Pit Crew

It's going to be another cherry day here at the Three Cats Ranch in my 3-day cherry marathon. Today will be the last day with them. You should know that I've been so excited about the cherries, I couldn't get enough. At the grocery store on Monday, they were still on sale for $1.99 per pound, and so six more pounds came home with me. I'm planning to make another several jars of the Cherries in Syrup. Mae is going to love those on her morning oatmeal, and I gots to take care of my darling daughter-in-law, don't you know.

So here's what happened yesterday. My first task was to get out and water the pots before it got too hot. While there, I noticed two more of the sunflowers had bloomed. This one is called Starburst Panache. It has a funny frilly flower. Also, look closely, and you'll see a big fat bumblebee in its center.

This one is called Floristan.

I think I misidentified one from last week...this one...which is actually called Double Dandy.

Oh yes, and here's a crappy picture of one of the echinacea. One of these days I'll get a good picture of the echinacea. Sometimes auto-focus focuses on something in the distance rather than the subject of the photo, and my eyes aren't good enough to see it in my digital screen.

Also, there were more cherry tomatoes to harvest. These have a little green cap at the stem end, but they were falling off the plant. Possibly the heat is causing it to shed it's fruit just a tad early, and so I picked the most red ones.

Of course the kitty crew was with me every step of the way. They are thick as thieves when they're outside. I don't know what's so interesting here...something only they could see.

Smitty got bored with it too and walked up to join Sadie on the cool concrete.

Sadie...where have you been? You smell like a dental office.

Pawsibly your exhaust is running a little rich. You might want to have that checked out.

After finishing the outdoor chores, I went to work on the cherries. Yesterday's effort was quite a bit more labor-intensive than the day before. I spent most of the morning and a good part of the afternoon on this. When it was finished, there were eight half-pints of Black Forest Preserves. These have amaretto in the mix, and oh wow. This stuff is divine. It's very much the consistency of jelly. We put it on our ice cream last night, but with the jelly consistency, it's more like a hot fudge sauce. I'd like to try warming it in the microwave a little bit, and then I think it would be great as a hot black forest sundae. Yum.

If I were going to make this again, I'd probably make half a batch because eight half-pints is a lot. It will be fun to share, however, and it would also make a great gift at Christmas.

Also, I made four pints of Sweet Cherry Balsamic Jam. And this was very good too. Again, it's a lot of jam, and I think a half recipe packed in half-pint jars might be a better way to go. There was just a smidge left that wouldn't fit into the jars, and so we had that on our breakfast toast.

This is the best workout I've ever given the cherry pitter mentioned in a recent blog post, and I wanted to say a few words about it. It's a great tool...the best tool for the job, in my humble opinion.

Nevertheless, I've discovered something about it. When I'm using it with large cherries, the cherry sometimes gets stuck (impaled) on the plunger, so that when I release the plunger, it goes back up with the plunger, rather than falling into the bowl. And when that happens, I've noticed that more often than not, the pit also falls into the bowl rather than into the receptacle below. It's not a big deal, but something to pay attention to when you're using it. Also, it misses a few pits, as any pitter will. The stray pits float to the top of whatever concoction I'm cooking, and so I just fish them out with a spoon. Just the same, and as with all things cherry, watch for pits while you're eating it.

While I was waiting for the jams to cook and the jars to process, I finished up the stitching on the fourth of nine blocks for Friendship's Garden. I like this one. It's called "Joy Blooms in Every Garden."

Here are the four blocks I have so far.

It was late in the afternoon when I finished with my canning. I spent the rest of the day typing new recipes into my database, and so there was no sewing again. There are still more recipes too. They pile up like quilt projects. Each time I swear I'll keep up with them one at a time, but that works out about the same as a Block of the Month. So many hobbies, so little time.

Sadie spent her afternoon in the cool basement. A girl's got to keep up apurrances, you know, and so she was giving herself a good grooming.

And a nice nap.

Smitty prefers the top of the china cabinet for his cooling efforts. He was ready for a nap too.

Don't come looking at me with your flashy box.

Today's canning will be faster. I'm finishing off with some Chocolate Cherry Preserves. It's made much the same as the Black Forest Preserves, but this batch will have cinnamon and a pinch of cayenne in place of the amaretto. I'll have to let you know which we like better. Also, I'll be able to get two batches of the Cherries in Syrup. Those are very quick to make, and so I'm expecting to spend only a couple of hours at this, rather than the whole day. And thus will bring an end to cherry canning for the year.

Knowing I'll spend less time on canning today, I'm going to spend some time this morning on practicing the fancy feathering I want to do to finish off the bird quilt. Also, I'll be getting a start on the next row of names for the Shop Hop quilt. The temperature's rising again outside. Our heat advisory is supposed to last through tomorrow. Fortunately, it's been cool at night.

Stay cool, and sew on, my blogging friends.