I need to clarify something: my father didn’t hang up the phone on me. He did, however, laugh politely, and they didn’t come down any sooner than planned. But! But, but, but!

When they did arrive (exactly when they said they would), Mr. Handsome and I were flying around with our heads chopped off, attempting to cook all the corn before we had to leave for our meeting in town. When we did leave, the homestead looked like a tornado had passed through—supper halfway made, tubs of cooling ears of corn, and kids, clothes, and toys everywhere. By the time we came home, the dishes were washed, the bags of corn were chilling in the fridge, the kids were bathed, the tent was up, and they had drug the rocking chairs off the porch and were all sitting around a smokey campfire roasting marshmallows for s’mores and reading stories. (The remaining clean-up was a piece of cake with the children out from underfoot and happily entertained.) My parents slept in the tent with all the kids, and Mr. Handsome and I had the house to ourselves.

The following morning, Mom and Dad had a meeting (the real reason they came up), but when they returned my mom kept pointing out that the three bushels of peaches I had acquired from a local farm the morning before were ripe and needed to be done now. I was in the middles of canning my sweet pickles and brushed her off, telling her that I would start on them as soon as I could. That answer wasn’t good enough apparently, because soon my mom and dad had settled in to washing and peeling, and then my Tiny Little Brother, back in town for a friend’s wedding, showed up and pitched in.

As soon as I finished with the pickles, I started slicing the peaches and packing them into jars. Their three-thirty projected departure time came and went and they were still sitting around the table with juice dripping off their elbows. Dad noted the floor was getting sticky so he washed it. Mom noted that The Baby Nickel was getting nixy, so she told him a story (while talking, she slowed down on the peaches a little because she had to wave her arms about and point my plastic coffee stir-stick at The Baby Nickel’s ears for illustration purposes). When they left, I still had my work cut out for me, but I was much, much, much farther ahead—like eight hours ahead—in the peach-canning game.

So see, there you have the whole truth. My parents don’t do exactly what I suggest they do—they do more, bless their gizzards! (That’s not a typo—we talk thataway.)

How To Can Peaches
I use Red Haven peaches because they are easy to pit and, when cut and exposed to air, they don’t brown as quickly as other peaches.

Wash the peaches, cut them in half, remove the pits, and peel them. At this point you can slither the halves into the clean quart jars, or you can first cut the halves into slices. I prefer to can peach slices for two reasons: first, they are easier to serve—simply scoop out some sliced peaches onto your bowl of cereal and eat—no extra prep work necessary; and second, you can fit more peaches in a jar and cut down on your time spent slaving over a hot canner.

Once the jars are full of peaches—while packing the jars, shake them every now and then to help the peaches settle and then use a fork to pack them down in even more—add the sugar. I think it is standard to add anywhere from 1/3 to ½ cup of sugar per quart jar, but I add a scant 1/3 cup to mine and think it plenty sweet. (Also, I started adding the sugar when my jars were three-quarters full of peaches because I sometimes had trouble with the sugar spilling over the edges when I added the water at the very end.)

Slowly add water to the jars, using a table knife to press the peaches to one side to create a space for the water to trickle down and to ferret out any pockets of air that are lurking in the bottom of the jars. Continue to fill the jars with water till it comes up to the bottom of the screw markings on the neck of the jar, or about ½ inch from the top.

Wet your fingers in a cereal bowl filled with clean water and swipe them over the lip of the jars till there are no longer any traces of stickiness. Put clean lids on top, followed by the rings, screwed tight. (Dirty little secret: I reuse my canning lids. I know, I know, totally taboo. But I check them good, making sure the seal is unmarred, and I wash them before using. I’ve used some lids as many as five times over!)

Process the jars of peaches in a hot water bath. Your canning manual will tell you to process the life out of them, probably to do something crazy like keep them at a rolling boil for twenty-five minutes, and my aunt Valerie will tell you they are done when you lift one of the jars out of the canner and see that the fruit has moved toward to the top, creating ½ inch or so of juice at the bottom—this happens after only about five minutes of boiling. I settle somewhere in the middle (after that peach canning fiasco) between the anal canners and my aunt Val, usually letting the jars boil for about fifteen minutes or so.

When they have finished boiling, set the jars on an old towel to cool, and don’t touch the lids till the jars are completely cool—I usually don’t even look at the lids till the following morning.

When the jars are totally cooled, remove the jar rings, wash the jars in warm soapy water to get rid of any remaining sweet peach goo (if you don’t, that invisible goo will mold and then it will become visible), label the jar lids (I scrawl a simple ‘09), and move them to storage. Wash the rings, stack them in a pretty pyramid and let them air dry before shipping them back to their storage box.

As for the jars that didn’t seal (out of our 46 quarts of peaches, three didn’t seal), store them in the fridge and eat them up over the course of the next couple weeks (or days).

About One Year Ago: Smashing Potatoes.

Taking a spare minute I don’t have to tell you why I don’t have a spare minute.

1. Three bushels of peaches.
2. A couple wagon-loads of sweet corn.
3. Four bushels of apples.

Other things in the works: Sweet pickles soaking, dill pickles to be made, lettuce to be washed, bacon to be fried, peach desserts to create and savor, beans to pick, lettuce seeds to be harvested and dried, beets, tomatoes…

Tonight: Two meetings and my parents are coming to spend the night (I called to tell them that if they were bored they could come early to do corn—my dad politely laughed and hung up the phone).

Checked off the list: yogurt, croutons, caesar dressing, baked oatmeal, lunch, one wagon-load of corn husked, coffee half-way drunk, piece of blueberry coffee cake inhaled.

Sincerely,
A victim of a garden tsunami

About One Year Ago: Quiche.

I’m dragging, feeling rather out of sorts and unsettled. Our usual routine has been interrupted and I can’t seem to find my footing.

I get kind of depressed when I stop to think about how unable I am (sometimes) to take things in stride and how slow I am to bounce back from little upsets. Actually, I already am depressed enough, even without thinking about all my shortcomings. No-no-no, “depressed” is the wrong word—it’s way too strong. I’m just … draggy.

Really, my life is not all that bad right now; in fact, it’s pretty peachy. I have a free day with nothing going on (I love free days), but it’s dreary (in a nice sort of way) and I have some kids to watch (they’re playing nicely), but I can’t do what I really want to do which is Be Alone.

Oh, this is hard to explain. I’m sounding like a spoiled brat. One of my employers (if you can call the woman who ran the learning center at the private university where I logged my work-study hours an “employer”) used to tell us if we ever got too querulous, “Buck up, Buttercup.” It could be downright irritating, but she had a good point.

I’m probably just tired. It’s true that I haven’t slept well for the past two nights. The reason I haven’t slept well (and this is where the Upset Part comes in) is that Mr. Handsome purchased over thirty pounds of bananas for ten bucks and so the kids gorged on them and now The Baby Nickel is wickedly constipated and has been up for two nights moaning and groaning, tossing and turning, and ailing and flailing, etc. This morning he woke up at six and then fell back asleep on the sofa and slept till ten, which means there won’t be any rest time this afternoon.

It’s the little things like these that mess with my day and render me helpless.

Other happenings that are messing with me:

*It’s raining (like I said) and that makes me feel not only blue, but guilty, too, since we need the rain and who am I to kick a gift horse in the mouth, anyway?
*The rain makes it humid (cool, too).
*Both Yo-Yo and Miss Becca Boo are gone to other people’s houses (another good thing, but it makes the house feel different).
*The Fresh Air Boy (I’ll call him “Diego”) is still a novelty, and with novelties come (for the children) excitability, heightened emotions, and general unsettledness, and for me, simply more responsibility (which isn’t a bad thing—it just is).
*I have a meeting tonight about finances (at a coffee shop), and I hate line items and budget requests, mostly because I have no clue what they are (not totally, but you know what I mean) and feel completely out of my league. I’d rather talk about sex over money any day of the week.

So! All that to say, I’m slightly out of sorts, grumpy, and unmotivated. I ate peanut butter-banana cream pie before lunch (I do weird things like that when I’m feeling unsettled), and then for my official lunch I ate plain sloppy joe meat and potato salad. Now I’m drinking coffee. I’m thinking something’s gotta kick in and give me a boost, sooner rather than later, I hope. If the coffee doesn’t do the trick (and maybe even if it does), I’ll pop some chocolate. I would like to try a nap, but I don’t think that would be a particularly responsible thing to do, considering that the kids might decide to tie together the shreds of Sweetsie’s spit rags and repel out the upstairs windows or something.

I think my period is coming.

There was one soothing part of my day and that was my breakfast bowl of granola. One of the constants in my life—besides rambunctious children, crumbs on my floor (oops, let’s now add a shattered plate), and chocolate—is granola. In our family we turn to granola just about any time of day, for a filling breakfast, mid-morning snack, a last-minute lunch, a silly supper, or a bedtime refueling. After my breakfast of granola and bananas, I had a mid-morning snack of granola and dried sweet cherries. I’m serious when I say that we eat lots of granola.

I usually have two kinds of granola sitting on my counter, one of which is almost always the plain, simple kind, the one that the kids favor—if I don’t keep that kind on hand, I run the risk of ruining everyone’s lives. But I recently discovered a new kind of granola: Brown Sugar Granola.

Actually, the recipe, which hailed from the Amish Cook’s column in our local paper, was titled “Homemade Granola.” I thought the title was kind of funny seeing as it was the title for a recipe, implying, I thought, that it was intended for cooks to assemble themselves in their homes. At least I assume other cooks aren’t making their food in their barns or chicken coops or cars. But hey, what do I know? Maybe there is a whole group of Barn Cooks out there. What with all the oats we eat, we probably belong in a barn.

Anyway, despite the corny title, I clipped the recipe and made it, and then I promptly fell in love. The granola was sweetly oaty, and the texture was perfect, not tough-crunchy as some granolas are, but satisfyingly crunchy in a gentle, soothing way.

Brown Sugar Granola
Adapted from the Amish Cook’s weekly column.

20 cups rolled oats
2 cups pecans, chopped
2 cups coconut
2 2/3 cups brown sugar
4 teaspoons salt
2 2/3 cups neutral-tasting oil, such as canola
1 ½ cups water
1 tablespoon maple flavoring
2 teaspoons vanilla

Combine the dry ingredients in your biggest mixing bowl.

In a smaller bowl, stir together the liquids.

Add the liquids to the oats, stir to combine, and divide the granola between two or three of your largest pans (no need to grease them). Roast the granola at 250 degrees for 2-3 hours, stirring the granola and turning the pans every 30-45 minutes, until it is golden brown and crunchy (to test for crunchiness, remove a piece and set it on the counter to cool to room temperature before tasting).

Completely cool the granola before transferring to storage bags, jars, or plastic containers.

About One Year Ago: Dutch Puff (miracles of miracles, the recipe contains no oats, none at all!)