Connection

     My adventure today started at 10:15 pm.  I had 20 pounds of peaches to process.  This was another first for me.  I learned so much! I am sitting on the couch with my body sort of throbbing, waiting for the boiling time to be complete. It is 1:00 am. I only canned a little over half the peaches. Tomorrow, if I get out of bed, I will prepare the others to be frozen pie filling.

A few things I learned...

Canning can be done all by yourself,  but should be done in a group of people whose company you enjoy.

There are two categories of peaches. One has the type of seed that is connected to the flesh of the fruit, and the other's seed is not. It would make for prettier canned peaches if you choose the free floating seed. My peaches were not this type, so they look a little abused.

Peaches are SLICKERY once peeled.

In order to place the peaches "cut side down" as per the directions, first, pick them up out of the boiling syrup while they are facing down and then slide them easily into the jar. Don't frantically pick at them with a fork or cuss at them, that doesn't seem to work as well.

      The last thing I learned is more of a reminder. 

It is something I have felt before.

 

When I am engaged in homemaking activities, I feel connected.  

I smell the fruit or the dish soap, I see my hands cutting an onion or sewing on a button, I feel the ache in my back from mopping, or maybe throbbing feet from standing in the kitchen too long, and I feel connected. 

I only feel connected when my heart is open to enjoy the activity 

instead of grumbling about the work. 

  Brief glimpses of women,  that I don't even know, float through my mind. They have done the same thing I am doing - whatever it is  -and I feel that feeling of connection to them. 

This lets me know I am in the right place, doing the right thing at the right time. 

It is a feeling of harmony and privilege.

Whooping Around the Fire...

     That was the expression Mom used today.  

 I did my first waterbath canning just a few hours ago. 

How do Black Forest Preserves sound?

 Yes, "Oooh!"  is right.  

It is amazing what some sugar, cocoa, and cherries can become. 

I called mom to tell her what I was doing because I was so excited about it.  I had no idea how fun and instantly rewarding doing a little home canning could be! She immediately understood.  "My Mom would always be there to whoop around the fire with me whenever I did something like this," she told me. "We would do a little canning here and there and then get so excited as we watched the pints and quarts add up to a colorful display on the shelves."

My memories of mom canning were skewed by the whininess of being a self-absorbed little girl. It would be fun to turn back the clock and savor those days of picking tomatoes as big as a softball in the hot buggy days of summer, putting them in bushel baskets and fighting with my older brother, Walt, over who has to lug them in the house.  We were both afraid of getting stuck helping if we were seen in the vicinity of work. One year, I swear, Mom canned one scrillion-bazillion quarts of tomatoes. I tried to stay far away from the kitchen while she canned. In my ignorance, I thought she must be miserable in that hot steamy kitchen, scalding the tomatoes, burning her fingers as she peeled away the skin and loaded them into jars. But now I know the truth- it was pure bliss- and I missed out on it! Fortunately, it is not too late. Today was the first day of a new tradition. It is hard to explain, but today I changed again.