Now that Fall is rolling around and the county fairs have come to an end. Or if you live anywhere near a lake the cabin people have started to go home. That means one thing in rural Minnesota. It’s nearly harvest time.
I grew up in rural Minnesota, but I was not a farm kid. So outside of my family’s massive garden, I never participated in harvest. I did, however, grow up between farms so there was a time or two in my teen years that I was called upon to watch younger children during harvest. Outside of that late Summer and early Fall usually meant something very different at my house. It meant it was canning season.
As previously mentioned my family had a massive garden and my father was very good at procuring large quantities of apples. Looking back at it all, the amount of apples he was able to get a hold of was extremely impressive. Which did mean we spent a good portion of the Fall canning nearly all of the vegetables from the garden but also making everything apple that could be canned.We’re talking applesauce, apple butter, apple pie filling, and apple jam. Now if you’ve never made any of these things I can tell you that it is a long and time consuming process. Which can also be quite explosive.
Once when my older sister was a teenager she was keeping an eye on a round of apple butter that was in the middle of the canning process. It was in the pressure cooker when it exploded, getting apple butter all over the kitchen. All the way up to the ceiling; which was quite impressive, considering it was a 9 foot ceiling.
Needless to say that the apple butter explosion of 2005 is probably part of the reason she doesn’t can or make apple butter. Not that I do either of those things, but my apartment also doesn’t have the counter space. Nor do either of us have our father’s gift for being able reasonably to get that many apples at once.
