Canning

We had a lot of food to work up so we took off from the normal books of school and spent the entire day in the kitchen working together, boys included while slipping off every chance they got to play Legos. Zach finished his report on Austrailia. Every so often Allison went to the piano to practice her working piece 'Short Story' in Suzuki Book 2. I love that piece of music!

While working, we listened to JOY fm. The morning joy ride had a tribute for Tony Greene as he passed away last night at 4:25. I didn't know him personally. Yet I hurt with the family in having this young man of 41 pass away. He had a lot of health problems. I was reminded of the verse "Precious to the Lord is the death of one of His saints". Can you imagine the pleasure of heaven as they welcome another child of God home? This life is about living and dying. Are you ready to meet your Maker, the God of Heaven and of the Universe? It's THE most important question to answer!

There for awhile we only listened to contemporary music. And we still have favorite artists. We were sick of southern gospel. Yet as the girls are taking piano and violin with the classical Suzuki method, we are appreciating the old hymns and the acoustic songs more and more. There are some great songs in every style of music, wonderful songs to draw us closer to God. I really can't tell you my favorite style. We LOVE to sing and praise God.

Last night I went to the garden and picked a five gallon bucket of tomatoes, ½ five gallon bucket of peppers, and ½ bucket green beans. The latter we planted for a late crop and these were the first from that picking. Probably most of you are sighing about that. But we hadn't gardened for 2-3 years and this year has been a fun, but hard working one.

Earlier I made two batches of salsa and neither was as hot as I like it. This time the jalapeno peppers were ripe and I added 9-10 with the seeds. The yield was 20 pints and it's good. If it's too hot for us, we can always mix it with our mild salsa.

Amber canned 5 quarts of green beans and added 4 quarts of navy beans to fill up the canner, while Allison and I cut up the remainder peppers. We froze 11 cups.

Then we cooked an 18 quart canner of grapes and canned 5 quarts while keeping the rest for grape pudding.

Last we tackled the apples that we picked last week at our music teacher's house. They were giving them away or else they'd have rotted. The yellow delicious were very dirty so we ended up peeling them with our $5 apple peeler. It was faster than scrubbing. We also had some red McIntosh? apples to work into sauce. We did 60 quarts for the day. We barely used any sugar the entire day.

By now our legs and backs were so sore from standing at the sink. What a perfect nice cool overcast day for canning. But the rain started as Allison was rinsing the electric strainer outside with the garden hose.

While everyone else was in bed, I cleaned the kitchen and dining room. A bed never felt so good.