The smell of Cinnamon, Allspice, Cloves and Strawberries permeate the air in my house.  The red, green and yellow leaves litter the sidewalk outside.  In the morning the fog wraps itself around the houses. These are the little things that signal a change of seasons at our house.  I feel compelled to make jam.  I have a freezer full of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries.  The  blackberries I'll keep out to make a pie for John on his birthday.  With some of the blueberries I make a tart for my birthday.  The rest of the blueberries will be combined with raspberries to make a jam.  Forget that I really don't have time but it gives me a happy feeling.  Next year it will be time to make pickled beets and canned peaches.  John's pear tree produced enough pears that I can make an end of summer jam using his pears and the plums from our neighbors.  I am feeling industrious and nostalgic as look at the jars of jam on the table and hear the ping ping ping.  It reminds me of the book "Blueberries for Sal"  and I fondly think of the kitchen the mother is in as she cans the blueberries.  Then reality hits as I'm crossing the kitchen trying to listen to a child as he tells me something that I'm not fulling listening to and my hot jar of jam flies out of my hand, crashing to the floor, flinging jam everywhere.  Add mopping to my list now then I hear, "Mom the toilet is plugged." and the nostalgia disappears.  Things aren't quite working as smooth as they were before.  I realize that I bought two packages of wide mouth lids instead of regular and only one of regular and I didn't buy enough pectin.  My berries aren't thawing and I forgot to crush them.  My floor is a sticky mess and I keep mopping and mopping in between batches.  I started with an empty sink and dishwasher, but now my sink is full and my dishwasher is keeping my jars hot in order to not break them in the canner.  Did I put all seven cups of sugar in that batch or did I forget the spices?  The wash machine is beeping at me. (I am washing clothes as well because a child informed me that he needed underwear and didn't want to waste his day washing clothes.  I didn't want to waste my time washing clothes either so he did a load himself but the rest of the family needs laundry done too.)  My children have now taken themselves outside to get away from my frantic self as I race to stir and remove the jars at the same time.  I'm not sure how Sal's mother managed to can blueberries with her kitchen sans dishwasher.  To top it all off, I'm now wishing that I had my grandmother's jelly that is absolutely beautiful and tastes heavenly.  If it is held up to the light, it glows.  Was canning a good idea? Hmm, maybe instead of making blueberry tart John and I should go out for dessert and coffee instead.


Il sent comme l'autume.  Les feuilles rouges, verts, et jaunes tombent par terre.  Du matin le brouillard envelope les maison.  C'est les petits choses qui annonce l'arriver d'automne.  J'ai un congelateur pleine des frais, framboise, et bleuets.  Les framboise noir je garde pour une tarte pour l'anniversaire de John.  Avec les bleuets je feront cuire une tarte de bleuet.  Les frambroise rouge et les fraise je fais des confiture.  L'annee prochaine il faut que je fais les peche et les betteraves marinées.  John a un arbre de poire qui a assez des poire de faire une confiture avec des poire, des peches et des citrons.  Je sent content de faire ca et j'aime les bruit des canettes quand ils ont finis.  Je pense de livre "Les Bleuets pour Sal".  C'est une fille et sa mere qui rassemblent des bleuets et les mettons en conserver.  La mere avait une cuisine sans un lave-vaisselle.  Je pense comme elle la fait.  Le realite pour est vraiment different.  Je suis au millieux de prendre une canette chaud et le mettre en table quand Job me parle.  Je n'ecoute pas tres bien parce que j'ai entraine de penser l'autre chose.  Tout a coup, la canette tombs par terre et casse.  Il y a des glace et confiture chaud tous.  Maintenant il faut que je nettoye la cuisine, et pris les canette, et remeus le confiture et j'ecoute ma fille me dit, "Mamma le toilet ne marche pas."  Maintenant je pense "est-ce que je mis assez de sucre ou est-ce que j'oublie de mettre les epices?"  Je desire des confiture de ma grand-mere.  C'est joli et délectable.  Quand je la mis dans la lumiere elle brille.  Peut-etre une fois il faut que j'allais de visiter ma grand-mere tout seul et apprendre de faire la confiture comme elle.