Christmas Flop

It started out as a really good idea. Ashlea suggested that I use some of our frozen hand-picked blueberries to make syrup to give as Christmas presents. I thought, "Yeah, I can do that!" So I found a recipe on the internet with instructions for making and canning the syrup, then set aside a Saturday afternoon to execute the plan. The recipe I chose required me to bring a sugar/water combination to hard ball stage before I added the berry juice. Everything look just fine, and I filled three jars and put them in the water bath for the required time. But when I removed them, I was puzzled to find a mass floating in the purple liquid in each jar. When Joel came home, I showed him the jars and said, "It looks like a human organ or brain tissue." They say that cooking is like chemistry (or visa versa), so we joked that I had created some life form. I watched the jars over the next two weeks to see if the masses were actually growing. I finally opened one of the jars yesterday to investigate the substance, and yes, it's pretty strange stuff. Needless to say, the "syrup" will not be given as Christmas gifts, so y'all can breathe a sigh of relief. : )