Our bishop had the feeling that all the ladies in the ward should know how to do home canning, so the Relief Society sent out sign up sheets for people to mentor those who wanted to learn and what people wanted to learn. Of course I signed up to mentor for green beans (my VERY newly acquired skill under the careful tutelage of Grandma Harvey) and grape juice (learned last year under the careful tutelage of Grandma and Grandpa Harvey). Anyway, I thought it would be tons of fun to teach others how to do beans and was super excited. Then.......my beans got spider mites and died! O.k. Not a huge problem, but not so great either.
All right! Day Farms out west of us has huge acres of fields planted with all sorts of stuff that you can pick yourself!!! Oh great! So the beans you pick yourself are actually super cheap, so I figured that we could buy a box and get enough to can a couple of batches and show those who wanted to learn how to can them. Hmmmm.........Have you ever picked beans yourself in a huge field going up and down the rows scrounging for even a few beans? Imagine an orange box, you know, the kind that oranges come in to the grocery store........well, that's how big the box was that we were supposed to fill up. It took FOREVER because the beans had been really picked over the previous day. Did I mention that they were bush beans? Well, they were and so we had to bend over to pick them. I had such a bad headache and back ache by the time we were done I could have died. We got almost a full box, so we didn't have to pay full price. Luckily it was cloudy that day, too, or we would have roasted to death before the head and back ache could do us in. By the way the pictures were taken after Rhylie and Kaila had already popped a 2 inch layer.
So we finally get home with the beans and invite Mom and Rhylie over for a bean popping party because, frankly, I didn't think Dave and I could pop them all ourselves without going completely out of our minds. Plus we were still recovering from picking all of them and all we could see was beans swimming before our eyes. It was a ton of fun for the first little while, but then I just kept thinking "How many more?!" I think I have definitely had my fill of picking and popping beans. Kaila had fun helping, though and popped a lot herself. Kade had fun trying to put the unpopped beans in the garbage bag or in with the popped beans, and taking the popped beans and throwing them all over the floor along with the unpopped ones and the ends and pieces from the garbage bags.
We had two full grocery bags of popped beans and I couldn't wait to start canning. I called all of the ladies who had signed up to learn to find out when would be best for them and then I was going to call them all back and let them know when the canning date was. Then I looked at my house.........and it was a disaster area................and Kaila came down with a cold.............and then Kade started showing signs of a cold..............and I couldn't find a time that would work for all of the ladies......................and THEN, it struck me! A flash of brilliance! Instead of having people come over to my germ-infested disaster area, I could just record what I do and then put it on a DVD that the ladies could borrow and watch at their leisure! Then an even better idea steam-rollered me - why not record all of the mentors doing their food and put it all on the DVD and then make a few copies that ladies could "check out" from the Relief Society "library".
So I call the sister over the whole project and run the idea past her and she thinks it is great. So I call all of the mentors and they have all agreed to let me record them. I have already gotten peaches and tonight I had Dave record me doing beans. I felt really stupid, though, and I hope that when we edit the video it will come out coherently. The being in over my head is just about the time involved to record and then edit and copy the videos onto the DVD. The BIGGEST part of over-my-headness, though, was tonight in doing the beans. I had to start after dinner (6pm), and then I had to stop to go to dance class, and then come back and finish. So most of the process has taken place after 8:30 this evening and I am still awake now at 11:30 waiting to finish. URGH!!! I am freakishly tired and still have about 20 minutes before I can go to bed. Oh well.
I must say thank you to Grandma and Grandpa, though, because I had to call them first at 9 something and then again at 10.
Happy canning to the rest of you!
haha, sounds like a wonderful adventure!
ReplyDeleteand yes, I understand about picking the beans. Only mine were peas. four days worth of that, while attempting to supvervise my children who were definitly elswhere. :)