Yes we canned--and my emotional journey toward sustainability

We canned 4 quart jars of peaches, and 3 more quarts for immediate consumption.  

I feel like I've reached a milestone.  I don't feel enthusiastic about canning, but it seems like one of those things where you know you're a homesteader when you do your first canning.  It feels anticlimactic and non-dramatic, but still it's important, and now I have a little more sifting through overly-complicated internet recipes on the web under my belt (something our homesteading ancestors had more endurance for, I'm certain).  I've never been a fan of canned things, canned food, canned laughter, but I guess jars are prettier to look at.  I'm not sure why it's called canning if you're not doing it into a can, but I digress.

Well, I actually helped my dad make jam when I was little, but that wasn't for preservation primarily (though we could enjoy the jam throughout the winter and into the next spring--yummy strawberry, peach, blueberry was the best except for when peach was even better and then sometimes strawberry was even better than the other two).  He would heat up the whole kitchen with the pots, boil the jars, use the canning jaws thingy, the whole works, but of course I never thought of it as canning.  And I didn't really help so much as just watch.

Today I did it differently.  My partner and I did it outside on the rocket stove--I was pushy about it--and we had some breezes and overheated the kitchen less.  But it was still a hot stove in your face effect and the hot sun where the shade umbrella wasn't.  I guess next time we could set up north of the tree, but that involves dragging the whole stove over there.  And we sterilized with steaming the jars (indoors, on low flame), instead of boiling, and didn't add white sugar.  So it's probably not going to be as tasty, to be honest, but we'll live longer, right?  

Anyway, I want to celebrate this milestone-ish thing.  Thanks for reading.

Congratulations!

I want to try your peaches.  I cut back on sugar so far that most commercially-sweetened things taste too sweet to me.  And I discovered that the sugar tones down the flavor of things!  You can always add some honey or maple syrup or sugar on the other end, if it's too sour.  But approach with an open mind!