Fall and Canning

I love, love, love, love fall!  I love the crispness in the air, I love seeing the leaves start to change colors, I love that our power bill won't kill me, and I love the memories that canning tomatoes invokes (don't necessarily love canning them however).  Growing up in my home, we canned or froze everything.  Peaches, pears, cherries, beets, pickles and tomatoes.  We froze corn because back in the olden days you couldn't just go to the store and by frozen corn.  If you didn't freeze your own you had to eat that chewy, canned stuff.  In my family this was not something that my Mom did alone, it was a family project.  I remember well us all gathering out on the patio to do the corn.  We each had a job. Mine was to scoop the corn into the bags after Dad cut if off the cobs with the electric knife. (Don't tell anyone, but a lot of that corn did not make it into the bags.  It was so delicious)  I don't know if I loved helping when I was a kid, but I look back on those fall harvest days and canning as wonderful memories.  Like looking at the beautiful peaches in the jars, it was my job to make sure they got covered in the fruit fresh or whatever it was called, so that they didn't turn brown.  I loved eating those sweet peaches all winter long.  Now the pears looked pretty too, but they seemed to trigger some kind of gag reflex in me.  It was torture eating those, even when disguised in lime jello.  I was canning tomatoes last night, and I was just overwhelmed by a wave of nostalgia from back home in Brigham City.  As I put the salt in the jars, I remembered sitting on the counter and putting salt in all of the jars.  I feel bad however, that I haven't involved my kids in the canning process.  I usually do it when they are at school, and I don't can too much other than tomatoes.  Even though I don't love canning the tomatoes, I feel so good after I do, all domestic or something.  I love seeing them lined up on my shelves in the basement. Some might say that it's not worth it, but every time I open a jar to make something and taste those delicious garden tomatoes it is all worth it!

(On another happy note-my peaches are almost ripe.  For some reason my sad tree is loaded, it escaped the frosts. Probably because I have a Late Elberta that comes on later than most.  They are the sweetest and best thing about fall in my opinion.)