A season for everything under the sun...

I've been living in la-la-land...kind of ignoring that canning season is coming. My family loves canned peaches and pears and applesauce. I love having fruit in the cupboard all winter long that is healthy and local and homemade. But I have not looked forward to the jars, the steamy kitchen, the mess, the time-consuming project of it all. Not to mention that I am using a 2-burner hotplate as my stove right now so the thought of trying to use that to can has been hard to wrap my head around. But time marches on and fruit is only ripe for a moment it is time to start.

So start we did. Today. We picked peaches and pears. We went to a local farm for the peaches. Mr. Wiedz found 1 that was perfectly ripe on the branch. He picked it for #1 and #2 to share. He searched and searched for another for the little boys but didn't find one. We picked them quite green but that's how we found them last year and they turned out just fine.



Ever wonder what 90 pounds of peaches and, I think, about 40 pounds of pears look like all laid out? Well, after we got home and got everyone in bed I laid out the fruit on the hot tub to ripen. I know it's better to do inside but I couldn't give up our dining room table to this project as well.

The kids had fun picking both the peaches and the pears. Although the pears probably just a little more fun since they involved a very tall ladder. The pear tree is at Papa W's and had nice fruit on it. If I don't get quite enough jars out of what we picked then I've got a couple more trees to go to.

Well, this part was fun. I still can't say I'm looking forward to the canning part, but I'm sure I'll enjoy something from it.