I had posted a want ad on Craigs List for a water-bath canner and some canning jars. I received an E-mail from a person about a mile away from my house who was having a garage sale starting today. My luck was with me, they had both sizes of canning jars that I wanted. And they had lids. Best of all, they had the water-bath pan and rack. Now it was time to make a deal so the homeowner and we agreed on $20.00 for it all. I left there a happy gardener. Friday night, Elaine and I were discussing putting our old gas stove on the porch to use for canning when Elaine had an even better idea. She suggested using a wood fire in the fire pit. With a small fire to keep the water boiling to do the canning. I'd be willing to bet that both of my Grandmothers used a wood fire to can. They used to can meat before they had freezers so I would have to think this canning was done on a wood fire. I know the Amish can this way yet today so I'm sure that I can too. My garden is coming along quite well. The squash and pumpkins are blossoming, I should be picking string beans in a couple of days, and our 1st strawberry to ripen gets picked today. The pole beans have climbed to the top of the sunflowers and are also starting to blossom. I hope soon I will be canning and freezing so we will be able to enjoy these vegetables this winter, that is if we don't enjoy them too much this summer and eat them all like we did the 1st planting of peas. As fast as those peas ripened, I picked them, shucked them, cooked and we ate them. We enjoyed them so much, I just replanted more peas for fall. I planted about 4 times as many as I did the first time so I hope we have some to freeze. But they're just so damn good fresh that we'll just have to wait and see if any make it to the freezer
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