Weekend Musings ~ First Batch

I had procrastinated enough.

I had filled our freezer full of cut mangos. There is little room for anything else.

I had not settled down to make jam until the other day. 

I had finally found the mood to get down to making some jam.

It was an order, actually, that brought the mood on. Well, it was more a mood of "I HAVE TO make some jam". I was asked for 3 jars, please, by Sunday. 

Thank you to my previous customer who placed the order, you have lifted me out of my anti-jam making funk.

Voila, my first batch of mango jam.

First Batch Mango Jam 2020

This batch, I am told, is better than last year. Hubby was the taster - compared the very last bit in the very last jar I have from last year with a taste of the slight overage of this first batch.

His conclusion was that this year's batch was better than last year's. 

It has a great flavor and set very nicely. 

So I am not sure really if I tweaked the recipe differently, I may have been a bit more heavy handed in adding the lime, or I just caught the mangos at the exact right time. 

Or, it could be all of my 'offerings' to the earth.

I have saved nearly all the skins, dug holes around the yard, and put them in the earth. My way of composting in little bits, giving back to help the soil.

Or it could be that there was also an offering to the dump. One jar from this first batch of six jars was accidentally knocked off the counter. The jar shattered, and the jam was in a pile on the floor mixed with tiny shards of glass. Now on its way to the dump, and now it is a batch of five jars. 

So perhaps this sacrifice pleased the gods, and this season's batches of jam will continue to be stellar. 

Whatever it was, if this first batch of jam is any indiction, this year's batches will be slow in coming, with frustrations and losses mixed in, keeping with true 2020 style, but turn out to be better than last year's batches. 

The year started out with high hopes, but sadly plummeted to the worst ever. Is it turning around perhaps?

Well...so far... we have the jam. 

And more piles of mangos. 

Hubby said he felt like a king as he wolfed down at least four fresh mangos this morning, from a pile of mangos I cut last night.

More Mangos

I hope there is more than that to make 2020 stellar.