The canning of the beans, part 2

Well, not long after my post on Friday, Abigail marched up to me and asked if she could help me can beans, so I set her up with her apron and a chair and gave her the job of swishing the beans in water to clean them up for me. She did that happily for a bit and then asked me to teach her how to snap them, so I showed her which end to snap off and she helped for a good while. Welcome to the succession of bean-preserving women, Abigail!

On that note, I also called my grandma to share the "I can them just like my mother did" discussion, and she affirmed that yes, she too cans them just like her mom (my great-grandma) did, and she also has vivid childhood memories of her mom's mom helping as well, so I know that Abigail is at least the sixth generation to learn the process! My grandma shared the memory with me in detail and I could just see it...my great-grandma and my great-great-grandma sitting outside in the shade of a big old tree, aprons on, white and red enamelware bowl between them, snapping beans...

Here are a couple of pictures of a new generation performing the same task:

We have 24 quarts canned now!