The Green Beans on My Shelf

I just put 24 jars of canned fresh green beans on my shelf today.  I love seeing all of the jars lined up with their various sizes and colors.  It's quite a mosaic, edible art, if you will.

My mom put up green beans every year.  I only got to can my own beans with her once before she died, but I remember helping her for years before that.  I hated it.

Dad always grew beans in his garden, and whenever she'd have enough to fill the canner, she'd put them up.  Sometimes, though, Dad would bring home a bushel from one of the Chevy dealers in the country or he'd go to Huber's and pick them, then we'd spend a sticky evening on the patio snapping green beans and swatting flies and mosquitos until the whole box was ready for the canner.  Once I remember Granny helping us, and that night was actually pretty cool.  The three generations sitting around, talking and snapping beans.  Still, I never really liked it, so I'm not sure why I CHOOSE to do it now, but I do.

Whenever I put the weight on the vent pipe of the pressure cooker, and it starts rocking with the steam, I have flashbacks of being in Mom's orange and yellow kitchen, jars everywhere, beans soaking in the sink, a pan of hot lids on the stove.  Mom was militant when she canned, as I wrote about in my post "Snapping Beans."  I was canning by myself for the first time this year, and while I wasn't too militant, I did make sure the kids stayed out of the kitchen as much as possible and away from the stove at all costs.  They hated the SSSS SSSS SSSS SSSS sound of the canner as much as I did when I was there age.

I wonder if any of them will ever put up food.  If they do, I hope I am here to help teach them and revel in their wonder at what they have painted.