Today I was honored to have a friend come over and keep me company while I continued to can more beans.    It takes about 10 minutes for the cooker to start steaming, 10 minutes of steaming and then I can put the cap on and wait for the pressure to get up to 11#  another  10-15 minutes..   I wait there for 45 minutes, watching the heat carefully as it likes to fluctuate on this stove, and then let it reduce pressure to zero – another half hour.     So the  actual pressure canning part takes up to 2 hours per load of 10 pints.   Since I spend a good amount of time checking the stove, it was super nice to have a friend over to visit.  We shared food, knitted, caught up on life, and enjoyed the wonderful ping, ping,  ping of the jar lids sealing.

 I think I’ll do a couple more loads of beans in the morning and then wait until later in the month to do the soups .   The boxes on the right on the floor are for the beans I’ll be doing in the morning and later soups.

Then there will be jams, salsa, and ??? still to do.   I’d like to do pears, but I don’t know yet if I will get them.    This, for me, is the busiest time of the year as I like to be ready for winter, with all the harvest put away.