Canning

I love free, nutritious food, such as Aunt Orpha's last green beans and the apples off our trees. And I really like having rows of home-canned food in plump quart jars on the pantry shelves.

But in between, when I'm trying to keep reluctant teenagers motivated and every pan and bowl and half the porch are sticky with applesauce and the bees are buzzing all over and Hansie shows up on the scene with his hairy tail wagging and I'm flying back and forth between the pressure canner of beans on the kitchen stove and the two big kettles of apples about to scorch on the propane cooker outside and Jenny plays with her cat instead of dumping the apple scraps to the chickens. . . that's when I wonder if it's worth it.

But then, there are conversations among the children that descend into the memorable silliness that happens only after endless hours of cutting apples together around the picnic table, and maybe that, more than the jars of food this January, makes it all worthwhile:

Quote of the Day:
[Steven, in his best Quiet Shaming Voice, spends five minutes chewing Ben out for killing that bee yesterday.]
Ben: You sound like you're from PETA.
Steven: Actually, you didn't kill it, you MARTYRED it.
Ben: Steven, martyred is when you die for your religious beliefs.
Steven: I know. The bee HAD a religious belief.
All of us: HUH?
Steven: the Bee-attitudes.