Fall

School starts next week and I’m desperately attempting to get everything I planned to do this summer completed before Wednesday. It’s not going to happen, but I’m giving it a try. My new bathroom is nearly finished – the part where I pay someone to do work is done. My part, not so much. Still deciding on paint color and hopefully, my father will be installing a new light fixture after labor day. He’ll appreciate that more than removing the moss from the roof. (I found out this weekend, that moss does actually have an impact on your roof, Dad… it can negate your home insurance! Or even cause them to cancel the policy! Just sayin’)

At the end of August, I always start thinking about the Augusts of my childhood. We would head up to my grandmother’s house and a flurry of activity would begin. There would be hours of canning. Pots boiling on the stove, jars spread out on every surface and steam filling the house. I’m pretty sure that everyone who could found things that had to be done outside and took all day to do them. Canning is hot, sweaty and sticky work. Of course, I was pretty much relegated to watching from a safe distance – small children and boiling water do not mix well… but I always watched to see the peach vs. pear ratio. I did not like canned peaches, but I’d eat the pears three times a day! More pear jars, meant more pears over the winter. Even better was the year my grandmother flavored/colored them! Yellow food coloring was added to those with vanilla flavoring, green food coloring was added with sprigs of mint and red food coloring to those with cinnamon. They were sooooo good!

After the canning was finished (or following weekends), the sewing started. The dining room table was cleared and my mother started laying out the patterns and cutting. As they were completed, my grandmother started sewing and my aunt did the finishing. Dresses, pants and shirts got stacked up to be ironed before being packed for the ride home. To keep me occupied, I got the scraps of fabric to play with and sewing into little purses and blankets. Can you imagine giving a four/five year old a needle and thread to play with? And yet, I never sewed my hands together or swallowed the needle.

At our family reunion, I mentioned to my grandmother my plan to pick up a box of peaches on my way home to can. She laughed and said she was so glad not to have to do that anymore! Although, the first year she didn’t can, she worried for several weeks about not having enough food to get through the winter. Not seeing those shelves full of full jars made sparked a bit of anxiety. Old habits die hard, I guess.