Journal - Peaches

On Friday, Bobbi called me and said their peach tree was overflowing with peaches and asked if we wanted to come pick some. So we did that Saturday morning. We came home with about 5 dozen, although they were small because the tree made so many. I decided to try canning them, which I have never done before. We’ve been saving glass jars for recycling, and I always wondered if they could be re-used for canning. I mean like pickle jars, or spaghetti sauce and things like that. I asked Mom, and she said they probably wouldn’t work, but you know me, I had to try it anyway. So after we got home with the peaches, I tried an alfredo sauce jar. I cleaned and sliced 10 peaches which turned out to be just enough for the pint-sized jar. These peaches, by the way, are incredibly sweet and juicy. I heated the sliced peaches on the stove and then Joni put them in the jar piping hot. After a couple of hours, the lid popped and the jar was sealed! It looked like my experiment was going to work.

That evening, I decided to do another jar. I cleaned up 10 more peaches and put them in a jar, but that jar never sealed so I had to put them in the refridgerator. Later on, Joni and I decided that the peaches hadn’t been as hot that time, and that’s why the jar didn’t seal properly.

So, Sunday after lunch, I tried some more. I cleaned up the rest of the peaches, about 30 this time. We made sure to get the peaches very hot before spooning them into jars, but alas, none of them sealed. My experiment was a failure. I did some reading online, and some people say that they use commercial jars all the time. Of course, there are other people that say you shouldn’t do that. For me, it only worked on one jar out of five.

So we had a lot of peaches that needed to be used right away before they went bad. I found a recipe for peach cobbler on the internet, and Joni made some Monday after supper. The recipe used two whole jars of peaches, the jars were smaller than I realized, only about two cups in each. The cobbler turned out pretty good, although it was not the best I’ve ever had. The dough was kind of plain. We still have three more jars of peaches, though, so we can experiment with more recipes. I also found a recipe for turnovers and I thought I might try that. All in all, it was kind of fun. It gave me something to do for a couple of days. And Bobbi and Mike’s tree probably still has peaches on it, so maybe we’ll go get some more.

Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

2 Corinthians 9:6 Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.