A few Saturdays ago I woke my four year old up early for a special momma and son time.
At 6am we were out the door, picked up coffee and breakfast at the local doughnut shop, to his thrilled surprise. By 8am we were out in the blackberry fields picking away.

I was having a great time.

He was not.

Mommy (in an attempt to rally the troops!) got into corny mode and was encouraging the singing of silly songs as we labored.

My four year old looked at me, smiled and said, “I have a song to sing.”
“Great! Let Mommy hear it!”, I replied.

Ready for this…..

This is great stuff….

Remember, please, the following: we have driven over and hour to the blackberry farm, we have just begun picking, we have several hours to go in the fields.

He cleared his throat.

“Oh, I wish I could go home but I cant! Mommy has me out here in la-la land. Oh I wish I could go home but I can’t!“

Nice, huh?

Well there are good times and then there are times such as our blackberry picking day. We survived.

And, as a result we made jam.

Using fresh organic berries, raw unrefined cane sugar, my great-grandmother’s jam press, and fruit pectin this is what happened~

I don’t know what this is called, but it belonged to my great grandmother and I love it. It usually sits as decor in my house, but several times a year we use it for jams. It makes me think of her and pecan pies. And, jam of course.

Look at that color. Blackberries galore.

3 cups freshly mashed berries.

And, five cups (whao!) of unrefined organic cane sugar

Pectin. Follow the Sure-Jell recipe. Its a piece of cake. Or a jar of Jam.

Enough blackberry freezer jam to last us six months.