Small Victories!

The other day I enjoyed a victory!  A breakthrough! A milestone!  So great was this that I was alone in my kitchen gut-yelling and giggling like a warrior!  I texted my family, my friends, my significant other – “I am different, I shall never be the same!”

Time researching, reading, youtube watching, longing, wondering, collecting the necessary items…it all came together on that fateful day…

I canned pickles!!!!!

I heeded the warnings...the proper ripeness...Do Not Use enamel...Exact Measurements

It all swirled in my mind and like Shakespeare, I let it bathe my brain intending fluency in its language.

I headed out incognito with a baseball cap on.  I hit Tractor Supply.  The employees are getting used to seeing me (That was my plan!) They nod and say hi! with familiarity (A farm stalkers dream!)  I stumbled upon and 3/4 empty shelf of canning gear.  Ok, obviously I was a 'johnny come lately' but it was my time and nothing was going to deter me!  I scored a canning funnel (!) Some Pickling Salt (because I am an official pickler now) and the new issue of Countryside Stock & Journal.  I paid for my purchases as if I had done this my whole life - learned at the knee of my pappy.  (Actually my Scottish Grandfather was rumored to have a homemade moonshine distiller in a bath tub in Brooklyn - Hey!  Maybe that homesteading bug was handed down??)

I had a beginner canning kit at home, but something told me to buy more Ball Jars and I still needed a non-enamel stock pot high enough for the inch of boiling water that had to go over the tops of the jars and would be my sea to self sufficiency!  I stopped at Farmside next.  No Dice.  Slim pickings.  I asked and got a terse look as to my obvious seasonal delay in obtaining the very necessary canning accoutrements.  Ok.  Thats fine.  I'll be back my friend,  in time next year and with a different hat on- you will never know it was I that made that faux pas...

I hate to admit it but I hit a big box store and scored  both Pint and half Pint  Ball Canning Jars.  I made my way to the pots and pans and braced myself.  My budget would not allow for a major blow ($25 was my limit), I found a smaller stock-type stainless steel pot for $8.94.  HOT DAMN I WAS IN BUSINESS!  

I lined it all up on my counter at home and it all went down like this:

Cleaning and chopping...and chopping...and chopping

Happy Christmas List - A mandolin slicer...one day

Making sure the slices were 'pickle pleasant size'  Off to my right a pasta pot was 

simmering with spices, vinegar, and sugar...

The laptop served me well - I downloaded an Audio On the Hopi Indians 

and Energy Meridians in the desert - Bliss was mine!

Time to 'pack' the jars.  I chose 1/2 pints because if they came out well I would like

to gift them to people.  I only prayed that I wouldn't be gifting botulism...

There are my babies...My milestone..My intention toward self sufficiency!

As I removed them from the water bath canner they began to 'ping' almost immediately!

This is the sign of a good seal on the jar - I giggled!  I danced!  I belly roared like Braveheart.

And then I realized, humbly, I had become a link in a chain...  

I became one more person that would honor the old ways.  

And it may sound silly but I was, in that moment, changed..for the better :)

Two Roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by

and that

Has made all the difference

Good Energy to you and the road you are on!