When I was about 10 years old, my brothers bought me 2 milk crate boxes for Christmas. He was only going to buy me one, but my dad said, “Get her 2, one isn’t useful, but she can do something with two of them.” I remember him telling me that so many years ago. When I look back, I think the message stuck.
Last week I went out to buy peaches to can. The Elberta peaches are in and they are heavenly! Each case is 24 pounds, minimum. Last year I only got one case and it wasn’t enough to get us through the winter. I didn’t want to make that mistake again, so I knew I wanted to buy more peaches. Rather than buying one case last week and buying another case this week, I bought 3 cases all in one day. Seventy-five pounds of peaches.
When the cherries came in on the trees, I actually took the smart approach. I learned that I could fill and ice cream bucket with cherries twice and that was just the right amount to fill the canner. Each morning while Wiggles was napping, I would climb up in the cherry tree and pick 2 buckets full of cherries. I would pit, pack, and process them while he was taking his afternoon nap. I managed to put up 10 quarts of pie cherries, and then they were all higher in the tree than I could reach while standing on the ladder. The smart thing was that I was able to can the cherries and clean up the kitchen all in one day.
Last night at about midnight, I was wishing I had learned my lesson during cherry season. However, peach flavored sunshine will be wonderful come Feburary. Maybe next week I will go buy 3 cases of apricots…
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