It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time

Since I was over to the garden anyway,

And since I was already sprayed and lotioned up with insect repellent,

And since there was a bit of a breeze and the mosquitoes weren't too bad,

And since I had a hankering for Cherry jam,

I thought it was a good time to grab a bucket and have one more go at the Nanking Cherry tree.

The first 3/4 bucket I picked became syrup two weeks ago.

The second 3/4 bucket I picked became sauce last week.

This time I wanted jam.

So...I washed the cherries, pulled out all the stems I'd missed, and started mashing them to remove the seeds.

I mashed

And mashed

And mashed.

I used my largest meshed sieve, a plastic container that fit under the sieve, the potato masher, a rubber spatula and two grapefruit spoons.

Instead of nicely pushing the fruit and juice through the sieve into the container and happily scooping up the seeds,

I ended up separating the seeds from the pulp, (discarding the seeds and scraping the pulp into a measuring cup), as the juice dripped into the container under the sieve.

Over five hours it took, in two shifts, to work my way through the bucket of cherries.

In the end I had the pulpy juice mixture I desired, but was too tired to make the jam.

It was past my bedtime by then anyway.

So

The jam was cooked up this morning, after a hot shower and some muscle ache pills.

It was pretty tasty on the breakfast pancakes.

Good thing.

Or I would have been slightly piqued, to say the least.