One more time...

A few weeks ago, I looked at the burgeoning shelf of canned Tomato Sauce and Hot Sweet Garlic Pickles and the weekly output of Rosemary Jelly and my only thought was 'make it stop!'. So many days and evenings of cleaning and cutting and boiling of jars and cooking and filling and sterilizing...and waiting for the jars to seal and the jelly to 'gel' . True, there is an abundance of beautiful canned goods. But all of that, I have to admit, is exhausting. And this along with everyting else 'farm'. Then Will begins to collect ears of corn for processing because we missed the first round; it went by too fast and we were too busy. We really didn't want to miss this, the second and last round of fresh swet corn this summer. We wanted some in the freezer. I'll admit that yesterday evening, when Will said 'tonight is corn night!', I said 'have fun!'. He sat out there dutifully blanching the corn, then dousing it in ice water; cutting it off of the ears and bagging it for freezing - and I'm grateful that he was willing to do that. Last fall, at some point, we had crammed a very large frozen turkey into the big freezer...and hadn't noticed the door wasn't quite closed until it was way, way too late...everything had to be thrown out, including all of the corn (and other veggies) we had put up last summer. (also some things that were completely un-identifiable, but you know what I mean here...) An empty freezer does give one a fresh start, but all of the farm produce being thrown away was heartbreaking. I keep meaning to cut up and freeze bell peppers to add to the stock, and I probably will, but this week I'm enjoying the end of the summer garden, which means doing a lot of nothing for a few days. In the menatime, here is Crazy, obviously in disdain because corn is the focus of the moment, not him...