Attack of the APE in Strawberry Fields FOREVER!

 Yes, these beauties are our jars of jam! They make me so happy

A few years ago my brother Michael and my sister Sheila decided ape was an appropriate nickname for apricots. I don't know where it came from, but we had a grand time labeling all the bags of apricots in the freezer "APE". A few weeks ago we noticed our 40 foot tree in the back yard had started to grow some kind of fruit on it. We had no idea it was a fruit tree, it didn't have anything on it last year when we purchased it in the end of July! But this has been a really weird weather year for Utah, so I can see why the timing of everything is a little off this year.

Dave and I headed out for a walk Tuesday night, only to have the largest apricot known to man fall out of the tree in front of us! It was the size of a small peach/nectarine, but it was definitely the smell and taste of an apricot. Looking up at this 40 foot wonder, we realized there was no way in this world we would be able to pick the ripe, top fruits! So we headed off to Home Depot and purchased a fruit picker. It telescopes to about 20 feet, which covers a decent amount of our tree. So we got to work picking.

We probably have picked 30 apricots a day since! That's a lot of fruit for two people, so we made a plan... I decided I wanted to try my hand at apricot jelly, and Dave decided Apricot fruit leather was the way to go. So I found a recipe for each online and started blending and freezing the ripest of our fruit. Dave's mom graciously agreed to teach us how to can jelly on Saturday, and happens to also own a fruit drier, so I did the shopping for the supplies, and off we went!

I remember doing jelly when I was really small, but my mom has since converted to freezer jams. Since Dave and I don't have the freezer space to even add a bag of veggies, I decided the old fashioned canning way would probably be the best choice for us. I found a coupon for $3 off jars, so I used that to purchase a few packs of jelly jars. I debated trying the larger size jars, but there is no way just Dave and I could consume an entire huge jar before it goes bad! So even though the jars cost the same as the big one, we opted for the smaller size.

My dad ended up coming over to pick the top apricots at the same time as we were heading out to can the jelly, so I headed over to Dave's house, and Dave stayed behind to make sure my dad didn't too carried away climbing the tree and fall out (or just to help him)! The canning went well, and the apricot jelly set up nicely!

So I headed home exhausted and laid down for a nap. About an hour later we got a call from my dad asking if we wanted to come pick some strawberries from his patch. They had been out of town all week, and had TONS of berries that were just going to go bad if someone didn't pick them. So we picked about 2 buckets full, and decided to whip up some strawberry jam too!

The strawberries were about the size of grapes for the most part, so it took forever to hull them all... but it was worth it! We made 12 12oz jars, and 10 pint jars worth of strawberry jelly, and still had three cookie sheets of berries left over to freeze for future ice cream and smoothies! And we made the best strawberry waffles with home made whipped cream on top... it was fabulous!

When we got done with the Strawberry jelly Dave asked me to promise we would NEVER do this again... If only he knew this is only the beginning!