More Harvest Time

We took harvest time seriously. It has been raining for a week now and it is dark and damp out so we spent Friday and the weekend between conference session canning tomatoes. We got a total of 20 quarts and 12 pints. Sure makes the food storage shelves look better. I grew up in a small town that was dominated by 40 acre truck farms and a large canning facility. Tomatoes were brought to the plant by horse and wagon and the wagon drivers would throw tomatoes at the kids trying to swipe them off the back of the wagons. Some times we would catch the one that were thrown, sometime we didn't. Somtimes it got messy and then we got it from Mom when we came home. As I got older I picked tomatoes for ten cents a hamper. For those of you who do hot know about hampers, they were about 3/4 of a bushel. You do remember a bushel basket don't you? But harvest was fun. We still have potatoes and carrots to do, hopefully. Canning is a good bonding time, that is what makes it enjoyable.

I remember that the canning factory (as we called it) used to can with one company label and when they got so many they would switch and go to another company label for the cans. They canned for half dozen different companies. The only thing I remember was that Van Camps had a special size requirement and all the tomatoes had to be the same size. You got a better price for them too. I remember they had individual receipes for the catsup they bottled except for some of the lessor brands, they just changed the labels.

The weather has been terribly damp for a week and I have a slight chest cold (normal) but Sherry came down this AM with a sore throat. Hope we can nip it in the bud before it gets serious. Have a good week.