The One with the First of the Canning

I have been trying so many new things this week. One of which I will share with you here. 

You're welcome.  

On Monday, the hottest day of the newly-arrived fall season, Sheryl and decided to try canning tomatoes. Her neighbor had given her baskets upon baskets of tomatoes leftover from his garden, and we decided to preserve them for future use. We gathered those beautiful mason jars from new boxes and dusty, dirty, spider-filled boxes (those were mine. thank you, basement.) We washed and sanitized all of the jars, filled the stove with four large pots with various purposes and went to work-- washing tomatoes, chopping off the stems, boiling them, shocking them in cold water to loosen the skins, peeling them (not always as easy as it should have been), breaking them up (especially fun to do with your hands--clean hands, of course), simmering them for another however-many-minutes-until-we-thought-they-were-done, transferring them to the jars (with those handy-dandy wide-mouth funnel), and then the actual canning. 

Two days later, we tried a similar process with cooked salsa and additional canned tomatoes. The second time around we had a much better rhythm, but man, canning is quite a lot of work. I'm so glad I didn't attempt it completely on my own for the first time. I probably would have given up. But working alongside a friend, filling the time with good conversation, makes the time together so sweet and very productive!

 I am thankful! 

What about this canning business? Do you have a lot of experience? Any tips to offer us?