I’m propped up in bed, freshly showered, wearing my soft cotton strawberry shortcake pajamas.

Through the open window I can hear the kids throwing darts. (I hope not at each other.)

Directly below me, my husband is rattling and thumping about. He picked four five-gallon buckets of tomatoes this evening and is now laying them out on the shelving we’ve set up in the downstairs bedroom that is not a bedroom.

Tomorrow morning I’ll turn the ripest of the tomatoes into salsa.

The juicer is simmering on the stove top and a half dozen quarts of juice are cooling on the counter.

Most days, I make something with tomatoes and something with grapes, but it’s piecemeal so there is no rending of garments and tearing of hair involved.

It’s nice.

This evening, my sister-in-law dropped off a bushel of crispy-crunchy apples, and the boys and I finished mulching the flower beds.

The days now are thinner, sharper.

Soon there will be dark, slow mornings, cider and donuts, mountains of library books, and fires in the woodstove.

(Written last evening, while the crickets chirped.)

Last year at this time, I was drowning in peaches and nectarines, the tomatoes were just beginning to ripen, and the grapes weren’t going to be ready for nearly another month.

This year, we never got any nectarines (thanks a lot, funky spring), we finished up the peaches over a week ago, and I’m in the middle of tomatoes and grapes. It feels weird to be so far ahead of ourselves, seasonally, but it’s going to be nice to wrap up the garden a little early.

On Saturday I turned our first grapes into jelly. I think grape jelly might just be my all-time favorite jelly. It’s so rich and vibrant. And it’s so terribly easy to make. One juicer load yields enough grape juice for three batches of jelly … which equals exactly 12 pints and 3 half pints.

When making jams and jellies, I almost always refer to the handy-dandy guide that I’ve saved from a long-ago purchased box of Sure-Jell.

Instead of Sure-Jell, though, I use Natural Dutch Gel. I buy it in bulk, and come jelly-making season, we plow through the stuff. (I’ve already made six batches of peach jam, and I made three more batches of grape jelly yesterday.)

Grape Jelly
Adapted from the Sure-Jell pamphlet

5 cups unsweetened grape juice
7 cups sugar
½ cup natural Dutch gel

Wash the jars (four pints and one half-pint) and place in a 200 degree oven. Set the lids in a saucepan of hot water so the rubber can soften.

Pour the juice into a large soup pot. (The boiling jelly will rise up quite high, so make sure you have lots of space.) Add the Dutch gel and stir to combine. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally.

Once the juice is boiling, stir in the sugar. Bring the mixture to a boil again and boil hard for one minute.

Remove the kettle from the heat and ladle the jelly into the jars. Wipe the rims, lid, and screw on the rings. Set the jars on a towel and don’t touch them for at least 12 hours.

PS. This is my 1000th post! One thousandth. ONE THOUSANDTH!

This same time, years previous: whole wheat buttermilk waffles, earthy ponderations, part two, cold curried corn soup