How to Monday, Apricot edition

If your pee looks like this  . . . No, wait; it’s the lemon juice for nine pounds of apricots.^

Most Mondays I’m at work doing stuff that, I tell myself, makes a tiny bit of difference—for the good—in the lives of some people. If I’m feeling particularly self-important and what I’m working on is an avalanche guide or instructional climbing book, I can tell myself that it’s saving lives. But, let’s face it, that’s stretching things a bit and what it feels like much of the time is shifting a pile of papers from here to there, transferring the notes on one set of galleys to another so that a designer can make changes to pages and, eventually, a book will come out that I didn’t write or even edit, but just sort of shepherded along. You can see, perhaps, where there are a lot of Mondays I’d rather just stay home and that perhaps it doesn’t really matter if I do.*

This particular Monday I have stayed home, as has Scott, because it’s apricot season and that means time to replenish the world supply of homemade apricot preserves/jam/product. From start to finish it took us a little under three hours this time around** and while the water for sterilizing the jars took longer to boil than maybe we wanted, it all went pretty smoothly. We’ve ended up with seventeen jars (aka far more than we need) so we’ll have plenty to give away. They are, I insist, little jars of summer.

The highlights (or at least the bits for which there are photos):

Step one: find the recipe and notes from previous years.

Alternative step one: inventory and organize your jars, lids, fruit, etc.

Several steps further along, simmer the apricots, water, and sugar. Tip for those trying this at home: it would be a good idea to have the water in the canner also coming to a simmer at this stage even though it feels far too early.

If you've been wise enough to stock a Virgo***, he will likely be keeping things tidy for you.

A tidy work space is a safe workplace.****

 

 Waiting for the balance of jars to process

Jars have all pleasantly pinged (well, probably not that re-used jar that we'll be testing from shortly) and await their recycled labels.

Between Myrna's ancient operating system and the wonkiness of the iPad (with which the photos were taken) putting together this brief post has been quite the challenge, thus the higgledy-piggledy look of the thing. But the important news is that we have a supply of preserved apricots to tide us through what the future holds.

 ^Gin bottle photobombing this shot sadly contains tea.
*Books are important and life-changing and I'm glad that they exist.
**An advantage of jam- over book-making: it takes a fraction of the time. And tastes a lot better.
***Not available everywhere. Your results may vary.
****This photo is mostly about showing off the paint job in the kitchen.