Apricots

Today is Wednesday, July 2, 2008. The smoke is out of the air and the sun is shining brightly. It is supposed to get up past 90 degrees today. Oh, boy! Hot summer days.
Our apricot tree has produced lots and lots of apricots. We have been canning nearly every day. (We are not as fast as we used to be.) And we have been eating lots of beautiful fresh apricots. The dryer has been going steady, too. It brings back memories of canning apricots at Glen's folks' place in Toquerville, Utah. Mother and Dad had an apricot "orchard." I can't remember exactly how many trees there were but enough to keep a full crew busy picking, canning and drying apricots.
Seems like we always had our trip to visit just at the time the apricots were ripe. Not only our family but some of the rest of the family came, too. And what a production line we had. Aunts, uncles, and cousins of all ages pitched in to help Grandpa and Grandma take care of all the fruit. One or two of the older boys helped Grandpa and the Uncles pick bushels and bushels of apricots. The aunts and everybody else (all ages) helped Grandma do the canning and filling the huge dryer with apricots. There was apricot nectar and apricot jam, too.
Grandma never wanted anything to go to waste so first thing she would enlist some help to pick up any nice apricots that had fallen during the night. Grandpa felt time would be better spent getting the trees picked but we always did what Grandma asked us. From those "gushy" apricots, as the grandchildren called them, we made the best tasting jams and that wonderful apricot nectar that we all loved so much.
Everyone, no matter how young, had a job to do. The men would bring in the apricots. A couple of the smaller children would carry from the bushel baskets to the kitchen sink, where the next older children washed the fruit. There was someone assigned to deliver from the sink to the various work stations around the big red, formica kitchen table. Some were assigned to cut out the bad spots - there were seldom many -, the next group split them into a big stainless steel bowl. The next assignment was to place the halves into the scrupulously clean Kerr jars. (The washing of the jars took place first thing in the morning. Each jar had to be washed with hot, soapy water and a stiff bottle brush. And every top checked for any nicks that would keep the jar from sealing. Nicked jars were just thrown in the garbage.)
There were aunts at the stove boiling the sugar syrup to be added to the jars. The "flats" had to be placed in boiling water to sterilize before they were placed on the full bottle of the beautiful orange colored fruit. Next, srew on the jars rings. Grandma kept those in order of a scrunched together coat hanger. Then into the hot water bath canner seven bottles at a time. Grandma had two canners so we could process 14 jars at a time. As soon as one batch was finished there were another 14 bottles ready to be put into the canners.
Such a busy wonderful time. It was a lot of hard, hot work but there could be no slackers. Cousins worked together and had a good time doing it. There really was not much complaining. Grandma would never allow that - well, neither would the mothers and aunts. It was just a job that needed to be done and the more people who helped made the work go faster. Besides, most of it really turned out to be fun. There were all kinds of stories told around the big kitchen table and the aunts and uncles helped when your job seemed to get overwhelming. That was a great part about it all. Once Grandpa and the uncles had finished picking they came in to the kitchen to help. Nobody wanted to be left out of anything.
I really think that the whole family has pleasant memories of that working together. And I know everyone learned to work hard. In this day and age I consider that a wonderful blessing. To learn to work. Every child needs to learn two things in life - how to work and how to obey. Those two principles take a person far in life.
Along with the canning there was always one person responsible for cutting up a big bowl of those fresh apricots to eat with sweet cream for dinnertime and suppertime. The fruits of our labors were delicious. That day and in days to come as we savored the finished products. Oh, there was another by-product of our apricot project. The trees were what we call "sweet pits." When you cracked the seed, the little "nut" inside tasted nearly like an almond. The boy cousins liked to crack the pits open for everyone to enjoy the eating.
I will always carry many happy memories of those days working with the family on the annual Apricot Project.
That's it for today.