A Day at the Ranch

I spent the morning with S and her kids picking berries at the Strawberry Ranch. The fruits of our labor are in the picture. It was a beautiful day here in Saskatoon, even if the the temperature was a little below seasonal. Since picking 16L of berries doesn't actually take as long as you would think, we headed further down Valley Road to the Berry Barn for lunch.



Even though I've lived in Saskatoon for 3 years, I'd never been to the Berry Barn. I always wanted to go but just never got around to it. I did try to ride my mountain bike out there last summer (before I got my road bike) on a cold, rainy day. I got about 2/3 of the way there before I wimped out because I was wet, cold, and my SPD pedals were making my toes go numb. Now that I have a super speedy road bike, I think I'll be making another trip that way soon. The smoked farmer's sausage and perogies were delicious!

I spent the rest of today up to my elbows in peaches and strawberries. The last of the peaches are now steeping in sugar so that they can be made into preserves tomorrow. I also made a batch of strawberry freezer jam (my favorite!), froze some crushed and some whole berries, and made a fruity drink out of the leftover peaches and berries. I'm sure the drink would have tasted better if I'd had the Chincoteague frozen concoction maker though ;)

Putting myself out there

I've never been the type of person who can make friends easily. I don't think most of us are, but we all know at least one of those people that can make friends with anyone anywhere. My college bestie was one of these people. I often wondered just how she knew so many people, was invited to so many parties, and was always so busy. I have since realized that she was just really good at putting herself out there.

I am not good at putting myself out there. It took me 2 years of living in Saskatoon before I made any really close friends, and some of my very best friends are people that I worked with from the day I moved here!

For the most part, I'm happy with my life, but I wonder if I'd be a little happier if I were more willing to put myself out there. So, I'm resolving to put myself out there a little more often. Mayber I'll ask people out for drinks or actually show up at other people's social events (even if they involve the bar or some ball sport!). It can't hurt me, right?

19 to go

19 lbs. of peaches, that is.

Peach and blueberry crumble. Yum.

I told myself that I was making this to take to Julie A's BBQ tonight. I only took a serving out to take a good picture for the blog, but I couldn't put it back in the pan, right? And surely it wasn't so delicious that I ate that serving and another, right? Maybe Julie can live without fruit crumble.

Peaches come from a can

I'm sitting here trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the 20 lbs. of peaches that I bought at the Farmer's Market this morning. In typical Amber fashion, I decided that I wanted to can some BC peaches, so I just went out and bought some without any regard for how many jars of peaches 20 lbs. would be. Turns out it's 20 pint jars worth. That's too many peaches! So, I guess I'll be making pies/cobblers/crisps or canning some peach jam/preserves too.

As I was perusing through The Joy of Cooking looking for recipes today, I had to stop and think about how I even got to the point where I'm canning anything. Everyone in my nuclear family, including Mom, Dad, and Sister A, can cook. They all make delicious food, always have. As a result, I never really cooked anything before I moved away for college. I didn't have to.

After 2 years eating dorm food (which I didn't like, but I had no choice in the matter), I moved into an apartment with the SO. I knew the basics of cooking, but I depended heavily on spaghetti and meal-from-a-box type stuff. In fact, I'm still not a huge fan of spaghetti since I ate so much of it back then. Same with lunchmeat and granola bars from the surplus store.

While my cooking skills improved with time, it wasn't until I moved to Saskatoon in July of 2007 that I really started progressing. You see, cost of living in Canada, especially this far north, is much higher than in Michigan. Convenience foods are typically too expensive for me to justify on my graduate student salary. So, I learned how to make a lot of stuff that I would have just bought in Michigan from scratch.

The higher cost also applies to restaurant food, which used to be a favorite luxury of mine. (Oh, how I miss East Lansing!) However, restaurant food in Saskatoon is, on the whole, pretty disappointing. I quickly figured out that I might as well learn to cook my favorite restaurant foods, since I wouldn't be happy with the restaurant version here.

Last summer, after flirting with home preservation by making various freezer jams for a couple of years, I bought everything I needed for home canning. I pretty much blame this on one of my close friends here. She made this delicious sweet basil jelly that you basically have to make at home. You can't buy it in a store. Anywhere. As long as I was canning basil jelly, I figured I would try my hand at sage jelly and dilled green beans.

My first attempt at canning went pretty well. It was hot. It was a lot of work. It didn't seem like that many jars of stuff came from all that work. Everything I canned was absolutely delicious, though. Probably worth it, I thought. Since it was pretty late in the season, I put the canner away for the winter.

And now I'm sitting here contemplating my 20 lbs. of BC peaches.

Please allow me to introduce myself

I suspect that most of the people who will read this blog already know me, but I've decided to stop cyber-stalking some of my favorite blogs and officially come out as a follower. So, I'm going to bore all of you that already know me with an introductory post in case any of these 'internet celebrities' decide to stop by.

I am a perpetual student living in the Canadian prairies working on a PhD in environmental toxicology. Since people always ask what that actually means, I basically study the fate and effects of chemicals in the environment. Specifically, I study the effects of chemicals that impact the endocrine systems of amphibians. I have always loved herps (reptiles and amphibians), and I'm fascinated by endocrinology, so I really like what I do.

I have lots of hobbies but very few that I'm terribly serious about. At the moment, biking and running lead the list. I used to do a lot of rock climbing, but living in the prairies makes vertical hobbies difficult. I like to cook. I love to read.

I was born and raised in Michigan, which I mention since I follow some blogs exclusively because their authors are Michiganders. I miss the Great Lakes State, and reading about other people's experiences there makes me feel like I'm closer to home sometimes.

This is my second attempt at maintaining a blog. I didn't update the first one regularly enough to make it worthwhile. While there were various reasons for that, I think the most important was that I wasn't writing about subjects that were personal enough. So, instead of making this blog an online journal or training diary, I am going to attempt to use it to introduce who I am In Real Life.