I wouldn’t say I’m an expert. But when my friend mentioned she’d like to try her hand at canning peaches, and preferred not to do it alone, I offered up my house as the test lab. I’d done a little canning in the few years since we’d moved into our home in the middle of nowhere. Surely with a little help from Ball and Google we could figure out how to put up a few quarts of peaches.

She’s a mother of three to my one so we agreed it would be easier if I went to the farmer’s stand and got the peaches we would need. It was a light harvest this year, so it took multiple stops to track down enough of the produce. She met me at the house with her own jars and sugar. Our daughters are the best of friends so they set off playing right away. Well, after I reminded my daughter to include the little brother. We gave the baby some toys to occupy herself and then went to work.

There’s a community that forms quite naturally around a canning kitchen.

You can read the rest of this story over at Circling The Story.