What Else? More Canning!

Ben and I were talking one night about what would be ready next and we both mentioned that we had each read about how you're supposed to pick pears green and let them ripen off the tree. Didn't know that, but it was funny we both found out the same thing. That week Tyler and Ben picked all the pears off our tree and they waited in the mud room until they were yellow and I could get to them.

 In the midst of waiting I emailed my friend Martha and asked if she wanted to help out with the pears. Turns out that we were able to get together just a few days after all the pears started ripening and she had just canned pears herself. Wahoo!! She had this amazing homemade tool from her husband's side of the family that cores pears like a dream. I was so happy to have her company and her pear-canning knowledge on Friday!

I started a few jars of grape juice before she arrived and by the end of an afternoon, this was the beautiful fruits of our labors. My sweet friend was AMAZING. She just pulled out the pears and sat down and got to work. I'm sure it would've taken me all day long or two days without her help and shift hands.

 Martha ended up taking a few pears with her, but really, just a few. This is all that I had left by the end of the day and there's only half of this left because the kids are eating them pretty quickly. Trenton gets a pear and eats it on the backporch every afternoon this weekend.

That night Ben came home and raved about how nice the pears looked. And he also said some great things about what awesome friends I have who volunteer their days to help me so he didn't have to on Saturday. :) While the kids were playing outside that evening Ben started picking from the garden. I went out and helped, but since I had just finished getting rid of the pears and grapes that were already in our house, this made me a little...overwhelmed. I love it! And it's really intense to have your countertops unusable! At this point all the broccoli and cauliflower were washed and put away and by the next day there were 6 more bowls and bags of grapes. Awesome - just a little intense!

Per our unspoken agreement, Ben takes care of the peppers and the tomatoes. I have been doing all the fruit since the peaches and together we have been finding things to do with everything else. By 10:30pm last night I had finished juicing all our grapes!! It was good to have those off our counters and into the basement. We have been having a weekend chorus of the bottles sealing....and if you don't know that sound, please come over and experience it. It's awesome to hear after all that hard work!

I was talking to my sister last night while juicing and she mentioned I needed to keep track of everything. I think I am, but it was good to have a reminder. While Ben and I were taking things down to the basement last night we quickly counted the jars we had canned. We have a small mountain of empty jars boxes, so we were curious. As of last night when this picture of the grape juice was taken, we had canned 120 bottles of juice, jam, peaches, pears, salsa, and jalapenos. I am starting to feel a little like Laura Ingalls with our pumpkins and squashes starting to be stashed down there also. We have an entire shelf of our food storage room full of things we have grown and preserved this year. It feels amazing and good to see the finished products ready for our familys' use. It makes the counterfulls of product not be quite so overwhelming.

When it comes to the produce left waiting to ripen, we have two apple trees, a squash plant and a pumpkin plant. We will continue to get a few more tomatoes and peppers, but those will soon be done for the season as well. It has been a little overwhelming with this being our first year of all this produce and such a big plot of garden that we completely filled, but I am convinced I can make it through all those apples with my sanity!

Oh, and we only have two empty jars left, so I guess we have to go buy more!