Sort of Like Grandma!

   Following my paternal grandmother's lead, I do a lot of home canning of fruits and vegetables...a LOT of home canning.  Grandma's was out of necessity as she had Grandpa, six strapping sons and a lovely daughter to feed and "running" to a grocery store was out of the question back in those days.  Mom, on the other hand, had no idea how to do these things when she and Pop got married.  She was never taught since she had not grown up as a "farm girl".  That soon became a problem as just a mere week after their marriage, Pop brought several bushels of green beans from the fields and then proudly presented her with a brand new pressure canner!  She sat down and wept because she knew the task had to be done but had no idea how to begin.  Pop tried to explain and but to no avail.  Thankfully, his sister came to the rescue and taught Mom the fine art of home canning that summer.  Mom passed that along to me as a teenager and I have been doing it since. 

  The Saturday before Mother's Day, Mark and I came up with a plan to bring four of our elderly lady friends some fresh vegetables as gifts.  Even though these ladies are in their late 80s, they still appreciate good foods and still do their own cooking.  Mark went to a local farm and stocked up on a variety of veggies and berries, we made lovely boxes and then he headed out to visit each of the ladies.  They were thrilled.  I stayed behind and started prepping the remaining fruit and vegetables to be canned.  He had scored a great deal on a bushel of green beans and half bushels each of strawberries and blueberries.  My work was cut out for me! For the next few days, we canned the green beans and made jams and jellies from the berries.

  The only troubling part of this whole venture is the quality of mason jars that are sold today.  I refuse to put any jar with even a tiny, hairline crack in my canner and some of the new jars have plenty of those.  Plus, several of the lids were messed up coming straight from a new box!  Then!  Then, imagine my surprise when one of the canning rings from a new jar had a lovely cut in the metal.  Wow!  Workmanship has gone down the tubes, it seems.  That should have never, ever left the factory!  Who inspects these things?  Anyone?  Doubtful.  I am so thankful that Mark did not cut his hand as he was removing the rings from the new jars.

  That aside, I now need to find shelf space for the nigh on eighty more jars of goodies.  This brings the total back to over nine hundred jars on the pantry shelves...which, by the way, are my dining room shelves that span the entirety of one wall.  Grandma would be proud, I think!

What to do? What to do?

  Those rascally raccoons decided to pay a visit to the orchards again two nights ago.  The peach trees took the brunt of their onslaught but the plum trees were high on their list of tasty treats.  I was a tad aggravated to say the least.  What to do?  What to do?  Mark had bought some of that nice netting from the home and garden place but that did not stop those coons!  The netting was a minor obstacle in getting to those plump peaches.  Needless to say, the netting is not much good any more.  I doubt that it would keep anything from munching the fruit now as it is torn to shreds.  Not that there are any more peaches to worry about but only a few of the plums were touched.  My son, Michael, and I picked one tree of the lovely fruits even though they were a tad green yet.  I could make jam out of them regardless and I was not about to let the varmints feast again tonight.

  The other plums were far too green to pick yet so a bit of ingenuity was needed.  The netting was redone and a bit of chicken wire was wrapped about the lower portion of the tree.  We did not have enough on hand to cover the top and that worried me a bit. Again...what to do?  What to do? It was then that Michael noticed that the Boysenberries had not been touched by the critters.  The birds pick a few each day but the coons had not touched the fat berries at all!  Aha!  He had a plan!  Since the vines had some tall shoots that were berryless, he took the snips to them!  Those tall, prickly shoots were to become our new barricade for the plum trees.  He and I carefully crisscrossed the tops of the plum trees with a thick layer of vines.  The trees now looked as if they had a thorny thatched roof!  Then, last night, NO COONS!  The plum trees with their new-found thorns were left untouched.  The raccoons ate the leftover scraps of peaches from the night before but did not go near the plum trees!  I think we might have hit on something here!  Michael informed me that we needed to plant a hedgerow of Boysenberry vines around the entire orchard!  The six foot wall of briers might just do the trick of keeping critters at bay.  We are mulling over the possibility.  Of course, that means we would have about ten times as many Boysenberries to pick but if it means we will have peaches, I will not complain.

  Today saw us in the kitchen chopping plums. I was reading the other day where home-canning is fast becoming a dying art. It seems that only those worried about unhealthy additives in our food supply are interested in taking on this chore.  It is far easier to pull something off a shelf in the grocery store that to spend several hours preserving foods at home.  Michael can make jam and jelly with the best of home canners so it was a delight to have him share the workload. He knows the ins and outs of all home-canning from hot water baths to pressure canners! As matter of fact, all my kids have learned this feat.  My eldest and his wife had a bountiful crop of plums as well and made lovely jam for their pantry!   Darling Daughter informed me last night that she cannot wait to get back to the Bayou to start up where she left off to go to college. She and her husband will fill their pantry, too!  Home-canning..the "dying art" lives on here on the Bayou (and in Georgia with my son and daughter-in-law!) Personally, I find that more young people are suddenly trying this "old school" method of preparing food for their families.  The new interest in "organic" foods has renewed the interest in home-canning. Perhaps there is hope yet for this dying art and hope yet for my peach and plum trees!

In a jam!

Oh, what a blustery day on the Bayou! And finally we saw some rain!!! The winds have been blowing a steady gale for quite some time now which makes it nice since I keep the windows open. Weather like this is not exactly conducive to working in the garden although I did manage to sneak out and poke a little fertilizer under the tomato plants. I am sure that the rain will do them more good than my feeble attempts at feeding them. There is just something about a nice shower that sends plants into a growth spurt!

With the drippy day outside, I worked inside. Cleaning house is not on my "favorite things to do" list, but occasionally I do go through the motions. A little dusting here, vacuuming there and that is usually sufficient for me! Today, though, my best intentions were thwarted by Hubby's trip to the store. He called me from the produce aisle.."Hey..want some strawberries?" Now that is probably the most preposterous question that anyone could possibly ask me. Do I want strawberries? Ha! "Sure!" I answered enthusiastically. "Great! They are on sale!" Well, I should have known..Hubby, the shopper, can spot a sale on aisle 7 when he enters the parking lot! He has a nose for a bargain! I must say that I was delighted to hear that strawberries would be on the menu today..I love strawberries! A bit later, I heard him at the door. Strawberries! Lots of strawberries! Ummm...a WHOLE LOT OF STRAWBERRIES! Thirty-two quart baskets of strawberries were carted into the kitchen. WOW!

I guess you know where I spent the rest of this rainy, windy day..yep..in the kitchen. Son and I stemmed and washed strawberries. We bagged and froze five gallons of strawberries. Still there were strawberries sitting on my kitchen table. Then..I was in a jam for the rest of the afternoon. After stemming, washing and crushing the remaining berries, I tossed them all in a huge pot and started cooking them. My, oh, my how delicious that smelled! I added the bare minimum of sugar and some of the homemade apple pectin that I made last week. This will be the test of the pectin! I cooked the jam until it was thick and bubbly, ladled it into the sterilized jars and sealed each. My, oh, my how delicious that looked! There was just enough left in the pot (accidentally, I am sure!) for me to have a taste-test! You know that the cook always has to taste-test every thing she makes! My, oh, my how delicious that tasted!!!!

The strawberries have all been frozen, canned or eaten! What a way to spend the afternoon!