Halloween/ Fall

I love this time of year, when the days are warm and the nights are cool.

The green of the leaves are turning yellow, red, brown, orange.

There is something about when the harvest is gathered and bottled and stored for those cold winters when you long for the warmer sunny days...

I remember coming home from school and the back porch smelling like a fruit stand with peaches , pears, apples . I would help Dad with the chores and Mom with the dinner. We would quickly get the dishes done and then start peeling and bottling and water bathing.

Dad would push his sleves of his shirt up and grab a paring knive and work right along with us.

My job was to check for nicks in the bottles and sterilize them, then I could peel and stuff the bottles with the lush, yummy fruit. I would think one slice for the bottle and one for me...

To this day when I smell these fruits I think of Mom and Dad the fun of working together as a family.

When I married I longed for the time to share this with a family of my own.

One year an apple orchard was going to be torn out and the message to the community was $2 a bushel and way we went my husband ,my mother and I.

I was expecting our third son so my job was to hold the basket. We brought home four basket full of rosy red apples. The next day my Grandmother and Mother came over and to work to work , we made applesauce,

and sliced apples for pie.

We set my second son who was just a baby himself on the table and he sang sweet little songs for us as we peeled apples.

As my family grew the "boys "were not interested in canning. My daughter however loves helping me make jelly and canning. Until recently.....

My son grew pumpkins ( with his sister help keeping them watered ) just a few mind you. Just a few grew into 32 pumpkins. The pumpkins grew in the grapes and roses and into the window wells of the basement.

I found a recipe for pumpkins from scratch from the field to a pie. OH it was wonderful. Now he is interested in canning this wonderful bounty.

I love fall.. I love to teach canning and feel the goodness in something that you have grown and harvested.

Oh by the way , my daughter and I made Choke Cherry Jelly ( the fruit only found in the mountains of the west ) Blueberry,Marion,Raspberry jelly and Orange Necterine.. and Grape jelly Yummy...

I do love Fall..