Canning with my Mom - a Blessing to Look Forward to!

[Cowgirl]

Lately, when my Mom and I talk, she too says we are heading in to hard times.

 

She wants us to do a lot of canning to be ready. She has trouble doing it herself any more - she's in her 80's. But she knows I can't carry the entire load for everyone either. Instead, we are going to team up on canning this year. That will be another blessing - she is elderly, but still a very capable woman. A second set of hands is so helpful when you have bushels and bushels to process. I've missed my son as my helper, since he moved away, so it will be wonderful to have my folks come for visits and do some serious canning at the appropriate harvest times.

[Virginia]

You are fortunate to have your mother. This will be good for her, too. The elderly need to feel needed and useful. Have fun.

[Jeepers]

Fortunate indeed! So much of canning isn't really hard work but very time consuming. An extra pair of hands will help. I think it goes faster just having someone being there to work beside me. A nice memory maker too.

 

You can get a whole lot of beans snapped sitting in the back yard under a shade tree laughing and talking...sorry, I just had a nice flash back.

[Darlene]

I have some beautiful memories tucked into my heart, with the family sitting in the kitchen helping with some of my massive canning binges. I even had my dad peeling peaches one year...lol

[Cowgirl]

Yes, some of my happiest memories from childhood involve the whole family in the kitchen putting up applesauce, or peaches, or ... It is a happy sharing together of putting up the harvest, in anticipation of many happy meals together, enjoying the fruits of our labors (yes, there's a pun in there - I cannot resist a bad pun). And then I have happy memories of canning with my son as my helper. And now it will be so much fun to make new happy memories.

[Crazy4Canning]

I received a similar blessing today from my mom. With being half blind (okay mostly blind from glaucoma), she says she doesn't feel safe enough to 'wield a knife'. I tell her I don't mind her helping, but somehow sharp objects and poor eyesight don't do well.

 

We laugh, for we both know she is MORE than capable if you don't need SMALL itty bitty pieces. She can still see a peach pit and peel fruits and snap beans....however, she has reservations about BEING safe in the kitchen.

 

So, she and dad are buying lids and rings as I need them to help with the 'work load'. That in itself is such a blessing! To have reserve lids in stock - the ability to can without a major run to the store!

[BiscuitMaker]

I remember canning with my grandmother, Oh My what a garden. She had everything and a freezer that was so big you could put three people in it. That freezer sat on her side porch it was I think an American Harvester, that thing I remember sitting there at least 40 years and maybe longer they don't make them like that today.

My mom would can also but it was never the amount my grandmother would can as she lived on a farm.

Oh! I wish I could go back in time and sit in that kitchen again.

 

[Jasminegirl]

I always pick our snap beans and butter beans and wash them really good. Then take to my Mom's about 4 miles down the road and we sit there and drink coffee, visit and shell or snap the beans. That way she feels like she is helping in our food storage, b/c she isn't in any shape to help in the garden in all that heat and bending over so much. Then I bring them home and everything up for us. I still have to call her sometimes on things b/c I haven't gardened or canned in nearly 13.

[Crazy4Canning]

Moms and grandmas LIVE to be called on. I was given my grandma's pickle crock and didn't know how to sanitize it, so I called her. We chatted for about 45 minutes and then I ended up doing what I would have done anyway - sanitize with a spritz of bleach (critters!) and scrub with baking soda, air dry. They love to be needed even if they can't see or do lots of work too well.