Jam

I made strawberry jam today. Lured in by the good price, enticed by the spring-like weather, and convinced by the fact that we just pulled the final jar of last years jam out of the freezer a few days ago, I picked up ten pounds of ripe, red berries...likely the first of many such purchases I will make in the next month or so. Some of them became the strawberry shortcake that the kids and I ate way too much of (hey, it's a good dinner, as long as you don't do it all the time).  More of them than you would believe went from pudgy hands to greedy mouths. But most of them are tucked away, jewel-bright, in the freezer.

Months from now, the cold will clamp down on us. The nights will be long and bitterly cold. I will wake up early, hours before the sun. Maybe a child will wake me. Maybe a nightmare; they are rare now, but they do come. They always will. Who knows. But something will get me up. Rather than fighting to fall back asleep, I will slip out from under the covers, and creep out while BJ sleeps.

Downstairs, I will get a fire going in the woodstove. I will tiptoe around, lights still out, flinching when the coffee grinder roars to life, but unwilling to wait any longer for my "fix". Seriously, are there really people who can function without coffee? Are we sure they aren't some sort of mutants sub-species?

There, in the early morning quiet, trying not to make too much noise, I will pull out some ingredients. The same recipe for baking powder biscuits that my mom always made. The same recipe that was the first thing I ever baked in my life, at age 6. In the oven for less than ten minutes, the baking is still the longest part of the whole process. At this point, the recipe card is more habit than need; I can make them by memory if needs be.

Just about the time they come out of the oven, someone, most likely Sam, will wake up. I will fix him a biscuit, slathered in butter and strawberry jam. The same strawberry jam I made today. The taste of it will take me back to today. To spring. To warmth.

BJ will come downstairs, carrying Astrid, our little alarm clock. He will join us for breakfast at the kitchen island. Astrid will be a sticky, red, crumb-encrusted mess, necessitating a bath before we can get on with the day. I will catch Sam eating a spoonful of jam, scold him, turn around, and catch BJ doing the exact same thing.

Bryn, being a teenager, will have her biscuits for lunch. She will pout and ask why we didn't get her up when they were fresh from the oven, and act offended at our expressions of shock at the very idea that she would voluntarily get up before the sun. She will roll her eyes and huff off to her room, while I call after her that if she drops crumbs in her room she's "going to get mice!" She won't listen, and she will get mice.

For now, though, it's getting warmer, they days are getting longer, and all the fruits of the year are ahead of us. We are creeping closer to the asparagus, the peas. The peaches and raspberries. The beans and corn and tomatoes. The new potatoes, the carrots, the summer squash. The garden season, the canning season...it's on the horizon.