gonna eat me a lot of peaches...
Peaches come from a can,
they were put there by a man,
in a factory downtown.
If I had my little way,
I'd eat peaches every day...
Millions of peaches,
Peaches for me
Millions of peaches'
Peaches for free"
--Presidents of the United States, "Peaches"
So how'd I do on those lyrics? I can probably gurantee (yes, with one exception Aunt LoLo) that my middle school staff lounge was cooler than YOUR middle school staff lounge. We had copy machines. We had mondo rolls of colored butcher paper. We had....A Presidents' poster hanging on the wall. That's the kind of art work you choose when the drummer's mother is the school secretary!
Aunt LoLo and I were considered "hall passes" in school- if the hall pass was already taken, you could grab one of us to get through the school corridors without getting in trouble. We spent lots of time in the staff lounge running copies for teachers and the yearbook staff :) (Oh man. I'm getting nostalgic! Our high school reunion is this weekend...more on that later!)
So, in spite of the fact that I spent yesterday morning running around town trying to get an ultrasound, and the rest of the morning curled up in a ball of agony and defeat on Aunt LoLo's couch, using up every tissue I could find, drinking all kinds of hot liquids, and moaning quietly to myself whenever I thought they'd forgotten just.how.sick.I.was (because this head cold....it's a bad one), after the kids had taken their (puny! 1 hour!) naps, we threw everyone in my monster of a car and hit the road. We had peaches to buy, first off, and left that fruit stand a hundred pounds heavier than we came. Twenty pound boxes of Eastern Washington peaches for $11...that's a steal, right?
The rest of the trip...well, we hit 2 thrift stores, watched a shoplifter get wrassled down and handcuffed by 3 employees before the police showed up, and made a tour of the nearest asian market we could find. Dinner was so late that the girls went straight to bedtime routines after we cleared the dishes!
Aunt LoLo told the kids we had to get back in the car when we realized what was happening outside the store- she then told the kids that there was a cranky man. Yeah, and when the police showed up, we said the cranky man needed a time out. In jail.
8:00 this morning found us all together again, staring down 2 hot water canners, and 60 pounds of peaches ready for duty!
We ended up with:
26 quarts of peach quarters in light syrup
4 pints of peach jam
3 pints of peach butter
8 and 1/2 pounds of peach quarters in baggies to be frozen (we can make jam later, or just smoothies...or pie...or.... yum!)
About 20 pounds of too-green peaches are waiting for us to work on next week, and we're expecting an order of 40 pounds of apples to come in soon for apple sauce and apple butter. Then we're wondering, should we get in on a bulk order of tomatoes for canning?
September is for CANNERS!
6 comments:
Wow, that's a lot of peaches! The Presidents would be proud. I would say that the last time I'd heard their music was in high school when I went to a concert in Seattle...but the lead singer does children't music now and he recently did a show in town that I took my daughter to. Fun! Anyhow, I can almost smell those peaches...they look lovely!
It was a great day, yeah?
Those peaches, by the way? Ready to can. Today. Ack! I'll do what I can, but we've got to get them done on Monday!! Worst case, I spend tomorrow afternoon processing and freezing them. Or just eating them. YUM. We ate two more for lunch today!
That is a lot indeed. Sounds like you had a great day despite the head cold. I hope you feel better soon.
Wow! I think you need more, giggle. That will be so nice to have this winter. That's a really great deal. What does that come out to - about 30 cents a quart? Probably less.
Take care of that cold. It's making the rounds here as well.
Look at all those peaches! Which reminds me, I'm supposed to be calling my peach guy this week. And my tomato guy won't return my emails, so I may not have any canned tomatoes this year:(
Myrnie - do you have to pressure can peaches? I've never done them before. I'm wondering because I only have a water bath canner.
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