Making Jam

Sorry for the lack of activity on the blog! I hope my three faithful readers haven’t given up on me! ( :

Since Greek school finished, both Pelagia and I have been working a lot. Pelagia keeps getting more and more work – mainly painting, but earlier this week I helped her put in some laminate flooring.

She is an extremely hard worker and does excellent work, so her name keeps spreading by word-of-mouth. She’s now even got a couple job offers to work on summer homes in Halkidiki. Of course, that just underscores a big problem – lack of a car. It’s to the point now where she could get a lot more work – and charge more – if we had a car. But of course fronting the money for even a used car is difficult for us. If anyone out there wants to donate some funds toward this end, we’d REALLY appreciate it! ( :

Meanwhile, apart from occasionally helping Pelagia, I’m working on some translations for Fr. Peter Heers, as I mentioned before. The first one I did went surprisingly quickly, but it was because I chose the easiest one first. I’m working on one now that is really bogging me down. Still, it’s good work for me – I’m learning and getting paid (although not very much at my current pace). As I get better, I’ll earn more though.

Anyway, this post is about our big mousmala tree in the backyard. Mousmala is a type of sweet fruit which I had never seen before coming here. Apparently, it is called loquat in English, and it’s a type of quince (if either of those terms helps at all – they didn’t for me!). I guess the closest thing I could compare it to would be a plum.

Well, we have so many right now that they’re just falling off the tree. So the other day Pelagia climbed up in the tree (see the top picture – she’s in the tree, along with our cat Mo, although you can’t really make them out), and harvested two buckets full of them. We then made 7 jars of jam from it – and it’s even pretty good!

Stay tuned to the blog. Yesterday, Tuesday, we went on a field trip with our parish here in Panorama, and I have lots of photos – and a video – that I’m working on posting. Also, we’re taking a trip to Rome on Sunday, so I’ll have LOTS of photos when we return on Wednesday.

My parents were supposed to be visiting right now, and they were taking us to Rome as part of their trip. Unfortunately, my mom became very seriously ill and they had to postpone their trip. There was no refund on the tickets, though, so Pelagia and I are going to Rome! Please keep checking in…