Both the summer and this old lady is on the downhill side of 2012.  Whew....what a season this has been.  Hot, Hot, and more Hot were the order of the weatherman and NO RAIN for two months.  Of course this had to be the year I decided to get back into gardening.....Geez Oh Peets. 

Well, I did start the spring off with a few forays into "dehoarding" from both the library and the studio.  It's always so tough to pitch out books.  But, after trying to find places for the first 1000, the idea of tossing out the whole lot surfaced more than once...rolling eyes.  However, I restrained from wholesale trashing and began what appears to be a long process of "pitch and keep".  Over 400 cookbooks, craft, manuals, reference, novels, gardening and religion related books "left the building" back in March and April.  Then the canning season began and thus the clearing out ceased.

I wonder how many people grew up in a household where canning was an every summer occurrence.  My grandmother and my mother both canned jars and jars of produce each year.  I am an on again and off again canning participant.  This is an "on" year and so far my shelves have gained over 140 jars of fruits and veggies with more to come.  I honestly can't see throwing food away or letting it rot on the ground so what is not eaten is stuffed in a jar for future consumption.   I don't really feel that canning is difficult just tiresome.  The rewards are that the number of jars directly correlates to the reduction of grocery dollars spent.  Guess that's a good tradeoff but at my age I find my energy levels don't keep up as well with the demands of a garden....sigh.  Oh well, I will reevaluate the garden issue next year.  This year is already set and rolling right a long.  I still have potatoes, carrots, apples, onions and tomatoes to deal with.   I think it's going to be a very long fall.