The Home Arts

I love the home arts, things that one does personally to lovingly make a cozy nest, to make a house into a home. I was raised by a creative pair, my mother did a bunch of the home arts, she was raised on a farm back in the day, and the home 'arts' were the home necessities.

She didn't think of sewing or canning as an art form, she and her 7 siblings ate one too many meals of potatoes and not much else back in the 1930's... and  I have vivid memories of visiting 'the farm' when I was a kid. The farm was in Arkansas and we lived in California. It was a trip by (pre-airconditioning) car in the summertime.

The drive was hot. My inventive dad drove with a block of ice sitting on the seat to try to keep the car cool somehow. We would drive across the country -Arizona-Nevada-Texas in 100 degree weather, he would take the desert at night because it was just too hot in the daytime.

I remember the farm house that my mom grew up in, there was a huge porch with rocking chairs. We would sit out there at night for some relief from the heat, and watch the fireflies. The moths would attack the porch light bulb...

Well I learned a lot from my mom and her mom and sisters about the home arts and I spent the whole day yesterday practicing some of those home arts...I made grape jelly!

haha. I was lucky enough to get a whole flat of grapes piled high and just starting to get overripe. So I sorted and plucked and washed and got 2 big spaghetti pots full, I made 9 quarts!

Grapes are really a beautiful fruit in all their round purple splendor. I was immersed in a pile of beautiful fruit and rewarded with glistening purple bounty, right down to the shiny paraffin sealing the top.

But the best part of the home arts, enjoying your craft! Hope your day is filled with the best kind of jams.

(All images are courtesy of Google Image except the finished jam jars.)