Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Welp, it's that time again...
Time to bring in the harvest. :)

                                    


When my kids were younger I both relished and dreaded these days. The hot summer days when I would can 300lbs of peaches all by my own lonely self... and then move on to 200 lbs of tomatoes, 150 lbs of pears, go to the bathroom and cry... 
I mean, I wanted to do it, nobody was making me. I wanted to have all that food in my basement when we needed it. I believe in supporting local farmers as much as we can. I wanted to have good wholesome food on the shelves. I wanted to be ready for Y2K when we might be required to hole up in the basement and live on peaches and pickles for 6 months...
Bot oolala the mess. The fruit flies.. the WORK!
Because don't let any pretty canning pictures fool you, canning is work-at least if you do it on any real scale. Maybe just blithely boiling up one canner of applesauce...

 
  
                                                                      
Anyway, now I have help and it isn't so bad.
 
Boy, he's studying that, isn't he?
Iced coffee. That counts as help.
Supervising is hard work too. :)

Well, so far I've only gotten berries and made applesauce. And I didn't can the sauce, I froze it. I think it tastes better that way.

But today it's gloomy and rainy and I'm wondering if there will be much by way of peaches, tomatoes, etc. We've had such a short summer this year! Even though I personally prefer cooler weather, I'm hoping for an Indian summer so we can get more canning done and Rand can fit in an outdoor job he's been trying to get in.

What are you putting by?


5 comments:

  1. Blithely boiling up a canner? Hilarious! Blithely? Love it! However I see nothing blithely about even one canner of sauce! LOL

    The last of my gravenstein apples are on the ground ready to cook. The jonagolds dropped their first apples last night in the wind and the rain. Tink and I have canned only about 40 quart so far. The majority is yet to come. The Jonagold tree is a huge yielder, bless his heart! (sigh)

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  2. Hey get one of your computer savvy kids to go into your blog and click on the html and go to the template there and change the width of the sidebars. All of your buttons and stuff will fit on the sidebar if you do that. Or you could just rearrange the widgets.

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  3. Why is canning so exhausting? I was beat yesterday after only 4 hours of blueberries.

    I need to find a place to pick apples before they are all gone. I also need to put up some more tomatoes and I'm looking in to pressure canning soups. Oh and green beans.

    I keep telling myself it will be worth it but man, it's a lot of work. It is nice to have helpers that's for sure!

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  4. I've never canned a thing in my life......unless "putting up" lemonade concentrate counts. Nah, I didn't think it did. I admire your hard work and I like hearing about the realities. Kudos to you and to all of your fabulous helpers. Love the pictures!!! Yum, iced coffee!

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  5. Mrs. Darling, do my untidy borders bother you? Hehe. :)

    Amy, I did vegetable soup out of the Ball canning book last year and it was SOOOO nice having it on the shelf for quick-but-good lunches. It needed a little brightening when I served it, like a little parsley or chives from the garden, a little pepper, but then it was really good and cozy. :)

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