(no subject)

[scrottie]

Sailed with K again Sun on the Cape Dory; he wanted to practise anchoring, never having done it before, and aspects of it being non-obvious, a bit dangerous, and very much benefiting from crew help. Early afternoon was fair winds which made that easier. Sat on the hook for an hour or two and caught a fresh breeze back, then proceeded to drink beer whereupon N, the owner of the Alberg, came trundling down the dock with a cart full of provisions and his family and family dog. Made strawberry jam yesterday while K and N hung out. Passed along some of the strawberries I'd obtained from a roadside farm market. Usually I use the patio kitchen but it was far too windy. Water doesn't boil when exposed in howling wind, so did not use the common area. The alcohol I was able to obtain finally after several tries at ordering some was just incredibly sooty but worked fantastically in the little Origo stove for boiling canning water. Strawberries were just starting to turn in to a mold explosion after being obtained Thurs I think it was. The extreme heat probably didn't help. The apricots took longer than that to get good and ripe were mostly not really ripe when they got jammed. My own process for canning besides being rusty is not calibrated for Pomona's pectin. If fruit is simmered at all even just to soften it a bit, the amount of pectin required is such a small amount that I'm pretty sure I keep adding way too much. I need to use 1/4th or 1/8th of the packet, which already contains less than other brands. I also found out the hard way that you can't add the pectin at the end without putting sugar aside and thinning it with sugar or it clumps, so the first batch may have clumps. K, for whatever reason, cannot functionally cope with groups of people and really only socializes with one person at a time. Besides being extremely introverted, groups are overwhelming, so I was lucky to have an excuse to leave him and N to chat. Replacement bike saddle showed up but turned out to be a knock-off of a knock-off that is literally unusable. The rails were never correctly shaped so it doesn't fit in the clamp and while I was trying to manhandle it, the plastic just broke in half. So, ordered more being more careful of the knock off's brand name appearing on the thing. I should probably get something else going there but the air is nice, and vinyl cloth covered seats just get ripped to heck in a checked soft case absent more special protective packaging and more steps in packing, and cheap vinyl seat rails break too, and it's not like everything else isn't also junk that's broke so idk.