Maple Blueberry Syrup

So I found this recipe for a Maple Blueberry Syrup, and thought I'd give it a try.
Here is the recipe:

Maple Blueberry Syrup

3 cups water

1 (16-ounce) bag frozen blueberries, thawed or still frozen is fine.

juice of half a lemon

small handful of fresh mint leaves

1/2 cup maple syrup

soda water

In a saucepan, combine water, frozen blueberries, lemon juice (and why not toss in the entire half of lemon), mint leaves, and maple syrup.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 20 minutes.  Remove from heat and strain through a fine mesh strainer into a large bowl.  Using a spatula, press the blueberries into the strainer, releasing any juices.  Return the warm, strained liquid to the saucepan.  Bring to a boil once again, reduce heat and simmer for about 20-30 minutes, until syrup is reduced to 2 cups of liquid.

Place in a jar and allow to cool in the refrigerator.

To make blueberry soda, add a few tablespoons of blueberry syrup to iced soda water.  Enjoy!  

It said that it was supposed to make two cups, but when I made it I got a little more than that.  The other thing that I ran into was that it turned out to be more of a juice than a syrup.  I cooked it for an extra 15-20 minutes which did reduce it down more, but it was still pretty juicy.  So maybe it is just supposed to be like that. 


Part of the 6 pounds of blueberries that I happened to pick.  

Getting the different tools and ingredients together to make it. :)

I don't have a picture of the finished product, but since I plan on making it again I shall add it when I make more.  
There are other recipes that I want to make, and when I do I shall add them here with some pictures so that if someone decides to make it then they can kind of have an idea of what it is supposed to look like.

Long and Busy

This past month has been very long and busy, and also hot, hot, HOT!!!!!! I think the average temperature for each day was 95+ degrees F.
So, it's looking like I am able to do a post a month, or maybe that's just cause I'm a little lazy.  Anyways, so lets see.  In the beginning of the month, one of my friends got married.  She had an outside wedding, which was really beautiful, and the day was super great.  And, then I was able to head to Timber Ridge Camp in southern Indiana near Bloomington, and train one of the staff on how to run a rock wall.  This was very nice, because that meant that I was able to see a whole bunch of people that I hadn't seen for a long time.

But, before I went down there, my boss was gone for a week and asked me to go over and water their garden to make sure that it would still be alive by the time that they got back.  And about half way through the week, two of their flowers bloomed. 

I have no idea what type of flowers these are, I was told, but totally forgot the name. 

And, then for the rest of the month, I just worked and took my class.  I'm really enjoying the class, even though it takes a lot and there is a lot of work for it, it's nice to finally be able to know how to make a lesson plan, and a unit and yearly plan.  Every time that I would talk with my friends and be like "I have no idea how to do that," they would always be like "You haven't taken that class yet?"  Which was a no, and now I will totally understand what they are talking about. 

This past weekend, I was able to head to TRC again, even if it was just for a day.  I really miss seeing all the cub campers, and hanging out with them.  I want to work at camp again next summer, but I'm still not sure if I will be able to, because once again I will have a summer class, but it will be an online class so I'm not quite sure how that will play into the decision. 

This week is the 4th of July and that means that there should be fireworks and fun times, but with all this heat and stuff I'm not sure if there will be a lot of fireworks.  So, here's to crossing my fingers and hoping that there will be lots and lots of fireworks.  But if it doesn't rain then I suppose that there is nothing that I can do about it. 

This is the last week of my class, and I'm hoping that I do really good, and am able to turn everything in on time and pass with a good grade.