Happy NaBloPoMo Eve, also known as Halloween.

We had a decent Halloween this evening, and I took my two little monkeys trick-or-treating down the street and back tonight.  Ian had a great time of it, and always wanted to be the first one to the door.  Blake politely said thank you in baby sign each time someone put candy in his bag.  Fortuitously for me, his monkey mits made it a challenge for Blake to pick a candy from each of the bowls, so I took the liberty to choose for him (me).  Blake's bag might be biased toward M&Ms, Twix, and Butterfinger.  Unfortunately for me, I carried him on my hip, so my arms were twitchy and achy by the time we had finished traveling door to door begging for candy.  When we got home, we sorted through the loot and put the sticky goey candies back in our bowl for redistribution to the other families in the neighborhood, and kept the chocolaty treats and the hard candy on a stick.

The boys at my office for some trick-or-treat.  I was the tourist, taking pictures of the fauna.

So starting tomorrow, we'll be in November, which I am planning to participate in Blog Posting Month, and Jen said I could "Occupy Funghi Fritti Street" during the staged event.  Should be good.  I've been brainstorming things worthy of a blog post.  Now just to find the time to create my daily record.

As a preview, I make my first offering:  A look at sugars.  After all, it IS Halloween.

This summer, I made a bunch of Strawberry Jam, since Jen went and picked 30 pounds of the sweetest, ripest berries at a PYO (Pick Your Own) farm in Southern Maine with her mother.  Generally, I'm not much of a fan of using PYO as a means to get bulk items, since you have to pay a premium to have the chance to make your own selection.  Most of the time, I'm happy to have the leftovers for the sake of making apple chips, peach jam (free last year!), or tomato sauce.  But.  Pristine strawberries and leftover strawberries have a very wide chasm of quality between them.  The flats of strawberries Jen came home with smelled like sweet nectar and were mouth-wateringly delightful.  Jen said the impetus behind the 30 pounds was to make enough jam to make it through to next summer.  And we go through alot of Jam around here folks.  So I went and bought a few bags of sugar and a whole case of pectin.

Jen said she wanted freezer jam, because it tastes sooooo good.  You get the raw berry flavor, plus the tang from the pectin when you do freezer jam.

I made 12 batches.  Freezer jam takes 2 cups berries and 4 cups sugar per box of pectin.  Catch that?  Twice as much Sugar!  No wonder Jen likes it so much!  I got pretty good at making a double batch, even, but much beyond that and I couldn't get the timing right on boiling the pectin and dissolving all the sugar with the fruit and cooked pectin.  (Raw fruit, remember, so the only heat comes from the boiled pectin.)

Total Strawberries: $60, 48 cups  ~$1.25 per cup

Pectin: $2.00/box

Sugar: 2.78/5 lb bag, 11.25 cups/5 lb, ~$.25 per cup

Freezer Jam breakdown: 12 batches, 2 c. berries, 4 c. sugar=> ~30 pints  (in 12 pints, 10 half pints, and as many plastic containers as we had).  So each batch ran about $5.50 for 2.5 pints = $2.20 per pint.

Those twelve batches were starting to get a bit tedious, because using up the berries only 2 cups at a time was pretty slow going.  I was starting to get worn out, I was looking at a rapidly diminishing supply of freezer-eligible containers, and thought it was time for a change.  Now, last year, when I stocked up on the end-of-season mason jars, there were a few boxes of sugar-free pectin that I picked up, too, just because.  You know, you want to have something for all your diabetic friends.  (Or does the strawberry sugar negate the sugar-free part of the equation?)  It's a cooked recipe, so the jam DEFINITELY tastes different.  Cooked berries and no heaps of sugar, but replaced with honey is quite likely to be... different.  But it was a fun experiment still.

Sugar-free breakdown: 2 batches, 4 c. berries, 1 c. honey=> 5 pints (in 5 pint sealed jars), which puts my estimate around $8 for 2.5 pints, or $3.20 per pint.

Now that I was out of the sugar-free pectin and out of freezer containers, I came down the home stretch with traditional jam for the food storage shelves.  I figured this was the most prudent thing to do, as it used the berries up and prevented our careful investment in the Maine Berry industry from rotting before our eyes.

Regular breakdown: 3 batches, 5 c. berries, 7 c. sugar=> 12 pints (in 12 pint sealed jars), costing about $10 for 4 pints, equaling $2.50 per pint.

So now you ask, "Joe, what do you make of these facts and figures from your Summer Jam Session?"

Here's what I have to say:  The freezer jam, though heavy on the sugar, DOES taste the best of the three recipes, costs the least, and requires the least amount of berries per pint of jam.  I resisted early on because of the sugar to berry ratio, and I just thought it was silly to not take advantage of my mad canning skills.  Turns out that we've barely made a dent in the jam supply so far, and I think if we backed off from 30 pounds to 10 pounds next year, that'd still cover us for a year's supply of freezer jam.  And for my last observation-- I probably didn't need to process ALL of the berries, since we have a freezer and could have kept some whole for milk-shakes.  But I didn't think of that until afterward, did I?


Anything else I should consider for the jam-fest?

Breakheart Reservation

Jen made me a deal that if I let her sleep in on Saturday morning, she'd clean the kitchen.  So at 7:15am when the boys woke up, we had our oatmeal, got dressed, and went out hiking/geocaching at Breakheart just North of Boston.  I had only been there once, but never exploring.   This serves as a photo journal of our morning adventure on Saturday.

Ian took my picture with Blake.  I kind of have to put myself wherever he's pointing. :)

We found a geocache.  Good reason to stop and have a break, eh?

Ian was surprised to see this car on top of Breakheart Hill.  I was too... but with a straight six like that, how could it not make it?

This is how Blake got forward looks strapped to my back.  And that's the vein the Red Cross sometimes uses to take my blood.

This is how you grow crows feet.  Contort your face in as many ways as possible, and the wrinkles will just stick.

I am surprised that Ian looks like he's 22 in this picture.  While I am plenty eager to go on adventures with a man-son, I am happy to have my little boy for now!

Note:  As soon as we sat down at the top of the hill, Blake insisted that for his break to be official, he needed to take off his socks and shoes.  So be it.  I'm sure the granola bar tasted better with the breeze between his toes.

Hydration is especially important when you are strapped to someone's back.

Here's an action shot while hiking down the paved trail.  Okay, so it's in the suburbs, not in the mountains.  It's close to home, though, and has plenty of miles of trail!

The boys at the Upper Lake.

Blake thinking, "Dad, I want to go splash in that..." and it wasn't too long after the click of the shutter that I had to quickly prevent such fun.  I don't mind splashing, but it would help if he had a bit better balance first.

Here's Blake receiving wisdom from heaven.  Or at least a very interesting camera shot with glare.

Ian thought this flume was awesome.  Built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, it connects the upper lake to the lower lake.  He gave me the grand tour of where the water goes.  Smart kid!

This is several miles into the hike.  Turns out when a 5 1/2 year old hits his limit of walking, he starts crawling.  I guess I had forgotten that, since we haven't done much hiking this year.  Last year, we had vanilla wafers to keep the feet motivated.

And here are the happy hikers just before the home stretch back to the car.  Some of us are more alert than others.

October Review

In October, we were so excited for Shara and Jackson to come visit for a week. Apparently, the brisk Wisconsin weather decided to follow them here, but we had a FANTASTIC time. It was a great Boston-in-the-Fall week together. Below are some fun moments from our visit to the Boston Children's Museum.

Here are some other October highlights---------------

Apple season was in full swing at our house--which provided Joe and Ian with some fantastic cooking opportunities. For the record, Ian owns two aprons.

A family in our ward had us over to carve pumpkins...it was quite impressive....

...and then Ian found the trampoline... =)

For Halloween, Ian was a "silly green monster." I thought he was adorable...but once again, we got our annual cold/ear infection at Halloween (it's the third year in a row), so he wasn't as into it as I'd hoped. Here are Ian and Joe at the ward Halloween party.

...And it wouldn't be right to show pictures of our family without pictures of Chester. =)

Camping

Joe and Ian took off with the scouts last Friday night for a camping trip in New Hampshire. Judging by how excited Ian was before the camp out, and then how excited he was after he got home...well, I'd say that a good time was had by all. Those two tend to have a fun time together, regardless, so I'm not in any way surprised.

A half-peck

We tend to get our apples from a farm near my parents' house--they have bushels of "drops" that we cook with all winter long. But we always try to get Ian out to pick a half-peck of apples every year. Kids should know where their food comes from...

It was a gorgeous day and we had a FANTASTIC time. Bonus points to the farm for having emus, elpacas, sheep, chickens AND John Deere tractors.

Walden Pond

In an attempt to squeeze as much outdoor time as possible from the ensuing autumn season, a friend and I took our kids to Walden Pond (yes, that Walden Pond) to play at the beach and wade in the water. It was a beautiful day--Ian did not want to leave. =)