Filling the cellar is a compulsion with me...It starts with jams and jellies in the early summer, fruit and pickles in the summer and fall, and goes clear into winter canning turkey, beef, pork and wild meat... The house doesn't always get cleaned or the garden weeded but the cellar is kept stocked...I started canning early in our married life and stopped briefly when I worked full time...Then after my mom moved to Elgin, with her prodding it started all over again...We spent many hours canning together, her working harder than I...Finally when she was in her nineties she sent her sixty year old pressure cooker home with me, still not sure if I could do it on my own.
Now Herb and I have a system where he sets up the camp stove when I need it, carries all the jars, fruit etc upstairs for me and I wash, peel and slice, filling the jars...On occasion Herb grinds and chops and even helps fill the jars...Then he carries it all back downstairs to the cellar...Couldn't do it without him...If the kids are home they also get in on the action, especially when Bobi brings tuna from the coast and we have a two day canning marathon with all of us "cutting up", stuffing the jars and keeping close watch on the pressure cooker...More fun is eating home canned tuna!!
Yesterday we did 15 jars of cabbage relish, 12 jars of zucchini relish and 14 jars of sweet pickles...This morning we will harvest our potato crop because rain is in the forecast and yes the tomatoes are ripe and the salsa will be done today...OWAV:)
And October has just begun. What are you going to do with the rest of the month?
ReplyDeleteOh yes, sweet October!!
ReplyDeleteI have this same compulsion but wished most of the work didn't happen just as I start back to work...it get done anyway...roasted pears last night and they were yummy...tomatoes are coming on slowly but frost will be here soon...have a table of pears ripening and have been stuffing peppers to freeze...salsa is done but we still need to dig the potatoes...love it...love you
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