Canned

Thankfully, this post has absolutely NOTHING to do with my employment, because let's be real.  I LOVE MY JOB!

This week has been the start of canning season!  Our garden is in full swing and full of zucchini, snap peas and green beans!  The tomatoes are coming on but still on the small side and we picked our first cucumber the other day. 

Last year was my first time helping with canning since I was a little girl at Donna and Errol's.  Talk about ambitious!  Errol had a huge garden and I remember the racks full of tomatoes and I also remember the shelves overflowing with jars of vegetables and meat in the basement.  I also remember the HEAT!  Donna didn't often run the air due to Errol's health and him going outside a lot.  She also didn't run it during canning season.  Peyton and I started helping but then it started to get too hot and we skedaddled to the living room to lay on the huge blue pillow.  We only helped with peeling the tomatoes after they had been given a steam bath.

With dreams of growing a bigger garden and plenty of jars from the wedding, I canned green beans yesterday for the first time.  There is something super peaceful about picking the beans while your husband puts cages on tomatoes a few rows away as the cats wander between.  Then the next relaxing stage is sitting on the deck snapping the beans while the cats are laying at your feet.  Next the steamy canning process begins when I have Bonnie Blue peeking over the bar top at what I'm doing and trying to distract me by being where she shouldn't be.  The process was actually a lot quicker than I thought it would be and before I knew it, I had seven quarts filled and I heard the pops of the lids giving me encouragement one at a time.

Today I beat the heat and headed out with the dog to do some more peaceful picking and got 4 more quarts canned and ready to join the others in the basement.  I love the feeling of being self-sufficient.  It's something Dustin and I talked about as a dream both of us shared when we first started dating.  Right now we're putting this up for us to use.  How long before we need to plant a larger garden and we're canning for our larger family?  I hope that someday our kids will have as much joy and satisfaction about putting their own food away that we have right now.