Adventures in Canning

I crossed an item off my bucket list this weekend! You all know how I love my Bucket List – and if you don’t well, it’s not for lack of trying to educate you about it!  If you don’t have a bucket list, get one.  If you have one, get on it! (I think this was originally said by Catherine Ryan Hyde, but can’t seem to find it right now!)

I canned my own jam! And it was awesome!  I’ve always wanted to learn and finally had the opportunity this weekend.  Mom bought extra blackberries and we dug the supplies out of the barn and got to it!

That is what happens when you dump blackberries into a pan and turn the heat up!

There is all of the sugar that goes into it.  Not as bad as it looks once you consider how many it makes.

That’s me concentrating really hard!

And there I am being really cute!  You’ll notice that you don’t stop stirring when you are making jam, so while I could pose, I couldn’t stop stirring! And yes, I pulled all my hair back so there weren’t any surprises in the jam.  I’m just very thoughtful that way.  Plus, we had spent a few hours working outside previously and my hair was a mess.  🙂

Here is my work space as I am canning.  Funnels are a great thing, funnels are our friend!

Look!  I did that!  I made that! And let me tell you, there is such satisfaction in hearing the jars “pop” as they seal.  Every time I heard one go pop, I would yell “pop!”.

Even more magical than that was sitting around with my parents and my son and hearing them tell stories.  Dad grew up canning and was sharing stories of how the garage floor would be covered with cans and all evening long all you heard was pop-pop-pop.

While I was busy making jam, the rest of the family, in between telling stories, were prepping 25 lbs of rainbow carrots for canning.

Dad and Mr. T prepping the carrots.

Here is another picture because it warms my heart!

Here is mom and her super sonic speed chopping the carrots that dad and Mr. T prepped.

Aren’t rainbow carrots beautiful! Raise your hand if you didn’t know rainbow carrots existed.

As we were canning the carrots, dad mentioned that my grandmother used to can carrots with potatoes and onions, and then when it was time to make a stew, she would grab a jar and add it to the browned meat.  Mom looks around and goes “We have the carrots, we have the potatoes and onions – do you want to can some like that?”

Of course we did!

We even had two pressure cookers going at once!

Mom and I had fun taking pictures of some of our work.  We still had two pressure cookers full of product!

Dad loves the idea of canning, it does remind him of his childhood, but also, he really thinks that Obama is going to kill the country and he wants a stockpile!

Mom posted on FB “We had a great time. Nothing feels more like connecting to Mother Earth than to take good care of the products she provides us. Kate did a great job on the jam. We had to go ahead and try some!”

Mr. T doesn’t like blackberries, but he loves the jam.