Family Root Cellar

I remember sitting on a stool in front of a crank apple peeler trying to see just how long I could get the peel without breaking it. I was at least eleven at the time. There was a box full of apples at my side and my mom was slicing them up as fast as I peeled them. It was early autumn.

I don't remember what she was making with the apples. Perhaps it was a pie? Perhaps she was putting them into the big juicer or putting them into the food dryer. The important thing was that we were together preserving the harvest.

It was hot. It was high summer and I was in Okanogan, Washington at my Grammie Buzzard's house. (Yes, my mom's maiden name is "Buzzard.") There were a hundred chickens to slaughter, pluck and "process" for freezing. I remember watching my Dad and my Grandpa Harold slaughter the chickens and throw them into the big gunny sack hanging from the tree in the yard to let them bleed out. We'd then dunk them into the very hot water in the big wash tub and sit around in lawn chairs plucking and talking. My Uncles would tell stories about recent bear hunts, cougar encounters, rattlesnake scares and who just bought whose "place" or horse. I was all ears while I squeezed out pin feathers.

Inside the house, Mom, my Aunts and Grammie were having races to see who could cut up the chickens the fastest. At some point over the years I became old enough to be taught how to cut up a chicken properly and join in with the kitchen crew. The stories changed to family, neighbors and children. The talk was often of health, marriages and fallings-out or spiritual insights.

Other times we gathered to slice up lugs and lugs of peaches or pears. There was always a family dinner afterwards and lots of cousins to wrestle and Aunts and Uncles to play board games with.

Today I picked two and a half gallons of blackberries. My hands are purple and my arms are scratched from thousands of thorns. I plan to make jam tomorrow. Next week I'll pick some more and hope to freeze some for pies and such. Later this month will be the peaches, the pickled beets, cucumber pickles and tomatillo salsa verde. I have onions drying on my porch and squash fattening on the vine to be put away for long winter days.

When I bottled the green beans a couple of weeks ago it was a family affair. Jon washed them and he and the children sat together on the kitchen floor snapping them. I washed and readied the bottles, lids, brine and kettles. Jon monitored the pressure cooker. We talked about our recent summer vacation and the happy memories we'd made. Jon and the kids tried to see who could snap the most beans the fastest.

I realized that it is more than vegetables and fruit I am preserving in these jars. Some things do indeed keep forever.