Plan on putting any food up this fall? Cherries? Peaches? Green beans? Now is the time to be looking for those canning jars!

I have found my jars at:

• Garage sales: ASK. People forget when they have been tucked in the cellar or under their basement stairs for 20 years.
• Thrift stores.
• Church rummage sales.
• Elderly neighbors who don’t can anymore.

Be sure to run your finger over the rim for cracks, chips or bumps that would cause it not to seal when canning. Those jars are no good and should just be thrown away.

My preference is wide mouth because everything fits in a wide mouth jar, especially pickles/cucumbers.

Tags: canning, kitchen cares

Huffing and puffing trying to catch up!

Since I have been away, we’ve been picking chokecherries and canning syrup, freezing corn, shipping books, taking kids to and from work, celebrating our Abigail’s first birthday (!), dealing with attorneys, visiting a couple sick friends in hospitals, hauling water (remind me to share sometime about hauling water), hauling wood, making trips to the post office, paying bills, vending at the farmer’s market, etc., etc., etc.

I still have to finish freezing the corn and carrots and do more chokecherry syrup. YUM!

We are going to be entertaining our next door neighbors tomorrow afternoon.  They are new neighbors on their second marriage.  She is from England and has a beautiful accent.  She flew over to England to pick up her teenage daughter and a friend and brought them back here to stay for 5 weeks (this is the length of their summer break).  Then she will be accompanying them back to England.  The teenage girls brought us a box of “fudge” from England.  They came up on horseback, to the little ones’ delight.  Their accents were so thick, it was nearly impossible to understand them.  As Anne stood at the house doorway, she noted they sounded as thought they were speaking another language.

So tomorrow, if everyone is well, we will have them for lunch.  They told us that it would be very delightful.

For this morning, though, I am trying to enjoy my coffee and do some catching up.  This included passing through my blog and sharing only a glimpse of life at our home.  Busy as always.  I will try to get back another time to share about Abby’s doctor appointment and various other sundries…oh yes..and share our hauling water photos.

Tags: Abby, canning, freezing, hospitality

Cherries cherries everywhere!

Someone gave us over 200 pounds of cherries from a truck that overturned. Do you know what this means? It means 2 days later, we are nearly at the point of putting them on the neighbor’s porches, ringing the bell, and running! It also means I should be pitting instead of typing.

We have frozen, flash frozen, dehydrated and canned….all double pitted. Double pitted means that our pitter only pits them about half the time, so we have someone checking them again.

Ah…the cherry pitter…this is a story! We pulled out our two cherry pitters. One was broken off where you attach it to the table and the other was missing a part, so we put the two together to make one pitter. I was elated at the prospect of opening a jar of cherries in the middle of the winter and only having to pay for the cost of canning lids. I asked son to tighten the pitter to the counter and *POP* It broke! Now we know how the other one broke.

I began calling all around town for a replacement pitter. Several places said that they had just sold the last one moments before. I finally found one place and decided to add it to my errand list. At the last moment, I decided to go their FIRST.

My oldest daughter (18) and I walked up and down the aisles and finally settled on asking someone where the cherry pitters were to be found. She stood up to take me to it. I noticed another woman, who was on the other side of the woman followed us. The woman looked up high and brought down the LAST pitter and handed it to me. The other woman said, “the last one?” Then she went on to say how she had looked all over town. I didn’t know what to do! Should I give it to her? Finally she said, begrudgedly that she had *2* cases of cherries to pit. I said, “I have 9.” ~blush~

When I got up to the register, the woman, who had helped me locate the pitter, said, “Boy! For a minute there, I thought she was going to grab that out of your hands!”

Tags: canning, cherries, kitchen cares