Blackberries…mmm…they are one of my favorite things about Virginia. I am sure I had them before moving here, but last summer for the first time, we went out to the farm and picked twenty pounds of them and ate jam, cobbler, pie, and syrup until I felt like my skin was tinged purple. It’s a kind of magic to pull them off the bushes and watch them transformed into jam.  Jam that I can open on frozen winter mornings and breathe in a bit of the summer’s sweetness.  Jam that I ran out of this past March or so, a mistake I mean to remedy with what is left of the blackberry season.

We picked today. We dodged the bumblebees, grasshoppers and beetles. Butterflies floated over the orbs and we held our breath.  The berries piled up in clusters beneath our hands. We took our baskets home and let the water rush over them.

Then came the mashing—a cup at a time splattered and spread in the bowl under pressure. Heat with a dab of butter (to prevent foaming, my Granny told me) and a bucket of sugar, and then apply just the right amount of patience and voila!

Beautiful blackberry jam. A couple more batches and I will be fortified against the coming winter.

*For aspiring jam-makers, I usually just follow the recipe and directions included in the box of Sure-Jell (found with the gelatin and pudding mixes in the store).

*Virginia friends: we picked at Henley Farms in Pungo- just $1.69 a pound