It's the end of another harvest season. At this point every year, Michelle (who more often than not bears the brunt of the canning work) is always wondering why we put ourselves through it. I'm not a nostalgic person, but pictures of past canning years keep popping up on our screensaver, and I love that this is part of my kids' history - picking grapes, washing tomatoes, blanching peaches, cranking the squisher for applesauce. I love working with the earth to grow food, even if it's sometimes more expensive and less convenient than what we can get at the grocery store. I love the connection to the foodways of my ancestors, that my great-great-grandparents could walk in the front door and recognize what we're up to and pitch in. I love that I know where this food came from, that I can point to the exact patch of dirt. I love that all winter long, we'll walk downstairs and grab a bottle of something delicious, fixed in time in the season thereof. 2020 2019 2018 20...

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.  

I am surprised that we did any canning this year, what with the arrival of little bit in the middle of the summer. But can we did! We did plum jam, from our plum tree, salsa, tomato sauce, peaches, grape juice, and applesauce. Nate and the kids were big helpers. It's fun to can all together as a family. I especially liked grape juice day. Picking all those grapes off the vine together reminded me of back in the day when I was a kid and we'd can beans. We'd sit out on the porch for hours snipping and snapping the beans and getting them ready to go. Our sweet neighbors offered us all the apples we wanted off their tree. We filled up two five-gallon buckets and a cooler! Such big helpers.

A few highlights from last month, for your edification and enjoyment. While Grandma and Grandpa were here for Emmie's blessing, Grandpa took Nate and a couple kids to the other side of the mountain to see some of their pioneer ancestors' graves. Nate's birthday tradition is to go on a solo monster hike. This year he started at Beus Canyon and went to the top of Mount Ogden. He found a helipad at the top! On top of the world. While Nate was off hiking, the kids and I canned peaches. The kids amazed me! There was one point when I was upstairs nursing Emmie, giving instructions over the baby monitor, and they were doing it all on their own. A rainbow loom charm that Bryn made for Nate's birthday. Leah gave Nate some of her most treasured things for his birthday. Nate's mama got him birthday doughnuts. After six long weeks of waiting, Bryn got to switch out her earrings! So much love for this baby gir...