Happy 4th of July!

Today, we picked spinach for the first three hours. We picked all the leaves but a few, leaving the small ones near the center. We would place them into a bucket, making sure that they don’t sit there too long to start wilting. Every hour or so, I would walk up to greenhouse 1, weigh the spinach, and put it into the fridge in the box room.

For the last hour, we pulled weeds between the broccoli. I needed to be really careful not to break off the branches; I felt like a bull in a china shop. I had a feeling we would be seeing a repeat of this task after lunch.

At lunch, it was announced that we would be learning to make strawberry jam with the Farm Mother for our first hour of work; what a treat! She had convinced the Head Farmer (her beloved husband) to let us do that for work. It was so much fun. She had already measured out all the ingredients. J chopped up an apple to add more pectin to the recipe, since strawberries have so little natural pectin. Then she added the apples to the chopped up strawberries and sugar and blended them in the food processor until almost completely smooth. It was transferred to a pot where we added the agar-agar powder and lemon ice cube, and cooked on the stove until boiling. I stirred it constantly with a whisk, especially when adding the agar-agar powder (to avoid clumping.) Then we all took turns adding the jam to the jars through a large canning funnel. The best part was, these jams doesn’t need to be water bathed, they are canned just like that!

We went back to working on the broccoli beds as I had predicted. Once J and A had finished, I was happy to see that the Head Farmer had them hoe and clean up the spinach beds and aisles;  I don’t think I did a very good job hoeing them a week ago. We did those chores until about 4:30pm.

Then we rushed inside to change for a swim. I quickly got a load of laundry into the washer and we left for the lake. Normally we walk, but today we needed to be quick since dinner was going to need to be at 5:30pm instead of 6pm (some of the family members needed to do something later that made our normal dinner time not work for them.) So we drove over to the area where we have access to the lake. But when we arrived to park, we realized that the neighbors were throwing a big 4th of July bash and there was very little parking. Ellie parked her car off to the side of the driveway and we walked over to the lake. Ellie, J and I went for a quick and enjoyable swim and then rushed back to the car. I was so happy to squeeze in a swim of the fourth of July. Unfortunately, Ellie had to back the car up all the way up the driveway in order to get back to the house.

After dinner, the Farm Mother showed us how to stretch mozzarella, and this time it was successful. She would cook the

unpasteurised milk to 91 degrees, and then add the needed ingredients like rennant, and make curds and whey. She then drained the curds in a strainer and let it sit for a while. After a rest, we added boiling water, and let it sit for 3 minutes before combining and stretching.

Afterward, we made another batch of jam and sat in the kitchen around the computer, appreciating the Rick’s fantastic art. After a nice chat with Ellie and the Farm Mother, we packed up and went into our rooms.

As I’ve been writing this, I can hear the fireworks going off in the background.  At one point, I went out to the front drive to watch the fireworks, but couldn’t get a good view without going back to put on shoes. So I headed back inside. What a strange, and lovely way to send the 4th of July.

I’ve discovered that the clock for this blog was set to the wrong time, because several of my posts have been dated incorrectly. I know this isn’t a big problem, but it’s something that makes this blog a little inaccurate.