Canning Season

Day 340: I love having friends with fruit trees! Yesterday, a supply of pears and apples showed up on my doorstep, the pears at such a point that half of them needed to be processed immediately. The yield was only three pints, three pints to tuck away for winter nibbling. Today, I intend to work on the apples. They're harder to peel for these old, arthritic hands, but the thought of summer in jars makes the labour worthwhile.

I can't recall how long I've been canning jams, jellies and fruit. I suppose you could argue that it would be a lot less work to buy "fresh" fruit in winter, fruit which has either been in cold storage for several months or shipped across an ocean, fruit which was probably picked green and gassed to ripen it. No, that does not appeal to me. I'd rather spend a few hours in the kitchen paring, slicing, boiling jars, dripping sticky syrup on the counter and floor, steaming up every window in the house. I know this fruit personally. It's never seen a chemical, has hung on the tree in healthful sunlight and rain until it was ready to be picked. It's the real deal, warts and all, unlike some waxed, perfect and just-short-of-plastic pippin from the grocery store. It deserves to be preserved, if only for the short term.