POUNDS!!! We made 2 pies, strawberry french toast, and ate fresh strawberries for several days. We went again last week and picked a little over 6 lbs. I have been wanting to make homemade Strawberry Jam, so I gathered my resources (aka..friends/mom advice) and got to work! I used the recipe on the Sure-Jell box. But first I panicked! I started reading the directions and it said to use a canner to get the jars to seal....I don't have a canner! Luckily, I talked to my mom and a couple of friends and they told me I would not need a canner. The heat from the cooked strawberries would seal the jars if I covered them upside down with a dark towel. So I did, and they sealed! Voila...strawberry jam! It was so yummy! We have eaten strawberry jam on everything! Nathan and hubby really liked it too! It took me ALL day to make it because it was a learning process. But it was so worth it, and a lot of fun! We are going to try to go this week and pick more, so we can make more! I ended up w/ 10 jars so far, and I'm going to use some of those for end of year teacher gifts.
I have always wanted to learn to can (preserve) for myself and my family. My grandmother canned tons of fresh produce every summer. My sister and I stayed with her in the summer while our parents were at work, we had such a fun time. At the time, we didn't like shelling peas, turning our fingers purple, etc., but I look back now and really wish I could go to her house and shell peas, pick tomatoes, dig up potatoes, make fresh squash and okra. Those really were fun summers! It's so fun to pick your own watermelon, you helped grow, right out of the garden and eat it that same day! I need to get my grandmother to write down everything she knows about canning! (except anything that has to do with that pressure cooker..that thing always scared me to death!)
I am so glad I learned to make the homemade strawberry jam. It's something I've wanted to do for a while now, and I'm very happy with the end result!

The berries washed and ready to eat!

Nathan w/ his 10 lbs of berries!

showing me a big berry

Nathan and his friends