Week 37. (This is one of the best weeks of the whole year for me.)

Harvest and home and the blessings of heaven. These jars of peaches sitting on my kitchen counter represent all of these to me. I love, (in the tingly-schoolgirl-crush way and the sacred-married-truelove way) canning season. I love the gorgeous, ripe fruit. I love the sight of the empty glass jars sitting on the counter waiting to be filled, mouths open waiting to be blessed with bounty. I love the juice dripping down my arm as I peel the fruit, and the sight of the jars slowly filling with treasure. I love the pop of the lids as they magically seal all this goodness for later. As I stand in my own kitchen, I remember standing in the kitchen on 300 East with my mom, putting the peaches right-side-up in the jars because my hand could slip easily in and out of the jar. I remember watching her pull jar after jar out of the canner, the sound of the whole kitchen popping away, her careful handwriting as she labeled the jars, and helping her carry load after load of them down into the dark basement. The greatest blessing of my week was putting these peaches into jars and onto my own shelves. They look like jewels to me. This week I am so grateful for the heavy boxes full of fruit, for the work, for the complete satisfaction of pulling hot jars from a canner, for my full shelves, for my memories, for my full heart at the beginning, middle and end of canning days, and mostly for these shiny, sweet jars of the best treat on earth.