We drove down to Hurricane (Southern Utah pronunciation is Hurricun) to the Church peach orchard to pick peaches. Since I am pregnant I took it easy and had help carrying buckets, but the next day I had major complications with my pregnancy. So instead of canning my peaches and then going to a nieces baptism and nephews baby blessing that weekend I sent my family off because I was confined to my bed. Then I was tested and it was a false alarm, so here I am with three days with no husband or children, that has not ever happened to me in my whole marriage. So I relaxed and did peaches and read and finally updated my blog. I was very happy to get my family back, the weekend was a bit lonely.
I was able to get so much more done with my children's help then when I was alone. We bottled peaches, peach nectar, peach jam, made peach freezer jam, and sliced peaches to freeze. The children have been wonderful, especially Abby, she loved canning and would wake up every morning saying “When can we bottle fruit mom?” I told them that I would pay them .10¢ for every quart jar that they filled, it was amazing how fast they were, I never filled a single quart, they filled while I boiled the peaches and filled them with water, put on the lids and steamed them, etc. I love having older children that are such good helpers.
Paul had a hard time focusing for very long, he would run off and flap his arms saying “Mom, I’m a bird so you won’t see me again because I will fly away.” Then he would lure Denny away and they pretended to be a Nawk (i.e Hawk) and a Dove chasing each other around the house. Then Dennis would remember his dimes and say “Paul I have to finish my peaches.” We bottles around 110 quarts in addition to all the jam and frozen peaches, it was a grand adventure and I’m glad I could do it before the baby came.
I told Abby that we needed to get some apples so we could can applesauce and she said "Mom, are you kidding? You are going to have a baby, we can't do anymore canning." I suppose she's right, it's a good thing my children keep me in line :)
