Jumpin' Humpy

So I haven’t posted anything new for a couple of weeks, but not for lack of activity – anything but! Shari’s parents have been visiting since the first of the month, and as usual we had a laundry list of HIPs for him to work on: install the new window (taking out the broken one was a bitch!); repair a door; add an awning to the grill cover; take out the old stove and install the new one (it did finally arrive, 24 days late and with no shipping charges for our trouble); install some rain gutters and rebuild the fish smoker. And voila – we have a much improved house now! There’s still some tidying to do, and we need to get rid of the scraps before they blow around and break another window, but we got almost all our projects completed. Finding the leak in the hot tub will probably have to wait yet another year.

While Shari and her dad worked on the house, Martha and I picked berries. Both the salmonberries and the blueberries are in at the same time this year, and both are having good seasons. We’ve had berries for breakfast almost every morning, salmonberry-rhubarb pie and best of all, salmonberry sorbet! We do a lot with salmonberries – pies, vinegar, jam, etc. – but I think sorbet is by far the tastiest thing we’ve done with them.; Martha liked it so much I had to make a second batch before they left. So, having made it twice in one week I now feel like a salmonberry sorbet expert! With my vast experience I can tell you that the first batch turned out better – the berries we harvested from our yard had much more flavor than those we got elsewhere for the second batch – but overall sorbet was a roaring success and something I shall certainly make again next year.

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