Muscle Memory

First I want to welcome Farmchick, the first follower that I have never met face to face!  I hope my random ramblings do not bore you Farmchick.  We are fellow country transplants and might be able to help each other over some rough spots.

Now about Muscle Memory.  

Today my family is doing something that we haven't done (with any significance) in so long that my 14.5 year old son doesn't recollect seeing it happen.  We are caning pasta sauce!  Granted, the sauce is not made from home garden grown tomatoes, instead we bought varying #10 cans of tomato products at Sam's Club, combined them, and added some flavorful stuff.  From there on the process has brought me back in time to a place where my life felt more real to me.  Seeing the hot clean jars lined up on the kitchen table, 

using the big ladle and the big red canning funnel to fill the jars one by one,

wiping errant tomato sauce off the lips of the jars 

before setting hot canning lids on them, 

tightening the rings around the jar tops to just the right tightness, 

filling the canner 

and watching the steam start to blow out the blow tube, 

listening to the gentle bobbling of the weight,

waiting patiently for the temperature to return to a safe level, and pulling the still boiling jars out 

and re-lining the table with them.  

This evening we will experience once again the sweet sound of success, the soft ping of lids being sucked down into a perfect seal.

It amazes me that after so many years all of these actions are as familiar to me as getting dressed in the morning.  I look forward, with gleeful anticipation, to the opportunity for repeating the entire process this summer with my very own freshly picked organic tomatoes!