Preserving Memories

I'm not sure why, but I've been on a canning kick lately.  It's something my grandma taught me when I was a little girl.  The last month of summer always meant jars and hot water baths and that satisfying little "pop".  It also meant peeling and chopping the never-ending supply of fruit and vegetables they grew.  My grandma's gardens were ENORMOUS!!!  Or, at least they seemed to reach into forever to my little eyes.

Perhaps, part of my canning kick has been due to a desire for those simpler days.  Days when my biggest concern was how many peaches I could eat before Grandma shooed me out of the orchard, or how many hummingbirds I could catch.  Oh yes, I was quite the hummer catcher. Built cages for them and everything.  

Perhaps the another cause for my kick are my winter memories - opening one of those jars I worked so hard on, smelling and tasting a bit of summer during the dreary cold months.  

No matter the cause, my family has certainly not been complaining about my latest craze.  I've put up more jars of jam than I care to count at the moment - apricot, apricot berry, peach, peach berry, and pear berry.  Almost all of the fruit came from either friends' trees or local orchards.  Their over abundance became my blessing.  

I looked online for recipes, then quickly realized that I was just going to do what Grandma did - throw it all in a pot, then add ingredients until it tasted good.

Each jar that "pops" reminds me of those treasured days with my grandma - days that seemed so ordinary then but are precious now.  I pray my girls have lots of those days to treasure when they're my age.