We canned a TON this year! Here are our stats: 62 quarts peaches 38 quarts applesauce 9 quarts grape juice 15 pints salsa (Tomatoes did not do well this year! We hardly got any!) 27 quarts tomato sauce (Mostly from a sweet neighbor with a bumper crop) 5 quarts apple pie filling 11.5 pints pear cinnamon jam It was lots of work, but satisfying for sure. It makes me grateful for the Earth. It truly is a miracle that trees make fruit year after year. Who came up with that idea?! The kids have gotten to be so helpful. I really rely on their help these days. And I think they enjoy this sort of work.  Emmie really enjoyed the nonstop fruit we had in our yard. From cherries in June to grapes in October, we had one kind or another coming on all summer.  Our annual trip to Pettingills for apples is always lots of fun.  

My Grandma on my Dad's side passed away in March. I've been trying to figure out how to blog about it and not miss anything. We lived about 30 minutes away from her growing up, and she taught almost all ten of us kids to play the piano. That meant roughly 45 minutes of quality, uninterrupted one-on-one time with her each week for about ten years of my life. Plus all the other Sunday afternoon visits, sing-alongs at Christmas time, hugs, kisses, laughs (so many laughs) . . . You can't blog that! You can't forget it either, so I've decided it's okay that I can't blog it. So just a few things to sum her up. First, I have searched my memories, and have discovered that I don't have a single one of her that is negative. Sure there were plenty during my awkward growing up years that where my behavior is cringe-worthy, but she was just sunshine and nurture and safety for me.  She had a great sense of humor and could tell a story like nobody else I...