raspberries

Last weekend I went raspberry picking with Joe, our friend Kristi, and my teacher buddy Blea. We picked raspberries at Biringer Farm, then headed over to Bryant Blueberry Farm to pick blueberries. I didn't pick many blueberries, but I'll probably go back for more. I have just enough to make blueberry boy bait a couple times.

My jam turned out runny again, even though I followed the directions and measured everything carefully. I think that's okay, though. I plan on switching from vanilla to plain yogurt (and possibly making my own... we'll see), and having plenty of runny jam to mix in will be nice. I also made raspberry fruit leather for the first time. I don't have a dehydrator, so I used my oven. The lowest temp on my oven is 170 degrees F, which was a bit more than the recipe recommends. What can you do? It's very tart and sticky, and absolutely wonderful. I think I'm going to make more fruit leather once I get my hands on a flat of apricots. I love apricot leather. Yum.

sights from my walk

dino sweater, part 1

This morning I finished the back piece of the dino sweater I'm knitting for my nephew. Probably the easiest piece, but still very exciting to get it off the needles. After knitting a couple sweaters for myself, it's very refreshing how quickly sweaters for little ones knit up.

oh, Seattle summer

Finally got around to cleaning off my front 'porch' area yesterday. Set up our camp chairs and our small outdoor table, swept away as many spiders as I could, and rearranged my potted plants. Today, it rained. But I didn't want that to stop me from enjoying the outdoors. So, I did this:

Great how well those built-in cup holders work for holding yarn skeins.

Ira Spring Trail

strawberry day

A week ago yesterday was strawberry day. Strawberry picking, strawberry jamming and strawberry cake-making. Smitten Kitchen comes through again, with a delicious recipe for Strawberry Summer Cake.