Stacking Wood and Pitting Cherries

Gardens go in late here in Northern Washington. Somehow it is nearing the end of July already which means that the zucchini are popping, cherries are ripe and ready, and the fall rains are right around the corner. This week, between Mimsy’s birthday party and the local Lavender Festival, the grownups in the household have been hyper focusing on “putting-up” for the colder months and beyond. 

I like the term putting-up because it has an old-timey feel with no subtext suggesting I am a huge fan of conspiracy theories.*  People have been putting up stores for the cold months just about as long as there have been people experiencing cold months. 

I use the techniques of my grandmothers many generations past: Water bath canning, pickling, curing in alcohol; and one that they couldn’t have imagined: freeze drying! 

Growing up in the rural Northwest, even if you didn’t have a garden yourself there were plenty of places to pick berries and other canables. I remember both my mother and grandmother making jam in our kitchen that we would use all winter. For years jam was the only thing I canned, but that changed when I moved to our current house which came with an orchard. 

Pickles seem to be a natural step up from jam. I can’t grow a cucumber to save my life but zucchini and I are on the same page. A pickled zucchini tastes similar enough to a cucumber to pass and I highly recommend bread and butter style zucchini pickle chips. One of my childhood neighbors, Pat, made the best spicy dill pickles—a recipe I have been trying to replicate for years. I have a new recipe to try, so maybe this will be it. 

Last year I splurged on a freeze dryer. Living on what is essentially an island on the Cascade Subduction Zone, one does think about how to feed a family of 7-9 (depending on who is home from college) for a few months in case of a major emergency. When I started doing the math on a big family, buying last-year’s model directly from Harvest Right made more financial sense than trying to accumulate—and rotate—all the Costco canned chicken my mom kept buying. 

Freeze dryers are fairly simple to use, though there is some trial and error involved. Thankfully, Facebook abounds with groups dedicated to the subject filled with lovely people and great advice. We have four trays of cherries in the freeze dryer at the moment, and last year’s pickled zucchini slices are on the waitlist. Our cherry crop is insane this year, so I will try to get some pie filling made and canned as well before they go to the birds. 

Putting-up isn’t just about food. One of my sensory triggers is fans. Exhaust fans, cooling fans, and our lovely heat pumps. I hate them. I hate them so much. Thankfully our house came with a wood stove… which requires lots of firewood. We had two trees come down last year and they are well seasoned and ready to split. Talk about a hyperfocus; I love stacking wood. There are few activities quite so satisfying as a wood pile jigsaw puzzle turning into a well stacked row of firewood. 

So much of what I write revolves around women’s daily lives and the community they build within those moments. Putting-up is a unique way that I am living out my own work. Picking fruit, stacking wood, and pulling weeds from the onion patch anchor me in tradition; using Grandma Billie’s ladling spoon to fill jam jars with my mom and daughters while we chat away in the kitchen is a gift that transcends time.  

*Side-note: I have some delightful prepper friends as well as some who believe all the conspiracy theories; I withhold judgement.