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I’ve been freezing, dehydrating, and canning. Non-stop. NON-STOP. Yesterday, it was apples all day. Today, it’s eggplant, tomatoes, peaches, nectarines, blackberries, peppers, cucumbers, and more more more apples. And probably even more stuff that I can’t even remember till I find it! I have boxes and buckets and boxes and buckets. All free, from our friends at the farmers market. This will go on for the next few weeks–then it will all be gone. Make hay while the sun shines.
I deal with the food all day long. Peeling, chopping, blanching, dehydrating, freezing. I run the pressure canner in the evening for the tomatoes.
But….. One of these things is not like the other.
In this picture, what doesn’t belong?
And we readers of your Blog never tire of your wonderful pictures and stories of all your sweet animals! - 
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Smiles,
Lisa
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joy c. at grannymountain
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Given the canning season and the fact that yesterday was your apple day, I thought you and your readers might enjoy yesterday’s “Writer’s Almanac” poem (Garrison Keillor, NPR): “Apple Season,” by Joyce Sutphen
The kitchen is sweet with the smell of apples,
big yellow pie apples, light in the hand,
their skins freckled, the stems knobby
and thick with bark, as if the tree
could not bear to let the apple go.
Baskets of apples circle the back door,
fill the porch, cover the kitchen table.
My mother and my grandmother are
running the apple brigade. My mother,
always better with machines, is standing
at the apple peeler; my grandmother,
more at home with a paring knife,
faces her across the breadboard.
My mother takes an apple in her hand,
She pushes it neatly onto the sharp
prong and turns the handle that turns
the apple that swivels the blade pressed
tight against the apple’s side and peels
the skin away in long curling strips that
twist and fall to a bucket on the floor.
The apples, coming off the peeler,
Are winding staircases, little accordions,
slinky toys, jack-in-the-box fruit, until
my grandmother’s paring knife goes slicing
through the rings and they become apple
pies, apple cakes, apple crisp. Soon
they will be married to butter and live with
cinnamon and sugar, happily ever after.
“Apple Season” by Joyce Sutphen, from Coming Back to the Body. © Holy Cow! Press, 2000. Reprinted with permission.
Thanks for brightening our day, and keep the good stuff coming!
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Judy
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There’s a kitten tree in Lois McMaster Bujold’s _Cetaganda_.
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Ok, that was bad. Actually, I don’t see anything that doesn’t belong.
A tip, something I just found out. Most of the southern states and some of the other states have county canneries. You can prep your stuff there or take the prepped food to the cannery, mix whatever you need to, heat whatever you need to, put it either in your jars or their cans and they do the processing for you.
Yesterday I canned 40 tins of food. Tomato sauce, chili, beef stew, veggie beef soup, a green bean,potato and ham concoction, ham cubes and a pork tenderloin that I cut into boneless chops. The prep takes the normal time, but it only took a couple of hours to get it all canned and ready for them to process. Some of that time was spent learning how to work the steam equipment. It cost me 50 cents per can plus the food. If I had put it in my glass jars, it was only 25 cents a jar (any size jar).
It was great. For the chili, I only had to soak the beans over night and then mix in the rest of my ingredients. We popped a can of it last night and it was GOOD. It was a little thicker than normal – the beans absorbed some of the liquid, but it wasn’t too dry.
This would have taken me HOURS at home and heated up my kitchen. I’m going back Tue to can carrots, potatoes and whatever I can from my overloaded freezer. I’m making meals out of most of it. Whatever casseroles or soups/stews that cross my mind. The great thing about this is the equipment is commercial, so they can can stuff that we are not supposed to can at home – like pumpkin puree. Normally, it’s too thick, so it’s not recommended to do it as a puree, only as chunks. I think I’m going to make pumpkin pie in a jar. It won’t have the crust, but then, it won’t have the calories either. Plus, when I open it, I can always put it in a blind-baked crust. I’m psyched!
Note: most of these canneries are only opened a couple of days a week, usually you have from 8 to about noon to get your product ready. Some require an appointment. They shut down anywhere from the end of Sept to the end of Oct. They only work the “summer” canning season. You can call your county extension office and ask if your county has a cannery; they may know what the days/hours of operation are and the phone number.
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The cat belongs! I’m wondering about the blue and grey vase!
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Beth in PA aka oneoldgoat
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Nice blog BTW!
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But kitties, in the box or otherwise, don’t care much for tomatoes so he won’t eat much. Don’t try to can tuna, tho.
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