Multi-Tasking in the Kitchen

This post isn’t art related at all, unless you count the creativity and gorgeousness of home canned vegetables.

This morning I started at around 6:30, processing more vegetables that we bought yesterday over the Tennessee line in Amish Country. That quick trip was beautiful in itself, and I didn’t take my camera with me. I promise next time I will. But we came home with green beans, beets, and purple hull peas for canning.

You see, canning is something I’ve had very little experience with over the years, but is an honored tradition in my family. My mother and sister always canned things. I remember helping them some, but mostly I just got married young, left home and raised kids. So my next years were spent trying to stay afloat and juggle work and motherhood.

Now that there’s a little more time for gardening and all the wonderful things that go with it, I needed to reconnect with those traditions.

My sister has lent me both a water bath and a pressure canner. I can probably keep them for the foreseeable future, because she seems to have gotten all that out of her system now. I will get over it too, but it was something I had to do.

Here is our growing collection of colorful things for winter enjoyment. I’m not finished yet. I don’t think I’ll ever get done snapping those green beans.

My neighbor came over with her toddler this afternoon and helped for a while. She knows she needs to stay on our good side, so she can have a jar of pickles now and then.

It was a long, hot, tiring day, but so very rewarding.