Strawberry Jam and Visitors

We had a very pleasant surprise when we read Kit and Jerry Bertelsen's blog this morning. Kit said they were leaving Wisconsin and heading to Bemidji, Minnesota, to visit some friends. John asked, "Are we the friends they are coming to visit?" This was news to us as I hadn't seen any email from them. I then remembered that Jerry has a different email address for us, so I went into my gmail account and, sure enough, there was a message from Jerry saying they would like to make a stop in Bagley and visit with us this evening. He had included his cell number, so I gave him a call. Jerry told us they would be in Bagley by mid-afternoon so we invited them for supper.

The rain showers of this morning cleared out, so John went back to picking more strawberries. I spent the morning cleaning and cutting them up and getting them ready for jam. I also made more shortcake and some macaroni salad for this evening's supper.

After lunch we started on the jam. We have a pretty good system--I do the cooking while John gets the jars and lids ready. It only took us about an hour to make two batches of jam. This will give us enough strawberry for the year.



With the jam finished, I got the kitchen cleaned up and did a little picking up around the house. Kit and Jerry arrived about 4:30 p.m. We took them on a little tour around the grounds and then showed them the shop and our house. It was a relaxing and enjoyable time catching up on news from Fort Clark and hearing about their travels. The evening ended all too soon and we had to say good-bye--we'll being seeing them again in the fall. Have a safe trip and a great summer!!