Couldn't Do It Without Them!

As anyone who grows and preserves a significant portion of their own food knows, harvest time is B-U-S-Y.  

Anyone in that situation also knows well the wisdom of this old saying: Many hands make light work.  Tis true!  :)

This year, as we begin to harvest and store up food, I am especially grateful for the many hands that lighten these tasks.  How blessed I am that not only do my children help me, but also my parents!  We're a good team, all of us together.  :)

Last week, we stopped by our local fruit market and got four gallons of sour cherries.  Getting them ready for the freezer was not difficult work, but time-consuming?  Oh, yes!  (And sticky, too.)  ;-)

Before that was the pea harvest; and although I LOVE shelling peas, I was completely thankful that I didn't have to do them all by myself.  :)

Tobin was the child who most often got involved in the pea-shelling, and he did a good job with it.  David, on the other hand, confessed that he doesn't like shelling peas because it's so discouraging to open a pea pod and maybe find only two peas in it--peas that he could eat in a single gulp.  All that time and work for (in his opinion) such little return!  :)  Ah, but when you combine all the peas from all the pods, that turns into a freezer shelf full of tidy stacks of pint containers brimming with peas.  :)

The picture above, by the way, was taken by Tobin and is SOOC (straight out of camera, for those who aren't familiar with that expression...no editing done on it at all).  :)

Even more than the obvious benefit of having more people working so the task can be finished sooner, the bigger advantage of the "many hands" principle is this: the treasure of time spent together, talking and laughing, as the group works towards a common goal.  We're being productive...we're making memories...and we're doing it--TOGETHER!  :)