He wants jelly

The raspberries were ready for their first harvest today!

Thankfully the weather was SUPER cooperative!  Overcast for most of the morning and coooooool! :) Low 60s.  I wore a long-sleeve shirt even.  And thank goodness for that!  Being the first picking, I moved branches in every direction and pulled an enormous amount of weeds.  My shirt helped protect my arms against all the scratchies.

Some of the bushes are producing amazing raspberries this year :)  YES!

Pay no attention to that bowl of candy! :D

3 hours later, 5 quarts have been picked.  And there are still BUKU BUKU TONS out on the bushes yet!!!!  I think our patch has outgrown our family.  LOL.

The other day when we were nibbling some of the ripe berries off the bushes, I commented about needing to pick up some more pectin for jam.  

And Paul says..."Let's do jelly this year.  There are always so many seeds in the raspberry jam."

So, I'm giving it a try!

I have never done a cooked recipe before.  

I have never used cheesecloth before.  

I have never "juiced" berries before.

LOL

I crushed them.  I wrapped them in cheesecloth.  I squeezed and twisted it.

And now, I have it resting over a bowl to drip, drip, drip any additional juice that wants to become part of our jelly.  I'll work on the jelly a bit later.  But for now, I want to simply put my feet up for a bit.

And then I remembered about the Shutterfly address that was given to us parents to keep tabs on the girls at STEPs camp this week...  By the looks of the pics, she's having fun.  I had no doubts.

Cassie's "Red" team;  she's the tall one in the middle.  No surprise there :)

And the silly shot

The entire STEPs group this week;  Cassie is the 5th red from the left in the back

And we didn't realize one of her classmates was signed up for this week too!  Carley.  Yay :)

Cassie on left and Carly on right;  eyeing up the Ropes Course 

Cassie and her roommate, Molly, and one of the counselors holding a safety rope.

TOTALLY looks like she is having a blast!