Baxter Beanery

A couple of weeks ago, we got the unexpected opportunity to go pick green beans. There is a local program called Salem Harvest. It is a community cooperative program. Farms invite/allow workers to come into the fields to pick. Half of what is picked goes to local food banks and shelters. The other half goes home with the workers.

All summer I have lamented not having a garden, and my one wish was esp for green beans. Imagine my surprise when I got a message to my phone that green beans were being offered through this program. I immediately signed up me and Preston to go. There are usually very few slots available, and they go VERY fast. We were thrilled to find out we got to slots!

We found a sitter for the little kiddos. This was our first experience with SH, and we didnt realize that we could have brought the whole family to participate. It will be something to be sure we do for next time. For this time, though, it was Preston & I and the 3 big kids. The field was at the Salem School For The Deaf. It was a HUGE field. We all learned many things that night, and very much enjoyed the chance to serve others in the process. We were devastated when the light fled and we were asked to leave the field. They didnt have as many people show up as expected and it left a good portion of the field unharvested. It made many of us sad, and we all hoped that somehow the field wouldnt go to waste.

I was so surprised when Preston emailed this to me - I apparently had my pict taken on site by the SH team and it was published on their FB site! Kind of fun.

Since it was an evening harvest, we left all of the beans until the weekend. We spent a very enjoyable evening together prepping beans and listening to the local high school football game. It was an away game, so John was there instead of here with us. The little kiddos tired out quickly, so it was just the older kids and us again. The big kids and I were in charge of cutting and snapping beans to get them ready for the jars.

Preston stood at the sink and the stove almost the entire night washing and processing the jars.

Colton had a blast swapping out the strainers of beans between us and Preston. He also had the job to fill the jars for Preston.

I mostly used the camera on my phone until I saw how pretty the jars were. All that lovely green just waiting to go on our shelves!

I forgot that once they are processed, that lovely green changes color. I also forgot that old jars can be fragile - we lost 3 quarts of beans because the whole bottom of the jars just completely broke off! I was so sad. All that hard work, just for beans and glass to go into the garbage :( We spent all that night, and most of the next day processing jars. We had lots of fun when we asked John to guess how many quarts we ended up with. He kept throwing out numbers, just for me to respond "higher" and to watch his eyebrows shoot up when we told him we got 80 quarts (minus the 3 we lost).

It feels so good to have one of our favorite foods out on the shelf. It was a good experience for all of us to learn and spend that time together. It also feels amazing to know that Heavenly Father answered a prayer I didnt even know that I had offered. He knew of my desire, of our need, and filled it to overflowing. I hope that those we served with this bounty were as blessed as we have been.