Peach Jam for a Sad, Rainy Day
January 30, 2024
Don’t get used to two day in a row journal entries. I’m still on light duty work. The beautiful spring day of yesterday is gone as we are experiencing a gray, rainy day. But thankfully it is still warm for a January day as it got into the 50s again today. We even have some 60+ degree days forecasted, but it’s such a tease. This happens every winter. We’ll have warm temperatures, and then it will get back to being cold. But we are grateful for the warm days and I know we’ll be whining when it gets in the 90s over the summer.
The rainy weather suits my mood as I feel heavy hearted about the plane crash that happened in Washington DC last night, and emotionally drained to hear how it’s being handled. The pilots, flight crew, passengers, air traffic controllers, and their families deserve better than the political finger pointing. I’ve also been unusually tired and I think it’s because my body is try to heal from my ankle & leg injury.
What better thing to do when you’re emotionally wrecked? I think the right answer is bake but we made pancake batter and overnight oats to freeze. I love overnight oats and used to make them every night before a shift when I was still working as a nurse. I’ve never tried to pre-make overnight oats and freeze them so I’m curious how it will turn out. I will definitely let you know. I think the frozen pancake batter should work just fine though.
We also made peach jam and it’s currently boiling in the water bath canner right now. We bought a bunch of peaches from a Mennonite farm this summer and they’ve been sitting in our freezer ever since. Peach jam is definitely my favorite jam and one of Savannah’s favorites. We haven’t made any since living here, and we are completely out (and have been for a while). Hopefully we can share our peach jam recipe with you soon because all the recipes we found use so much sugar. We cut the amount in half and it’s setting up just fine. We also have a secret ingredient that we add to our peach jam, so stay tuned. Hopefully this summer we’ll be able to harvest more than just a few peaches from our own orchard. Because while they haven’t been plentiful, they’re the best peaches we’ve ever tasted.
What is Savannah up to on this rainy day? Well, she’s hung the bottom doors on our kitchen pantry, filmed my making all of the above items, and now she’s editing our upcoming YouTube video. If I can be totally honest, creating content as your full time job is both awesome and exhausting. Sometimes you just wanna make peach jam and not film it. What is WILD is that my and Savannah’s friendship has been almost been entirely documented in one way or another. Almost all of Savannah’s adulthood and the majority of mine is in photos, videos, and blogs and we have shared it with the world. That is crazy to think about.
Every day here is so different and not at all like the day before. If I could generalize a typical day it would be do a project of sorts, record it, make food, take care of the animals, and then rest. We don’t wake up to alarm clocks and we aren’t great about following a schedule. Our do-as-we-please-when-we-please life is a beauty and a curse.
Even though this day has been emotionally taxing, I am happy to report that things are looking up. There is a warm biscuit and peach jam waiting for me.
-Casey