Did I mention we've been busy?

It feels like we've been going non-stop with school winding down, summer revving up, and lots to prepare for.  Strawberries were on sale around here.  So, Friday my little kids and I tried our hands at homemade strawberry jam.  I made freezer jam once with my mom, and last fall I tried my first cooked peach jam, so I wasn't totally unprepared.  This was the first full-blown cooked jam experiment. 

Baby helped herself to lots of cut of strawberries...yum!  The most time consuming part was all the cleaning, hulling, and cutting up of the strawberries. 

The trickiest part was not scorching the jam while it cooked.  The first batch had some black patches on the bottom of the pan after I ladled the jam into the jars.  Lesson learned.  I made three batches, and still had enough strawberries left to freeze for smoothies this summer.  Whoo hoo!

Finished product.  I LOVE that beautiful red color.  It tastes pretty good too.

Next project, get ready for the garden.  I found this neat idea on giverslog to make seed tape.  I thought this would be a great way to make planting easier, and avoiding wasting seeds.  Hers are much prettier, of course, and since we don't take the paper, we used toilet paper instead of newspaper. 

I made a paste of flour and water, and marked spacing with a pencil for my big girl to follow.

She dabbed the paste in the right spot, and then we put 2-3 seeds per glob.

We'll be planting these tomorrow.  We made tape for carrots, green onions, lettuce, and spinach.  If the weather would just cooperate!
Lastly, we made some crop markers for our garden out of left over particle board.  Spray paint and some lettering practice...check.  Easy peasy.

What's been keeping you busy these days?

Linked up to The Thrifty BA, Kojo Designs, Tatertots and Jello,  Along for the Ride, and Under the Table and Dreaming.