mid summer delight ~ peach rosemary jam

Tags

artisan jams and chutneys, Blue Chair Jam Cookbook, harvest, harvest season, herb, jam, peaches, preserves, soulful experience, summer, yellow peaches

mid summer yellow peaches beg to be blanched and preserved

the peeling process after a quick blanch

squeeze lovely juice from peels

six pounds of prepared peaches ready for preserving

simmer, simmer, boil and bubble

resting peaches present foam that is skimmed off then remaining pulp is mashed and simmered again to set point or 220 F, adding six sprigs of fresh rosemary during the last five minutes

rosemary removed, jars filled and ready for lids and time in the oven to seal. This jam is pure heaven on just about anything!

This harvest season I give a nod to the Blue Chair Jam Cookbook for shifting my preserve process.
Most recipes are fruit, sugar, lemon, and time allowing simple ingredients to marry.
Rosemary was my addition here, as this herb kisses this fruit with a goodness we remember.

Have you tried your hand at preserves?
I promise it is a rewarding, soulful experience.
Currently on the prowl for figs—my concord grapes will soon ripen and they too will be transformed.

Update on fig prowl: My fruit prince surprised me with 15# of brown turkeys Saturday—he has connections.  So last Sunday I prepared the most elegant fig jam with fennel/gin infusion. Need I say more? Yes, for lunch today I had French Roquefort with fresh figs! She is dead and in heaven….

Copyright © 2013 by Diane LaSauce All Rights Reserved

a glitch at wordpress

Tags

blogging, followers, glitch at WordPress, notifications

Are you there?

Dear Followers of my blog,

I wondered why I rarely hear back from my many of you and finally inquired at WordPress—this is their response this morning:

I checked your account, and it had gotten flagged automatically (which prevents it from showing up in the Reader, to help protect our other users), but now that I’ve reviewed the site, I can see that this was a false positive. I’ve set your blog so that it won’t be accidentally flagged again. Your posts will now show up in the Reader!

Your viewers will need to visit their Blogs I Follow page and make sure to set their alerts for your blog to their preferences; they can choose to not receive any notifications, or to receive daily, weekly, or however else they would like.

Therefore, my dear followers, you may need to re-visit my site to catch up on all the missed posts!

Best to you all,

Diane LaSauce

Author of home, garden, life

weekly photo challenge or the love of my life times two

Tags

animals, consolation, nature, postaday, true love

Miss Kitty during robust years! I miss you baby girl!

My steady consolation, these foothills.

Copyright © 2013 by Diane LaSauce All Rights Reserved

full circle ~ what’s to like about blogging

Tags

blogging, community platform, full circle, kind comments, two wishes, what is a blog, WordPress

home, garden, life was born on WordPress one year ago this month. Ninety-four heart-felt posts reside here and one-hundred followers kindly subscribe, come what may. More than seven-thousand folks dropped by, from all corners of this planet. Wow! A lot of clicks and kind comments from kindred bloggers. Full circle—I am honored, humbled, and encouraged by this technology.

My cousin asked me, “what is a blog and why do people blog?” I replied, “blogging is a world-wide community platform where individuals create, share, educate, and inspire.” Blogging is a snapshot into the world’s eye of humanity. Every emotion is displayed and support often comes in the form of comments from fellow bloggers who get the message. Blogging is a place where one’s passions live on.

If I had two wishes for blogging, they would be for readers to take a moment to comment and to explore the entire site, rather than merely read the current post. This blogger has come full circle in the past year, and will pause while this season comes to an end.

Many thanks to WordPress, my followers, and for the opportunity to make a small difference from my home, garden, life.

Copyright © 2012 by Diane LaSauce All Rights Reserved

the thing about DSL

Tags

CenturyLink, DSL, home, humor at home, WordPress

I am liberated! For the past eleven years I used dial-up in my rural hamlet and finally got so fed up with pokey publishing, that I took the plunge today, expecting the transition to be stressful. Indeed the contractor was late, very late. I expected him at 9AM and he appeared at 2:30PM.

Therefore, I completed much paperwork and data entry while the day progressed and nudged on a happy face when the fellow showed.

Mother Nature delivered nearly 9o degrees today, slathered again with damned Virginia summer humidity, and the contractor arrived hot and tired. Additionally, CenturyLink failed to tell him that he was also slated for inside hookup. We both coped—he with a tall glass of ice water—and I with the happy face, and this chore became surprisingly pleasant. When he departed I still needed to set up my new email account.

Tech support impressed me with prompt service from a real nice guy in Austin. We glitched at the last step, so Maddon handed me off to Microsoft, who nabbed my PC and fixed the glitch in seconds. Nice guys both and my overall experience memorable.

With my new-found speed, I have been here for hours adding my photos to my WordPress blogs, that easily slid from my abandoned Blogger site, due to irreconcilable differences with Google. I am learning to love DSL and WordPress. Hope you love my blogs. Please comment. Thanks.

Post Script

Bliss is often short-lived. My initial DSL experience was tainted when the statement arrived. None of the negotiated pricing was found and many extra charges applied, which required immediate action on my part. The first agent found no notes in my file, therefore I insisted on climbing the management ladder. Finally a day supervisor reversed incorrect charges and lowered the monthly fee, yet I was informed that “these advertised prices” are in effect for merely twelve months. Therefore, in one short year, I will declare open season on DSL. Why must customers endure such games?

Currently Centurylink holds customers like me hostage over the monopoly barrel. There is no other DSL service in my area. While I continue to enjoy the digital antenna on my roof, which provides free and excellent service, DSL is another issue. As technology improves, I hope that new options arrive to save those of us from this unfair marketing roulette. I am relentless in my quest, while many retailers attempt to take unfair advantage.

Are any readers of this blog fed up with marketing games? How can we as a collective humanity change this for the betterment of all?

Copyright © by Diane LaSauce 2011 All Rights Reserved