Canning Lessons

As you know, our peach tree ripened this last week so I jumped on this first opportunity to bottle my own peaches. This experience provided a laundry list of lessons learned by a first time canner.

1. 1 canning day + 3 kids = one disaster of a house
2. Xavier can eat playdough off the floor without any adverse effects
3. Xavier can eat dried old leaves off the floor without any adverse effects
4. Xavier can eat forgotten cereal off the floor without any adverse effects
5. My floor can turn Xavier's clean clothes into very dirty clothes
6. Raspberry juice may be red in color, but it leaves a purple stain on your clothes, the counter, the cabinets, the floor, the children....
7. Jam won't set up unless you remember to add the pectin, no matter how long you boil it
8. My mad blanching skills need practice
9. When trying to figure out how to skin a peach after a failed blanching attempt a vegetable peeler works in a pinch!
10. One can never have too many large bowls
11. No matter how many bowls you have it is never enough
12. 1 Loyd + yummy fresh peaches = one very vigilant mommy
13. It takes two days to do all the dishes resulting from canning peaches and making jam

And the most important lesson I learned:

14. Canning is much more enjoyable when done with a friend!