Jason and I pickled 5 32 ounce jars of cucumbers from our garden this week. It was a ton of fun. The experience was one of those full circle moments for us.
Back story – Jason and I first started married life together in a 1 bedroom apartment in Southern California. In that one bedroom apartment we brought Fiona home from the hospital and we didn’t move out of that apartment until she was 9 months old.
In that small apartment is where our dreams and ideas were born for what we imagined our future for ourselves. We wrote a list on that list we wrote we wanted land, animals, a pond, and some other things. One of the only things we could actually do to feel like we could at least touch part of that dream was to can. Living in Southern California we had access to exceptional produce and Farmer’s Markets. Jason made the best pickled green beans. They were so good with Bloody Mary’s. Just saying. And we canned a lot! What is even crazier is we didn’t have a dishwasher in that small apartment so we canned old school and the hard way. I remember not being able to wait to try canning with a dishwasher so I had a super fast and easy way to sterilize all my jars at once.
Reflecting on that and the years since then it is kinda crazy for me to realize that after moving from California to Colorado…we stopped canning and didn’t start again. We honestly hadn’t fully canned anything since moving away from California in 2013 until this week. This week we used the same Ball Canning equipment we always had but we canned again for the first time with veggies we grew from the garden we planted on our dream land.
It was so cool to meditate on that as we canned and talk about things. Especially with all the anxieties of the unknown right now. It was a great way to ground us mentally and remember to stop and realize how far we have come. We still have a long way to go. But to stop and realize we are living our dream.