Monday - not! the pear alarm went off!

Well, theoretically Monday is a business shipping day. Usually we are working in the office all day.
Not this Monday - it's now or never to do the pears.
To fortify ourselves we had a giant vegie scramble with grated Loleta Cheddar on top, Clendenen's cider a friend brought us from town and a pear, just to get us in the mood.

We are canning Bartlett pears. We have 5 lugs of them as our pear trees went wild this year. We have been eating the delectable Red Bartletts fresh, the green ones can better.
The process is pretty straightforward, if time consuming. Peel pears. Cut in 1/2 and core. We use a 1/2 teaspoon measure to scoop out the core and pull the stringy part that leads up to the stem. The peels and cores get fed to the chickens.
We put the prepared pear halves into a solution of water and several crushed vitamin C pills. You can use vinegar and salt or lemon juice instead of vitamin C - it just keeps the pears from oxidizing and turning brown.
I raw pack the pears. You will see the Ball Blue book only recommends hot packing pears, but some of my old books have both methods. I have only ever done them raw (35+ years of canning experience), and it works fine. I put 1/2 of a vitamin C in the bottom of each jar after it has been scalded and before I put in the pears, and add around a Tablespoon of honey (local Barbata's clover honey this time) to each jar. I have never made syrup for canning fruit. Too sweet!
Top this off with boiling water and wipe rims, seal, and process in a hot water bath, 35 minutes for quarts.
Somewhere in the middle of all this we managed a boiled egg sandwich with homemade mayo & lettuce on the last of our Co-op Bakery bread. Another thing we have LOTS of right now - eggs! Our young hens have started laying too.

Finally done - 21 quarts & 19 pints of pears later. The photo is a bit blurry - but so were we by this time! *Yawn* I cheated and had a gin & tonic that was in no way local, but was an antidote to a very long pear peeling session! Our dinner of leftovers (chili & stew) was at 11pm - finally got to bed at 1am - And still 1 more lug of pears we put back in the cellar. Whew!