Some people get to have all the fun.

They get take a basket and pick berries on the path to the beach.
They get to eat as many berries as they want, and wash their hands in the river. They might even get to see a deer, rabbits, egrets, herons and osprey. Oyster work boats, sailboats and sunsets.
They get to buy the most beautiful jam jars ever and a book. A book that opens up a whole new world. A world of flavors, colors and textures. Jewels!

Or, they get to go to the Farmer's Market and talk to Mrs. Zang. Her days of selling tomatoes and zinnias and peaches are over, she is now just selling peaches. Her advice is free. "The old ways are the best ways." Her complexion is a testament to her advice, peaches and cream.

The real fun begins when the pot is full. Fruit and sugar, bubble, bubble. The bubbles get smaller and smaller, the steam less and less. The simmering fruit resembles stained glass.

Right before your very eyes, a jar of jam where there was none.
Then! They get to obsess over just the right labels. The jars are too pretty (and too bumpy) to just use a a sticker label. You could, in a pinch write on the lids, with a wax pencil...but that just seems a little too slap dash.

Enough with the dreaming of labels. They get to mix watercolors to the perfect shade of a Valencia orange and a ripe peach and paint thick cotton paper. Blurry stripes of peachy orange marmalade.

And because there is always a little bit that just won't fit...in that last jar, they get to toast bread and smear it with butter and jam. And while chewing, marvel at the intensity of the flavor in the littlest bit of jam. And then, go back to dreaming of all the others labels yest to come: green apple, raspberry peach, blackberry with brandy, morello cherry.
Babycakes is jamm'in.