Preserving For The Future

(our canning booty)

This is how neglectful I have been the last few years.

A couple of days ago Ally was sharing a story about her friend Emily. She ended with,

"Emily didn't go to homecoming this year because she was home helping her mom with the canning."

A long pause.....

"Mom, what is canning?"

Instantly I felt regret that my youngest daughter doesn't know what canning is. I used to can all the time in Washington! Gabby and Courtney definitely remember, they had to help. But Ally was just a baby so she has no recollection of these fun times.

I do have my reasons really for not canning. My garden has not been my favorite place to be since moving to Idaho. I don't know if it's the feelings of impermanence I feel or the fact that the weeds grow faster that I can pull, but whatever it is, I have literally hated my garden for four years now. (The first two years we lived here I didn't have a garden at all) Which is so strange to me because I used to really enjoy my garden when I was younger.

I loved watching the plants as they grew from tiny little seeds until they became the fruit we would eventually eat. I loved canning that fruit, making pickles, canning beets, corn, peaches, pears, salsa, and anything else you could stuff in a jar and process. It was a lot of work but the rewards were worth it.

This year I planted my garden in good faith hoping for an abundance of cucumbers, corn, green beans and everything else. The day after I finished building, constructing (the kids and I built boxes out of railroad ties, hoping to thwart the weeds that grow all around and keep it somewhat manageable) and planting my garden, it started to rain, and didn't stop.......for three weeks. I promise....three weeks of rain, at least once a day. The people who braved the frost and had planted earlier than I were loving it. Their gardens were growing because of the rain. My little seeds however, were rotting in the ground. When my garden did finally come up, it was sparse. A few corn plants here and there. Two of the twelve cucumber plants that were planted. One in five green bean plants......well, you get the idea.

This did little to inspire my confidence in myself as a gardener.

So I hadn't planned on canning anything again this year. Until Ally, with her innocent remark and her unspoken call to action, reminded me that I have a stewardship to perform in raising these children of mine with a knowledge of canning, and gardening (even if it fails, we were still out there working on the darn thing).

Nothing that came from my garden was of any use to me, I just didn't have enough to work with. But we bought a couple boxes of peaches, which had come down in price, helped glean Bruce and Rebecca's garden of tomatoes and went to work. We ended up with ten quarts of peaches, seven pints of salsa, and a renewed determination to fulfill this aspect of motherhood. Because one day these lessons in home preservation may eventually be the keys to self preservation for my children and their children. I'm grateful for my lessons on these subjects and the fact that I have this knowledge to pass on to future generations.

Thanks for the reminder Ally.