A day of hard labor

Last Thursday my friends Heidi, Christine and Andrea came over to my house bright and early and we started a LONG day of canning. Heidi had been to Growers Outlet a couple days before and bought a ton of fruit so we had a lot of work cut out for us. We had 50 lbs of peaches, 50 lbs of pears, 50+ lbs of tomatoes and 2 brown paper grocery bags of apples from Heidi's grandma's tree. It was a long 10 hour day...and even then, Heidi had to take home her box of peaches to do at home and I had 2 batches of applesauce still to make and can. But all in all, it was a great day. Such a huge sense of accomplishment when you see all the can's lined up. This is my first year of serious canning. Last year I dabbled a bit in canning. When my grandma realized that I had acquired an interest in canning, she brought me a gift. Her pressure canner, complete with all the parts and instruction manual from 1962. This is such a treasure to me! Not only do I love old things...but this particular pressure canner has family history! I have always wondered why canning in particular was so nostalgic for me. My mom didn't really do any canning so I don't remember this process as a kid. Last night my question got answered. My sister called me last week and asked me if I could look through a box of photos from my dad to see if her birth certificate had gotten mixed up in them. So last night I was looking through the box and consequently through our old photos. As I was doing this I found a package of photos. Let me give you a little background on these particular photos. When I was growing up, my mom's grandparents lived in Boise, Idaho (my grandma still does) about 3 hours away from Boise, in Riggins Idaho lived my great grandparents in a house that my great grandpa built. We called it "up on the river" because they literally lived right across the street from the Little Salmon River. We went up there almost every year growing up. I have a lot of memories of there that I won't talk about now...but when I was about Jr High or Highschool, we went up there for the last time. My great grandparents were getting up in years and needed to sell their house and property and move to a retirement home. So since I knew it was the last time I'd ever be there, I took my camera and took pictures of every room in the house.
As I was looking through this particular roll of film, I discovered this picture:

This is my great grandma's pantry. No wonder that I am nostalgic about canning. My mom never did it, but my great grandma did. And my grandma did...(actually, she still does) I most remember my great grandma always having canned cherries from their many cherry trees that grew on their property. I loved those! But I also remember peaches. It's so exciting when you find something like this. Even though I didn't know (or remember) where this came from, I knew that my desire and drive to do home canning came from somewhere. And now I have proof that it's in my family history. How cool is that?