I should note that I'm ridiculously thankful to my parents for both instilling canning skills in me (yay 4-H!) and also for setting me up with some of the tools of the trade.
The finished product; 8.5 beautiful jars, and the fruit didn't even rise to the top. I gave one to our landlords as a thank you for letting us harvest from their rhubarb patch, and the rest have been stocked away for yummy eating. Unfortunately, the husband doesn't like rhubarb.. so I guess more for me :)
I also put in our tomato seedlings while LW looked on from the safety of her blanket, and then made some fantastic french toast with cinnamon swirl bread from Great Harvest for dinner. LW had her first french toast (regular, not cinnamon bread), and dove in with great enthusiasm.
I have to say, I get so much enjoyment out of gardening and canning. It feels good to work with my hands, and also to use the knowledge and wisdom passed down from generation by generation. I always think of those who taught me the skills - my grandfather, my dad, my mom, 4-H leaders, etc. For instance, Grammy Fenton (a woman who ran the canning dept. at our local fair for decades) would be proud :)
It is also fun to have mastered skills taught to you as a child to the point where you can confidently do them independently. So many of the things that I learned growing up, I absorbed because "that was the way we did things." Weekly church attendance, gardening, spinning, sewing, knitting, canning, baking, horses, sheep - I took for granted that this was the way most families were, but as I have grown I have found just how unique my upbringing was. Not every ten year old is allowed to have their own fire, nor helped to start one in the winter (via a fatherly intervention with a blow torch); not every thirteen year old is given her own horse to raise and train. I now know that my parents were sort of "Montessori" in their approach, though not strictly or even all that intentionally - but whatever you want to call it, it was a great way to grow up, and I hope LW can enjoy many of the same things.
Now, speaking of whom... time to get the baby ready for bed :)
Posts
8 comments:
Man, I would have loved to have a horse to train! You were fortunate :)
I'd also love to learn to can fruit and things into jam. Especially since I really want a garden some day.
It's great that you had that growing up! My parents are not gardeners or anything of the sort even though my dad grew up on a farm. But he didn't pass down that info to me.
Ditto Allison... that was the one thing we never had on our farm that we always wanted, horses :( We tried riding sheep-- but it just wasn't as cool :)
I loved helping my mother can pickles, peaches, zucchini jam (yum) although I'm embarrassed to say I've never tried cooking (or canning) with rhubarb . Sigh....I really miss my garden. I'm going to have to live vicariously through you :)
One thing you said struck me-- how weekly church attendance was just something we grew up doing. Until I had my son I had no idea how much effort my parents put into making sure that was a steady part of our family life.
Let me say that Abby's first riding experience was on a sheep. Her father used to hold the lead rope on the sheep and jump it over a ditch with a 4 year old Abby hanging on with glee. No wonder she had such a great "seat" when she finally did ride horses. The horses were not part of my growing up and it took a lot of courage for me to let my daughter do all the horse stuff. It was well worth it, though.
I think I'd have to say that some of the "Montessori" type stuff was deliberate (came from reading a lot of John Holt, Dorthy Canfield Fisher and Arthur Ransome) on my part, but it was also simply the way that we had been raised as well. After all Abby's father was allowed to take apart toasters, and learn how to grind mirrors for a telescope, and I was given my own cookbook at age 9 (used it independently too).
I'm saddened by the fact that much of the generation ahead of me didn't pass on those skills and that when they did, my generation failed to pass them on to yours. There are even some skills (like spinning and weaving that got lost somewhere around my grandmother's generation). Thankfully most of the skills my mom had she passed on and we actually acquired a few skills our parents didn't have (like fitting and shearing sheep, delivering lambs, and spinning wool).
The hard thing for a lot of the young moms of your generation is that they (like me with the spinning) are having to learn these skills at the same time as they are dealing with very little people. It's a lot easier if you already know how to make bread for example before you try doing it with the help of a one year old. It is great fun to give them bread dough to make into pretzels (well maybe not at one), but it's a whole lot more fun if you aren't struggling to figure out how to knead the dough at the same time. Fortunately, I think Abby got most of the basics (just not the weaving stuff - which I'm still trying to find an instructor for).
I always felt a little sad that we didn't have a lake around so that Abby and her brother could better emulate the Swallows and Amazons. She had to wait until she was all grown up to begin to learn those sorts of skills. Gee, I miss reading Arthur Ransome. I must pull him out again someday soon...
BTW, Abby, both Brenda and my current canning judge (your father) would give that marmalade a blue ribbon. I'm sure it would be in the competition for best in show.
Allison - yes, I was very fortunate to have a horse, although certainly the circumstances of it weren't typical or at all what one might think of when hearing that someone "had a horse" - my aunt raised them, and she gave me a foal, but we didn't have the $$ or resources for any professional training, so she was pretty much a work in progress her whole life. I'm going to write a post about that story sometime soon, though, as she was a huge part of my growing up life.
Also - you should totally look into canning. It really is super easy, especially if you stick to high-acid foods (jams, jellies, applesauce, tomatoes, etc). Definitely something you could teach yourself from a book or the internet, and well worth the effort, at least for small batches of things you know you'll eat!
Mrs. K -
You're definitely welcome to live vicariously through our garden this summer. I'll keep posting pics :) It's the first year in a long time that I've had a chance to garden, I wanted to last year but first I was 8-9 mos pregnant when I should have been putting the garden in, we were hoping to move and then didn't, and then I had a newborn all summer, so somehow it slipped my mind :)
I totally know what you mean about how much of a sacrifice weekly church attendance is with a child, though! I can't believe how much I took being able to concentrate on Mass at Mass for granted ;) It gets easier or at least different as she gets older.. or maybe I'm just used to it because we do it every week ;) It's going to be a whole new challenge whenever we have *two* though!
Oh, I hear you, horses are expensive! My sister and I always wanted a horse when we were younger. Fortunately one year my mom paid for us to take lessons but after that she stopped since it was so expensive. Owning a horse was definitely out of the question. But I'm thankful for the time we did get. My sister went on to work at some stables during high school and I would always tag along just to pet and feed the horses.
I think it's a good experience for kids. I know that Steve is actually kind of scared of horses since he was never around them as a kid. Although he actually went on a trail ride with me one time despite being scared. I think any sort of farming gardening or animal care is great for kids.
One of the best thing about having raised animals is that raising a child has come pretty easily. I wasn't even particularly scared of childbirth, after having helped countless animals of various species (sheep, horses, dogs, cats, etc) give birth :) Of course my husband joked that our baby might come out part sheep for all the times that I said "oh, yeah, it's just like with the sheep!" It's definitely a little different being the one actually going through it, but I am thankful for all the animal foundation I had going into the process.
Post a Comment