The Queen enjoys a good peach

One of the great things about life in the Magic Valley of Southern Idaho is that pretty much everything grows here. I hear about people going on one of the "100 Mile Diets" and have to laugh. Within 100 miles of my house, the only thing I couldn't eat would be citrus and coffee I think.
Along the Snake River, there are 100s of gorgeous orchards. My favorite is Kelley Orchards. I went to school with Jason Kelley and he's since passed away so I shop there for sentimental reasons.
Yesterday I stopped by the Kelley Orchard fruit stand and picked up a box of peaches.
I grew up canning with my step-mother. We made several trips to River Road in Buhl, Idaho each summer where Kelley and the other orchards sold their fruit. We spent summer days peeling peaches and getting them in jars so we could enjoy the summer freshness all year long.
Peaches are easy to can and the rewards are great. Yes, it's a lot of hard work. Yes, you could buy something at the store. I prefer the taste of home-canned produce. It's fresher and it tastes sweeter after all the hard work you've put in!
I'm sort of a canning junkie. I'm a "Master Food Preserver" through the University of Idaho Extension Service. In typical Karma fashion, I probably read more about it than do it. I really enjoy canning and when I do it, I find it very rewarding and peaceful.
I have the luxury of an extra kitchen in an old farm house about a city block in distance from my house. To get started, I fill a water bath canner with water and place 7 clean, empty jars in it. (I use quarts for peaches) This allows you to boil the jars to sterilize them a bit and keeps them hot, which is important.
I have another pot for the hot sugar syrup and one with boiling water for scalding the peaches.
I set up my canning area so I have everything I need within arms reach.

For this process, I follow the recipe in the Ball Blue Book. (It's important to follow updated recipes). I do make one slight change. The recipe calls for slicing the peaches, treating them with an anti-oxidation agent and then draining the peaches.
I don't do that. I slice the peaches directly into the jar and put the anti-oxidation agent in the syrup. I don't drain the peaches. I like the juice.
But more on that in a minute.

To get started, you need to soak the peaches in boiling hot water for about 30 seconds and then plunge them into cold water. That will loosen the skin to the point you can just pull it off with your fingers.(I just give it just a little twist and the skin with come off.) Once the skin is off you can then cut your peaches. My kids love to help with this.

If you're going to cut them all and store them in a bowl until you have enough for your jars, you should treat them with something to prevent them from darkening. I think the easiest is "Fruit Fresh" available at grocery stores. You can crush vitamin C pills (I think that's too much work) or you can use lemon juice. Your canning books should have a recommendation for you.

I slice my peaches directly into the jars. I have a hot sugar syrup (water, sugar) ready and I put the anti-darkening agent in the syrup following the directions on the bottle of Fruit Fresh. I pour the hot syrup over the peaches, again according to the Ball recipe. You have leave a certain amount of head space at the top of the jar in order to get a good seal. Once filled, there are 2-piece canning lids. (Again, follow instructions on the box of lids) It's also important to remove the air bubbles from the jar. Do this with a smooth plastic spatula or something similiar. Do not use metal, it could chip the glass.

I use an old spatula, but they make special bubble-getter thing for canning. I've lost 3 or 4 of them, so I stopped buying them.
Adjust the lids. One of the mistakes people make is over tightening the lids. You tighten to the point of friction and then just a bit more. I set the jars in the canning rack until I have my canner filled.

Once I have my canner loaded, I lower the filled jars into the water. There should be an inch of water over the top of the jars. I wait for the canner to come to a full boil and then I start my timer.

Water boils at different temperatures at higher altitudes. It's important to remember all recipes are written for sea level. So if you don't live at sea level, you have to adjust your canning time. The recipe calls for a 25 minute process for my quarts of peaches and at my altitude I need to add 10 minutes. I realize I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, but again, there are instructions for adjusting processing times in reputable canning books. Follow them.


After the process time ends, turn the heat off and leave the jars alone. Let them sit for a good 5 minutes. (I let them sit a bit longer) After the rest time has elapsed, take the jars carefully out of the canner and set them carefully on a towel. (Don't forget to use your jar grabber -- tongs specially designed for lifting jars) Make sure there no air conditioners or fans blowing directly on the jars. They need to cool down naturally. As they cool, they'll seal. You might even hear a cute little "pop". The lid will suck in toward the fruit and you won't be able to push it down.

If you have a jar that doesn't seal you can re-process immediately or put it in the fridge and enjoy the peaches for dinner.

It's a slow process. My six jars took the better part of 2.5 hours to finish, plus more time for cooling. When I open these peaches in January, those hours won't seem too bad.

Divine by Design

My chickens amuse me.
I have about 30 young 'uns. About half my flock was killed by a dumb dog last winter so I need replacements. They're about a month old and for the first time this week, I started letting them out their coop.
I couldn't quite get the picture I wanted, so you'll have to use your imagination. I left the coop door open and then stood by the gate to see what they would do. At first, a handful of them stood at the door and looked. I would swear I heard their thoughts.
"What is THAT?" "You check it out." "I'm not doin' it. You do it."
There is one young rooster you seemed to take charge of things. He perched on the threshold of the coop. Turned his neck right, then left, the right again. He touched a toe to the dirt and quickly brought his foot back to the familiarity of straw. Then he put one foot down the dirt. The second. He looked around. He checked it out. Then he went back inside the coop. He stepped out again and then he crowed. A weak, scratchy going-through-puberty kind of crow.
It took a while, but eventually the other young chicks stepped out into the dirt. They scratched at the fresh dirt. They explored.

It was like turning a bunch of middle schoolers at a museum. It's not really cool to have fun at a museum at first, but eventually one of the kids will decide it's actually not that bad and then, by the end of the field trip the kids are disappointed to leave.
Nature is a funny thing. It's easy for us humans to forget we're all part of the same animal kingdom. These chickens and us -- we're really not that far apart in the big picture. Be it biology or God's plan, we're each created with a specific plan or job. It's also easy to try to redirect that plan, but sometimes, we're created to be who we are. We can try to change, but nature or God--however you choose to define it --has a plan.
I've been watching our little "wild" chick Uno and her mother. Just like I've always seen in books and on television, at the first sign of danger the little chick snuggles underneath her mother.
She's puffed out to twice her size. Most of my chickens are narrow through the breasts and hind quarters. Mama hen is a round ball right now.
Most women get a little rounder when they give birth and far too many of us panic. Will we ever get that girlish figure back? Then most of us sell our soul to the diet industry to get that figure back. When it doesn't happen, we beat ourselves up for being failures.
I know I have.

But what if those curves are there on purpose. What if Mother Nature or God designed us like that? What if we need those extra pounds for some reason? What if we just stopped worrying about it and allowed ourselves to enjoy the divine design?
I've been working on this lately and I have to say it's entirely freeing. I take care of myself better (it's easier when your hands are not busy with self flagellation )I see the joy in things like a young chick instead of panicking that I haven't worked out enough or eaten the right amount of vegetables.
I don't know if I've lost weight. I don't actually care. I enjoy my life. I feel better. I appreciate all that I am and all the blessings that have been lavished upon me. I'm thankful for every stretch mark and roll because it's allowed me to see the world through different eyes. I can't sit in judgement, like I used to. I have to find compassion for myself and other in ways I did not do before. I'm entirely lucky to be where I am right now and am passionate about living each day to the fullest.
At the risk of sounding like an episode of Oprah, I really feel like it's time for our society to be nicer to each other and most importantly, be kinder to ourselves. We are all beautiful and unique because that's how we were created. To believe otherwise to hold idols above ourselves and that, we all know, is a waste of time.
So now, instead of chasing a perfection that can never be mine, I'll spend time watching my chickens and it's time well spent.