Farm Fun

Prior to the camping trip, Harrison spent a day at Remlinger Farms in Carnation with mom and Auntie and also visited the Snohomish Farmer's Market. I had never visited downtown Snohomish before and found it to be a neat area with a mix of old and new shops and lots of antique stores. The Farmer's Market was sizable and we bought some pickling cucumbers, beets, spice packets to make dips, flowers and last but not least, an ice cream bar. Since it was 4pm, I could not in good conscious buy each of us our own ice cream bars (although I admittedly had to fight the urge) so we agreed to share one. Harrison was beside himself with happiness and a chocolate covered face.

note the ice cream at the tip of his nose

We drove over an hour to Remlinger Farms with the intent to pick raspberries to make jam and visit the animals however we were surprised to find that this farm was a major operation. It has carnival style rides including antique style cars on a track the kids can "drive", a train looping around the property, a canoe ride on a little lazy river for the little ones, a small roller coaster (too big for Harrison), a hay jump, petting zoo and a lot more. I was not prepared for so many activities and should have arrived earlier as Harrison could have stayed and played all day.

Antique Fire Truck

 

Met with the Choo Choo conductor who showed us the real steam engine and Harrison got to pull the cord to ring the bell!

Before we left we spent 45 minutes picking raspberries and hauled home 7.5 pounds! Of course when I say "we" I mean Chyna and I picked while Harrison ate them as fast as we could pick them until he was satisfied and then spent 30 minutes wandering the aisles of vines, ducking into the foliage and hiding and running away when we called him. He had fun considering we were not paying any attention to him and it was hot and late in the afternoon.

The next night, Chyna and I proceeded to make jam using borrowed jamming equipment and a recipe book from our awesome neighbor. In short, we followed a recipe for "berry jam" which listed 10 types of berries. Since I had previously read that fruit contains varying amounts of pectin, I was not overly concerned when the recipe did not call for added pectin. We were concerned when we were still stirring 7 pounds of raspberries and sugar at 10:30pm and it was not gelling the way one would expect jam to gel. We managed to get it semi-thick and figured it wasn't too bad for first try.

The next day we flipped through the book where I found a recipe for "Raspberry Jam" which indeed called for pectin... evidently we had originally followed a recipe for a mixed berry jam, however the recipe in no way indicated to mix different berries! This left us with 12+ jars of what we lovingly refer to as "raspberry Sauce" which is great on toast as well as ice cream!