Every Boy Needs to Learn to Can Beans

Every Boy Needs to Learn to Can Beans

Last weekend we had some moments of pure gold with a niece getting married at some lovely Shenandoah Valley caverns near here,

The lodge at Melrose Caverns, an old restored lovely wedding venue.

picking pole beans and canning them with two of my grandsons here,

and my youngest daughter being ordained and installed as an elder at her Presbyterian church over in Maryland.

(We forgot to get pictures.)

Busy, yes. At some points I wasn’t sure where I was, but happy to have my feet planted wherever the action was.

Earlier in the summer I shared our struggles battling bean beatles, and how a new variety we tried had helped to stem the onslaught of the little pests. We also usually plant pole beans (my husband’s favorite) later in the summer—he planted those this year on July 5. They are a lot of work to string up the lines and the poles but my husband loves his pole beans, so in they went.

At any rate, decent rains helped bring on a bumper crop and they were ready for a second picking last Saturday. I went out as soon as there was enough daylight to find the beans, I began picking—and praising my husband for doing a great job of keeping a path clear through the middle of the two rows where we could walk.

Grape arbor of beans.

We picked beans hanging down like grapes in an arbor. They are dandy beans and if you pick them before they start to get old: not tough or stringy, but robust and flavorful.

Daughter Doreen and Henry get started snapping beans.

Henry was awake by the time I came in with some beans for my husband and the rest of the family to begin breaking. At 18 months, Henry is all into whatever his older brother or grown ups are doing (no baby toys for him anymore, no sirree).

My daughters helped him learn how to snap them—sometimes he was successful and other times just kind of bent them over and looked at us with his big brown eyes like “what am I doing wrong that I can’t break them so easily as you?” His older brother was still dozing and taking his sweet time getting up.

James, left, Henry, and daughter Michelle supervising.

Later, though, when we were ready to put the beans in cans, James was all into it. I used some of my regular size jars, since I knew we’d have small hands that could get those beans into those openings.

I showed James how I smacked the beans down further into the jar by slapping the jar on my palm which he thought was pretty cool. “This is fun!” he declared and I just hope he agrees with that assessment with he’s 14 instead of almost 4.

I had to dig out the photos of his mommy helping can beans when she was just a little older than him, going on 5.

Canning beans with Michelle, left, and Tanya when Doreen was just starting to grow inside a much younger me. 🙂

Don’t you think every kid needs to learn to know where their food comes from, and how to preserve it? My sister-in-law was happy to introduce her grandson, Mason, to the art earlier this summer as well.

Mason and his mammaw Barbara. (Photo courtesy of Cathy Davis Crider)

I will be happy to be done with canning beans soon, but what a treat to have all those little hands helping. These grandmas are treasuring these times and memories.

We hope these boys will love “their” beans next winter.

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Do you remember any jobs that seemed like fun when you did them at Grandma or Grandpa’s house?

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Esther H. Shank’s Mennonite Country-Style Recipes and Kitchen Secrets: The Prize Collection of a Shenandoah Valley Cook including basic tips and instructions on canning and preserving foods are found in this very popular cookbook! Check it out.