Many hands make light work

At this very moment I am up to my eye balls in green beans, zucchini, tomatoes, potatoes and one tantrum throwing 4 year old whom shall remain nameless. When my dear hubby came home from his parents yesterday with some of the yield from our family garden I was so overwhelmed. How was I going to preserve all of this in the next day or so while it is still fresh? I called the one woman I know who can work hard and be paid in vegetables. My grandma! Now grandma is in her 70's but she can seriously work circles around most people I know. She is so spunky and fun to be around.

Grandma arrived a few hours later ready to work. We had 15 gallons of green beans to snap, string, blanch and freeze. We also have potatoes to get put up for winter, zucchini to shred and freeze and tomatoes to stew and can. We got the potatoes put up and all of the beans done. Today we will tackle the tomatoes and the zucchini.

Stringing those beans took HOURS! It was such a daunting job. I can not imagine having to do it alone. Grandma and I were sitting across from one another at my kitchen table stringing the beans and talking. She was telling me stories of her childhood and retelling the stories I hear over and over about when my mom and her siblings were young and stories of when my cousins and I were young. Although these are stories I have heard hundreds of times I was glad to have the chance to hear them again. To see the sparkle in my grandmas eye when one of my kids would stop by the table and say "great grandma please tell us that story about mom again." and she would. Such a priceless memory for my children.

At one point I said "next year I am planting beans that don't need to be snapped!" To which my grandma replied "Lace, sitting here snapping these beans with you is the best part." By God's Grace next year I will be sitting across the table from my sweet grandmother snapping beans and listening to the same stories I have heard hundreds of time.