Our farm had a great crop this year, and we came home with 12 quarts of beautiful berries, acquired with very little effort. It seemed like a reasonable start for jam. So, why did we only end up with 8 pints of jam?!? I know that when you are not using tons of sweetener, the yield tends to be significantly less. And there was the quart (or was it 2?) that the kids finished off before we even started the jam making process. Something leads me to believe that it might have had something to do with the assistance I received in making said jam…one strawberry for the jam pot, one for Iain’s mouth, one for the pot, two for Elijah’s belly, “Galen grabbed another handful!”, giggle, giggle, “Elijah, when is the last time you put one in the pot??”….and so forth.

All told we ended up with 3 pints of strawberry-rhubarb jam and 5 pints of straight strawberry jam. Of course one of those jams was served over yogurt for breakfast the next morning. Leaving us with a grand total of 7 pints stashed away for winter. Somehow I don’t feel like we took full advantage of the harvest. But the food time line moves quickly at this time of year. The strawberries are all ready gone and it’s time to move on to the next harvest.