Jam and Jerome K. Jerome

 Strawberries were just ninety-nine cents a pound. So I bought twelve pounds on Saturday. And today I washed them and hulled them....

...and I systematically smashed them.

Then, as my jars had a bath in hot bubbling water, I placed the strawberries in a big pot on the other end of the stove. And one big batch at a time, I stirred them until they became a bubbling red mass of delicious jam.

Which I ladled into the hot jars, and then placed in the bubbling bath of water to "process" for ten minutes.

And now I have these beauties sitting on my counter.

Twenty half-pints, and five pints.

And all the while I was working I kept thinking of what Jerome K. Jerome had to say on the subject of work:

"It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to work, mind you; I like work; it fascinates me, I can sit and look at it for hours."

I wonder what he'd think of of jam-making;)...... he seems to enjoy eating plenty of it in "Three Men in a Boat". It is my current read, and I am enjoying it immensely!