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(I found an entry in a childhood journal once about
the woes of being coolie labor for my parents during canning season. We filled all four shelves with canned pickles, jams, jellies, tomatoes, what-nots and the freezer.) ***************************************************************** Crab apple jelly nectarine jam green tomato mincemeat Italian prune plums purple 16 quarts canned big boys and early girls all lined up on a shelf and a half to last the winter cleaning and dusting the shelf I got myself quite the nasty splinter canning is a lot of work there are so many steps all of them involve coolie labor and me ruining my latest pair of Keds first we have to pick the stuff then we have to wash it all off then we have to sanitize the jars then we have to make some kind of sweet syrup or salty or seasoned broth with the fruits you have to dunk em in hot water and skin em half alive then you squish em into hot jars and then you boil them til the lid pops up like a belching burpy cry so many fruits and vegetables lined up like in a general store the pantry is over-flowing what do you also need the freezer over-filled for? flashing-freezing, pickling, paring, dicing, sieving, squeezing our hands are itching, chapped and sore. Mother, you say we're Presbyterians, then why have we prepared so much more than what it seems we need... I'd nearly consider ourselves Mormons, another row of tomatoes and then what this seems like gluttony and greed alright then bring on the corn-husker's lotion for all of our hands are getting sore and over-worked and rough. ******************************************************************8 Back in the days when I helped my Mother can and pickle and we had two or three gardens plus hauled vegetables we'd picked from the local truck farm to be canned as well. Coolie-labor we felt we were. Copyright January 27 2015 All Rights Are Reserved By This Author Meloo/Melissa A Howells straight from her Tilt-a-World No negative connotation meant about preparedness of Mormons. There are other religious groups which do this. This was merely my childish protestations and shenanigans to try to get out of doing the work. I am merely quoting myself as a kid. Vote for this poem |
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