Due to too much fun with friends and family I am very late, maybe too late in responding to
the August 15, 2019, Carrot Ranch prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that includes a sweet jam. It can take you to the kitchen or the smokey room of a back-alley bar. What makes it sweet? Go where the prompt leads you!
This double 99 is from an as yet unwritten road trip episode where Marge helps Ilene sort through her dead mother’s house. See the complete set of incomplete and likely out of sequence vignettes of Marge, Ernest, et al on their page HERE. Yep, it’s a work in progress.
Harvest
“Pull in this driveway here, Marge, this is the place.”
Marge and Ilene climbed stiffly from the truck and stretched, taking in the weather worn clapboard house. Two gangly apple trees stood guard in the unmown lawn. Ilene investigated the blackberry bushes that grew where the unkempt meadow met the woods.
“Marge! They’re ripe!” She made her way back to Marge and faced her mother’s house.
“Well, Marge, I’m supposed to get what I want from the place before leaving matters to the lawyers and realtors. And what I want is to make blackberry jam like my mother did.”
***
Marge and Ilene, scratched from the blackberry brambles, fingers stained purple, now stood over large pots of steaming, bubbling blackberry ooze.
“I don’t know, Ilene, I haven’t done this since my father died. He and I always made jam together.”
“We’ve got this, Marge.” She stirred, carefully eyed the drip from the wooden spoon. “I always enjoyed helping my mom with jamming but knew it meant the beginning of school. Used to feel like we were putting summer in a jar, to be savored later.”
“She’d be proud you’re back in school Ilene.”
Ilene blinked. “It’s ready Marge. Pour.”
Now there you’ve brought back happy memories. And now I’ve the time, the blackberries display on my every walk … I can’t have the carbs. Just a munch or two on the berries as I walk along.
LikeLiked by 2 people
That’s how I do it too, just graze.
LikeLiked by 2 people
🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Tasty post! My sister always searched for blackberry jam with seeds.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I have just realised something. I’m 75 and have never made jam!
Not sure if I’m sorry or glad about that…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, others do it so well, let them. I’ve never done it on my own as an adult. Maybe if I ever have more time in the fall.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on anita dawes and jaye marie.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I like the discussion and sharing between these two. They are becoming firm friends – so much to share. The reflection on school beginning and putting summer in a jar to be savoured later appeals to me. I hadn’t thought of it quite that way.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, there’s more for these two if only I’d write it.
Thanks Buddy
LikeLiked by 1 person
Better hop to it then! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Some day.
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂
LikeLike
Nice. A sweet interlude with Marge and Ilene 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Punny one.
Atmosphere isn’t ringing any bells yet, and school bells are ringing, but we’ll see, I’m not too late to head your way with a Six Sentence Story.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yuck, yuck 😀
No worries. You’ve got plenty of time. For the 6, any way!
Kids go back here on Monday. Can’t believe it’s that time already.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Like the idea of summer in a jar. sounds like a haiku.. very well done
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for that. Ilene’s boyfriend is into Japanese poetry so he will write the haiku when these two return from their trip. (They made the jam in Ilene’s mother’s house) Oh, he wrote it already:
Sun filled gatherings
Sweet expansiveness reduced
Summer in a jar
Looks like I need to get going and write the rest of the story then.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: Keepsake | ShiftnShake