The Serendipitous Pioneer

So for the second round of berry canning delight I went with Strawberry Lemonade concentrate.  I found the recipe on pinterest.  The recipe for this concoction is found here.... http://www.myrecipemagic.com/recipe/recipedetail/restaurant-style-strawberry-lemonade-concentrate It is very yummy and I will be saving most of mine for New Years Eve when I will serve it mixed with chilled sparkling water.  Here is the catch, don't be like me.  I went to Target and bought a little hand operated one.  YOu know the kind, where it has a cone like thing and catcher.  For this you really need either an electric type one, one like they have at those lemon ade  places at the mall where you pull the handle and it smushes the lemon half or about a dozen minions.  I had one minion and he declared it to be an awful lot of work.  He was right.  It takes a lot of lemons to get to five cups.  But honestly the flavor of fresh lemons is worth i...

It is that time of year.  You know, the one when all the delicious things come in to season and that means it is time to start canning.  Well thanks to that lovely prolonged winter we endure here in the northland this year we are just now hitting that season.  This week it is strawberries.  I finally broke down and went to pick our own.  We went to Finke's Berry Farm. Definitely recommend them the berries are fabulous and chemical free.  I am amazed that Stir and the girls didn't have belly aches by the time we got home they were snitching so many.  We brought home 25 quarts of strawberries.  Ok we left the farm with that many.  But now I have to do something with all these berries.  There is a lot of canning in my future.  And in my posts to follow. I am starting with my favorite strawberry jam which is strawberry-rhubarb.  Hey I am doing the canning my stuff first.  I like it because I think the rhubarb lends some sharp...

I know, you are probably wondering why you are looking at the  calluses on my hand when the post is title progress.  But those ugly things do represent my progress.  I have been doing crossfit for over 6 months now and I am slowly but surely progressing. It sure isn't easy.  In fact, on the way home I nearly cried trying to drive because my hands felt so whiney after trying to get my knees to my elbows while dangling from the pull up bar.  For a break between reps of 12 I got to dead lift 8o lbs six times.  All of that for  four rounds for time.  I ended up under six minutes but boy I still feel it this afternoon.  My big woo for the day was I PR'd my max effort dead lift.  I managed 140#.  I can now dead lift body weight.  Oh yeah, oh yeah.  (Be glad you couldn't see the dance with that!) My dead lifts are my best.  I can only shoulder press 45.  But I will get there s-l-o-w-l-y. But as I was saying this is a...

The color of my morning has been red.  I went out and finally weeded the flower beds along the stairs.  I hate weeding those but they do look so much better.  Then I planted the ten red geraniums I had gotten at the farmer's market.  I love having those.  They remind me of Grandma and the fake ones she use to keep on the front step in a hanging basket.  They had to be fake because that was a total sunblock spot.  Anyway my happy red flowers are out and I feel happy.  Then I replaced one of the two blueberry bushes that didn't make it last winter.  Although now I may need a third one as someone seems to have run over one with the lawn mower.  Gotta figure out how to make them more noticeable. After doing all of that in what I thought was perhaps an hour but was actually two I decided to check on Ravelry mystery knit along to see if the first clue was there and it is there.  Woohoo! I cannot wait to start that as I have a very yu...