Let The Canning Begin!

I just love summer! The sunny days, warm nights! It is all just too wonderful after freezing our butts off all winter long. I personally think about gardening ALL winter long. From the time I gather that last veggie out of the garden I am thinking toward the next spring. I am not sure what it is, but gardening, canning, dehydrating and freezing all the bounty of summer is just the best thing ever!
This week has been dill pickles, Clifty and Kosher. Clifty pickles are ones that I made by mistake one year and we loved them, lol They are pretty salty and quite sour. But yummy!

Cucumbers!

All sliced up and in the jars

Yummy seasonings!

Here they are fresh out of the Water Bath Canner

 The last picture is the finished pickles made by Cayce! It was her first time canning with me! She Loved it, I may have created a monster! She is practically hovering over the cucumber vines waiting for them to get big enough to make more, LOL! I love sharing the canning bug with others, as it is such fun and the rewards are so tasty. It really makes me happy to be able to go to the pantry and grab a jar of summery goodness.
During the summer garden time is a time to family togetherness too. We all troop out to the garden every afternoon to pick all the yummy goodness. It is like a treasure hunt for cucumbers though, those little boogers are nearly invisible hidden under all those big green leaves!
Joy has her eye on a couple of juicy watermelons that are coming right along in the garden!

Joys picture of one of the watermelon babies

Another thing that has been going on here at the Backwards Homestead is Haying. If you have animals, they have to have something to eat during the winter too. Since horses and cows won't eat pickles, we have to head out the the hayfields and toil away until we have sweet smelling rolls of hay for them when the snow blows!

One of Pud'nins trusty tractors!

Lee driving along

HAY!

With all this work, we still have to have fun! Especially when it is a billion degrees outside! Our pool is going through a renovation stage, so we aren't even sure at this point if we are gona manage to get it up at all..So we had to improvise when a couple of the grand kiddos were toasty!

Brr!

Water troughs are the best!

Today will be more canning, and if I am lucky I will pick enough blackberries to make seedless preserves. Last year I made 24 jars of preserves and it didn't even last until Christmas! That is like the Clifty pickles, I guess. I made 32 jars and thought I might be done. BUT, we have already eaten 5 jars, so I might ought to make at least one more batch, lol These things are addictive! Salty, sour and all crispy. Nothing like a homemade pickle on a sandwich! 

I am so blessed to have had so many people in my life to teach me the skills I would need to be able to live a self sufficient lifestyle. I remember sitting with my MeMaw at her kitchen sink on a stool "helping" her do peaches and tomatoes. We sliced the peaches and then she put them out to dry on a sheet of tin in the sun. Now days people would have a stroke if someone even suggested doing anything like that! One year the peaches were so wormy that it took forever to get anything substantial, but she persevered, and that stuck with me. She told me that " Any was better then none!" I sure miss my Memaw, she was one of a kind!

My mom continued the tradition, and when my kiddos were small I would go to her house and we would have all day canning marathons, lol We would start early in the morning, going out to the dewy garden to get things gathered before it got too hot outside. Then we all worked together getting it into a bag or jar, which made it go faster. It was always a time of talking, joking and sometimes tears if someone was having a hard time with something in their lives.  

My kiddos were always right in the middle of it all, learning the process as soon as they could, lol Of course, sometimes it was a bit harder with all their help, like the time Katrina sat her hiney in the middle of our dishpan of corn, and took a bite out of every ear! 

Canning days were more than just a day to put up for winter, it was time to spend with the ones that you love! Maybe that is why I love it so much! With that being said, I better get up and get busy! Here on the Backwards Homestead, there is no rest for the weary!