We have a confession...

We are so embarrassed.  We thought we could hide it from the world, but it has been too heavy to bear.  We have to confess...we are midnight canners!

Shocking, isn't it?

For some reason, whenever Lee and I decide we want to can something, we start canning late at night.  And of course, we don't finish till midnight. Or often later. Yeah, we know...it's a real problem.  We're so ashamed.

Last year, Grandma Italy had apples.  We bought a new gadget (a meat grinder/fruit strainer combo for our KitchenAid) and Lee was so excited to use it, we started at 9:00 at night.  I was done at 3 in the morning, but Lee toughed it out to the last batch at 4.  There has GOT to be something wrong with us!  (It was worth it though, because that applesauce is SO good!  And it makes our homemade bread even better.)

This year, one of our neighbors got some windfall peaches from a friend and offered a couple of boxes to us on Saturday.  We actually talked about buying some peaches to can, so I took them.  For those of you who are like me and think that "windfall peaches" are some fancy schmancy brand of peach from Oregon or something, you're wrong.  They're basically peaches that have fallen to the ground because of the wind. I felt like an idiot.

When I saw the peaches, I could definitely tell that they were windfall peaches. Most were bruised and dirty.  Some had worm holes.  Others had a little bit of mold.  Our neighbor told us we could cut off the bad parts and highly encouraged us to can or freeze them ASAP--in other words, that Saturday night.

Hmm...that wasn't going to happen.  And it didn't happen on Sunday either.  Monday came around and went.  The peaches were starting to look a little too ripe. Some were already past the point of no return.

Today came and mostly went too--we finally got home from everything we had to do around 8:30. I kind of hemmed and hawed about whether I wanted to start so late while I sorted peaches.  Lee, on the other hand, was all excited about our very own canned peaches and put on the big canning pot on to boil at 8:45 PM.  This is crazy!

But, there you have it--our 12 quarts of our very own peaches.  While we were processing the last 6 quarts, I decided to write about our canning problem.  At least we finished before midnight this year!  It's only 11:15!