Sour Cherry jam

Last Saturday Monica invited me over to her house to make sour cherry jam. I was excited for the opportunity to not only spend time with Monica, but also to learn how to can. It was quite a process, but so fun. First, we washed and sorted the cherries and pulled off the stems. Then, we pitted the cherries by hand. This took awhile and was also a bit comical. While we tried to be careful, it was inevitable that cherry juice would squirt when popping the pit out of the fruit. At the end of the day there was cherry juice on the windows, my toes, and across the kitchen floor. Monica said it was a good excuse to clean her windows. Anyway, after popping pits, we mixed this powder with a bit of sugar that would cause the cherry juice to jell. Then, we brought the cherries to a boil and once boiling, we poured in a bunch of sugar. This too came to a boil whereupon it was ready to be canned. And wa-lah! We have sour cherry jam. So yummy…Here are a few pictures of the process.
Monica also decided to cut Simeon’s hair that day. Thought I’d share a couple cute pictures…as you can tell, he was not too excited, but he did great. And, as a side note, I have to share this cute thing Simeon said at our staff birthday party yesterday. Every couple months we celebrate those people who had birthdays in those months, one of those individuals being myself. Different people share something nice about those who are being celebrated. Lenutsa was asked to say something about me and when she was about to begin Simeon said: I want to say something about April! He was allowed and said: I like when you show me things, like today when I got here you showed me the snail.
It was so sweet…you, too, can be shown the snails at the center should you choose to visit. They’re something to see.