One of my favourite knitting blogs to read is the Yarn Harlot’s. While she is a fellow Canadian, she lives approximately 3400km from where I do. Why then, do we seem to have the same squirrel problems?

Today was a nice, sunny day. I decided to open our balcony door to get some air. This door doesn’t stay open by itself, it needs to be propped. The big box that holds it all the way open wasn’t handy, so I stuck a small box it it, so it wouldn’t shut. Normally this door gets propped wide open when it is nice out. The rectractable screen door was open when I opened the door, because I’d been going in and out the past few days with plants. But for whatever reason, I decided to close the screen today.

A little later, I’m sitting on the couch reading, and I hear a noise from outside. Then I notice a SQUIRREL seemingly HOVERING in my doorway.

It must have been the wool fumes. I bought yarn today for the first time in a year and a half. Squirrels like yarn. Who knew?

I used to think squirrels were cute. Now I see them for what they really are: rats with hairy tails that just want to steal our yarn.

Luckily my iPhone was on the coffee table next to me so I could get pictures. I closed the inner door and then knocked on it to scare it away. What would have happened if I hadn’t closed the screen? My boyfriend says I would’ve had to put on my big girl pants and chased it out. I think I might have been more likely to lock myself in the bathroom.

I’m one of those people who is always starting new craft projects. I have supplies for all sorts of crafts in our storage room. I’ve found a new love, but don’t worry, it won’t stop me knitting. My new ‘thing’? Canning.

I bought this book: The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving: Over 300 Recipes to Use Year-Round and I absolutely love it. Mum made all our jams & marmalades when I was growing up. We had a lot of fruit on our property, way more than 3 people could eat in one summer. It is something I’ve wanted to do ever since I moved out, but I didn’t want to end up with 10 jars of jam. Buying that much fruit would be expensive, and we don’t eat that much jam. Small-batch preserving is just right! You get a couple jars of jam, which is just right.

Soon after I bought the book, but before I’d thought seriously about what to make, I went grocery shopping and found a flat of 12 mangoes for $6. So I bought mangoes.

I cut up mangoes.

And I made just about every mango recipe in the book. The thing with small-batch is that while you don’t end up with a lot of product (good) it doesn’t use a lot of fruit (sometimes good). Most recipes call for 2 mangoes. I still have 6 left sitting in the box.

From left to right we have: Mango Chutney, Strawberry-Rhubarb Jam (no mangoes, but I couldn’t help myself), Mango-Lemon Marmalade, Light Mango Spread (I had more than 1 jar of this, but they’ve already gone to new homes!).

P’s stepdad is a recently-diagnosed diabetic, so the light mango stuff was for him. No added sugar, just Splenda, and a special no-sugar pectin.

It gets the plastic lid, because you need to keep it in the fridge or freezer. No sitting on the shelf for 3 months for this one, eat it fast!

I’ve been looking at canning books for ages, trying to find one that meshed with what I knew about canning. Mum never used pectin in anything, saying that it just diluted the fruit. Look at a pectin recipe vs. a no-pectin one and even if you start with the same amount of fruit, you get much more product from the pectin-using one. Thus, diluted fruit flavour. This book doesn’t use it too much, which is nice.

Mum also never boiled the jars once the jam was in. Just put boiling hot jam into hot jars. She boiled the flat part of the lids, to soften the seal, but that was it. Once the lids were on, I’d hang around the kitchen counting the ‘ping!’ noises the lids made as they snapped down to seal. And, no one has ever died or even gotten sick from eating mum’s jam. Some canning books went so overboard on the warnings it just seemed like fear-mongering to me. Small-Batch has you boil the full jars, and I did for these, but I still don’t think it really necessary.

Most of these have been done for about a week, and the only thing I’ve tasted (apart from licking the spoon) is the Mango Chutney. I sometimes will finish knitting a sweater or socks or something, and immediately put it away nice and neat where it belongs. I won’t try it on for a while. After I’ve spent so much time on something, I want to enjoy it being completed without realising that it’s too big/forgot a button/too small/etc. I think I’m doing the same thing with this jam. What if it is too runny? Tastes bad? To stiff? I’m just enjoying the pretty jars right now, and telling myself I haven’t had any yet because you need muffins or scones to truly enjoy jam, and I haven’t made any yet.

I think I’m going to go make some cornmeal muffins now, and while those are in the oven, I may even sew buttons on the finished $1.50 cardi that’s been folded on the shelf for 2 months now.