It's that time of year again It seems like yesterday When Mother started canning And took us from our play We had to go 'way under the house To get the canning jars Fighting bugs and spider webs While crawling on all fours Huffing and puffing, trip after trip We dragged the boxes out Then we got to wash the jars All dreading it, no doubt Hot, soapy water in a number three tub But first we had to rinse Jars with bugs and old dried food The memory still makes me wince Before the days of wide-mouth jars The kids with the smallest hands Had to wash inside the jars While the others scalded the bands When the jars were sparkling clean It was time for them to boil In another big tub of water It was tote and lift and toil Others gathered and cleaned the veggies And got them ready to can The jars were filled and put in a tub Then cooked for a half-day span The process repeated over and over Till the old wash house was filled With hundreds of jars of good canned food Mother always looked so thrilled A really harsh taskmaster Mother pushed us with everything in her But she was wise and she knew that We'd need it all come winter Kathleen McCoy EldridgeŠ August 10, 2005 All Rights Reserved Website
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