Grandma Henke

Today we went and got the big can sealer at our church cannery to bring home and use for three days.   We worked fast and furiously tonight for six hours doing milk, potato pearls, and instant refried beans. I feel like I’ve been playing “Head, Shoulder’s, Knees & Toes” non stop!    It’s a lot of work to fill up those shelves!  

I have been thinking of the old days when we kids helped Mom bottle hundreds of bottles of fruit and vegetables every year.    Everyone in our family had a part in it.   Bill & Chick & Reed had to bring the empty bottles up from the cellar … Ann and I washed them.    Mom scalded the peaches, Ann and I took the skins off and put them in the bottles.    Mom put the syrup over them and put the lids on … Chick ran them out to the shed where Bill was steaming the bottles and brought the finished bottles back in the house.    Dad was the cheerleader and helped everybody.    It felt pretty good when we finished up and would hear the “snap, snap” of the bottles lined up on the countertop as they sealed.    Mom took a lot of pride when our shelves full of beautiful bottles   We bottled pears, cherries, plumbs, tomatoes, corn, applesauce, chilli sauce, jams, all kinds of pickles & relishes … and we lived off it until our next harvest.      We kept fresh potatoes, carrots, onions, and squash in the root cellar and they also pretty much lasted until Summer.    Everyone I knew did the same thing.   That’s just how it was back then.    We raised our food and Mom made all of our meals, breads, and desserts from “scratch”.    

It’s been a long time since I did much bottling.   Our food storage consists mainly of cans.    We store grains, corn, oats, rice, beans, meats ..vegetables, fruit, honey, oil, salt, spices,relishes, jams, pickles, and peanut butter.       No need for a root cellar.  Our stored potatoes are instant, our onions are instant, our carrots are freeze dried …  Even our refried beans are instant!      Our shelves aren’t as colorful and showy as Mom’s were with all her beautiful bottles lined in rows … but it brings feelings of satisfaction and comfort to see them filled up.     

This year we are giving food storage items for Christmas gifts.    That means we’ll be canning pretty much non stop for the next two days … Maybe tomorrow we’ll just have to send out for pizza.   Now that’s something Mom never had the luxury of doing!