Work Until the Harvest is Done

As I sit hear listening to the canner weight rattle under a lot of pressure I have to stop and think about how fortunate we are to have food. Every spring I plant seeds and every summer complain about weeding and watering. Come fall I complain about all of the canning and dehydrating I have to do so the produce from the garden won’t go to waste.

I feel very much like the pressure canner this time of the year. There is a small window of time to squirrel away as much as possible before the first flake of snow flies and I don’t have more than 24 hours a day to pull it off. This week we were blessed to have enough beef to once again fill the canner and enough dried beans on hand to make chili beans for when the weather turns cold in few short months. Salsa was made again and pizza sauce prepared, dried and put in the freezer. Today carrots took their turn in the canner; some plain and some with a nice apple glaze. After peeling and slicing 16 lbs of them I am hoping that will be it! Tomorrow James will help me with sweet salsa and another batch of pizza sauce.

This time of year is also very difficult since it will be 10 years since dad passed away tomorrow. He worked very hard at a farm related job and we didn’t get to see a lot of him when we were growing up. I always wonder what he would look like today and what he would think of his grandkids; 4 he never got to meet. I wonder what he would think about his girl living on an acreage raising cows, chickens, and other critters. I wonder if he would still give me crap about the “Blue Chicken.” Thank you dad for teaching me what it means to live life and work hard for what you have.