It's All Peachy

When we were children at the end of the summer, my brothers and I helped our mom bottle peaches and pears, cherries and apricots. We snapped beans and shelled peas. We shucked corn and made apple sauce and all kinds of jams and jellies. We stood at the kitchen sink dreaming of outdoor adventures and every year we had the same conversation. One day, my brother declared, he would invent a machine that would do the work for us.

I grew up and bought all of my food from the grocery store. After all, someone had invented a machine. The food was processed and canned and shipped right to the store.

Utah Dad and I grow a small garden and we occasionally freeze the extra zucchini and pumpkin but we haven't put up anything from it yet. (It's a cruel irony that our tomatoes froze right after Labor Day and then we had a month of unseasonably warm weather. The tomatoes turned red but tasted horrible.)

I am in no way a domestic goddess. I don't even pretend to be. But I ordered a box of peaches from Bountiful Baskets anyway. Yesterday, Utah Dad and I spent some time in the afternoon, putting up peaches.  It's kind of fun to store up food for yourselves. I felt like an ant or a squirrel or my mom.