HARVEST TIME 

As harvest time comes to a close, I have some time to reflect on the days when I was a little girl and visiting with grandma at harvest and canning time.  I was always eager to learn, and grandma always had a job for me to do.  

The garden peas were my favorite.  It was so much fun to open the pod and flip the peas out!  Of course it was a great game for me and my cousins, but grandma was very serious about her canning.  We did it perfectly when grandma was in the room, but then let them peas fly when she left!  We managed to get the job done, had a load of fun, learned the proper way to shell garden peas, and grandma was pleased with our work.

I always helped with the green beans.  I loved to do the beans, especially when they had big coarse strings that I could see coming off the beans.  I hated to get a green bean that seemed to have no string, then when I started to break the bean, there was a string everywhere I broke the bean.  I hated when that happened!  Of course there was a special size they had to be broken into, and I still adhere to that rule today when I can my green beans.  Drives my husband crazy!

Of course, I always got to pick the beans and peas before they were shelled and strung and broken.  That was fun, too.  I had to be careful not to step on the vines and damage the vegetables.  I know I damaged a lot of innocent vegetables while harvesting.  I didn't like picking corn because they had fuzzy little yellow bugs on them that would always end up on me, and I would go screaming out of the garden, and would be sent back to the corn field.  Grand-daddy didn't stand for any nonsense when it was harvest time.  I learned to just scream and keep on picking!

I got to watch grandma and my mom put the cans of freshly picked vegetables into the big canner which had been put on the outside fireplace and a big fire built.  It was a sight to see.  The fire was kept going all day until everything was canned. 

Every jar got cleaned of any residue and set aside and covered with a towel to cool down completely.  Everyone would listen for the "pop" of the cans sealing.  That was a good thing.  I can remember how beautiful all the freshly canned vegetables looked when they were ready to go to the basement to be stored for the winter's use. 

We also made leather britches.  Ever heard of those?  We took the beans and strung them on thread with a big needle.  They would then get hung up in the smokehouse and dried out.  During the winter grandma would get them down and cook them and they were so good.  We never do that today, but I sure do remember the fun we had stringing them up and eating them when I was a little girl.  

So many good memories are brought back to my mind as I finish up harvest and canning season at my house today.  I learned all I know about harvest and canning from my grandma and my mom, and I still have fun doing it today.  I look at the green beans, tomatoes, sauerkraut and pickled beets, so beautiful in their cans, ready to go to the basement, and I am reminded how blessed I am to have spent so much time at grandma's house when I was growing up.