Declaring War with Canada!

My neighbor started it! He had to bring this back from Canada!

My neighbors are winter visitors from Ontario, Canada. This past year they had told me they would bring me back some canned jam. I thought very little of it. It sounded nice and we parted for the summer.

Then out of the blue after settling back in to their home in sunny Arizona for their winter stay, it happened.

“Oh Steve, here is the jam we promised you.”

“That is very nice, you didn’t have to… so what is bumbleberry?”

“Oh, you know, just a mixture of berries! We had a lot of berries ripen early this year and we just got to canning them.”

So, I think to myself, that was nice of them. We have jelly in the fridge. Smuckers, I believe. I set the Bumbleberry Jam on the counter and tell the story to my wife when she gets home from work.

The jam sat for a few days without me opening it. I was cleaning and thought, I had better open it and have a little. I would not want to run into the new neighbors and have to tell them I haven’t tasted it yet. A few minutes later, I dropped some bread into the toaster, opened the jam and spread it on the toast.

OH MY!!! To say I loved it was an understatement. It had natural sweetness with no added sugar. It was not a sugary sweet but a berry sweet. I then started spreading it on bagels, more toast, biscuits… you name it… It was bumblelishious!

I even made up some homemade sourdough so I could eat great bread and great jam!

As a thank you, I took a freshly baked loaf of bread over to the neighbors house.

I received a text later that day, “Wowza, we loved the bread!”

I then run into the neighbors again! “Take this, the bread was amazing!” It was a second jar of Bumbleberry Jam.

I said thank you a million times and scoured the house for anything that I could thank them with. Next thing I know, I am standing at their front door with a basket full of freshly picked tomatoes off my garden plants.

I think I have declared war with Canada!