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Those were the fun summer days

The summer storms have sure come in strong these past few weeks bringing with them, wind, rain, and hail.

The summer storms have sure come in strong these past few weeks bringing with them, wind, rain, and hail. Crops east of Erskine were hit and Nevis area got hit the hardest.

Power outages over the weeks were also frequent, reminding me to make sure I have enough candles, matches, and water on hand for when that happens again.

Summer is the time to make sure we have our 72-hour kits ready. Also a really good first aid kit is necessary.

Using our garden produce to harvest for winter storage is something I’ve grown up with on a farm with a huge garden that produced beans, peas, corn, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, onions and the squash was plentiful especially zucchini (fried zucchini and Chocolate Zucchini cake were our favorites).

Many summer days were spent weeding and then picking produce, blanching and freezing. I’ve since learned the art of pressure canning. Our little town had a fruit truck come to town with pre-ordered fruit that was brought in from B.C. every week. Fruit didn’t come in little one-pound boxes but was sold by the case and prices were decent, so we bottled many cases of cherries, peaches, pears and apricots.

Our orchard consisted of apple trees, crab apple trees and raspberries. We had two big freezers, a cold room and a root cellar to store all the summer food while growing up. Saskatoons and Choke cherries grew on the cliffs of the coulee, picking those on hot summer days swatting the mosquitoes and bees all while trying not to fall down the cliff losing precious picked berries was quite an adventure.

By the time I was married, I had never tasted warehouse canned fruit, we always had those on hand. When I did buy canned fruit from the store, I thought it tasted horrible; I could tell it was picked green so it was hard and had no flavour. I then appreciated the hard work my mom went through every summer putting up food for the winter and teaching her children how to do the same thing. Summer on the farm was not a holiday, it was hard work planting, weeding, irrigating and harvesting. Summer was fun though, as we had many summer birthdays, a lot of extended family barbecues and picnics. When we took extended family holidays, that was done around Easter, before the crops went in. Great memories come through work and fun.

Ol’ Macdonalds Resort has booked their “Boom town music festival” featuring alternative county, folk and blue grass. Pre-book your tickets now for Sept. 5 and 6.

ERSKINE ENQUIRER