Steam Juicing - 2009

Word of the Day

Spife - A combination spoon and knife.

Last night, I spent about a half hour designing a new label for the Arancello I filtered and bottled yesterday only to lose all my work when the program shut down on me, forcing me to start all over from scratch. Apparently, the Avery label maker program doesn't like my Windows 7 operating system.....or the Windows 7 operating system doesn't like the Avery label maker program. Either way, it wasn't working like it used to work when I had XP or Vista. Total frustration! However, I sucked it up and tried again and again and again and again. I began to feel like The Little Engine That Could.

When at first you don't succeed, try, try, again. Learning my lesson, this time I was careful, saving my design every second or so, so when my computer repeated shut the program down, I wouldn't have to start my design again from scratch each time I called up the program. Finally, it got to the point where the program would fail and quit before I could do ANYTHING.

I noticed that the time I had with the program was progressively less every time I pulled it up. 30 minutes, 15 minutes, 7 minutes, 3 minutes, a minute, thirty seconds.... There's really not much you can do in thirty seconds. Anyway, I decided to try something. I shut down my computer. After turning my computer back on and pulling up the Avery program, I was given enough time so I was able to tweak my design and get everything printed out with no further glitches. I'm not sure if this is a sure fix, but I am sure I'll know before this fall. I design and print out lots of labels for everything from jams and jellies at the beginning of the summer to canned tomatoes at the end of the summer...not to mention the summer wines Sis and I bottle in the fall.

Speaking of summer wines, I started a triple batch of Mulligan Berry Wine this morning. Sis and I used our steam-juicers last fall to juice up a huge variety of fruit (dibs and dabs of this and that) that we had in freezers at the end of the summer...and a variety for fruit from my Mom's freezer when her fridge died. Blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, rhubarb, and pomegranate seeds. We canned the resultant blend of juices to use this spring...and early start on our summer wines. Needless to say, Mulligan Berry Wine 2010 won't be quite like Mulligan Berry Wine 2009...or Mulligan Berry Wine 2011.

Random Thought of the Day

What type of animal is Snuffaluffagus?

Noteworthy Quote of the Day

A good End cannot sanctifie evil Means; nor must we ever do Evil, that Good may come of it.

-William Penn (1644 - 1718)