Sticky Pear Juice

The other day I got ambitious. I decided I was going to try canning pears all by myself. This would be my first time canning all by myself. I usually co-can (I made that up :)) with my mom.

It's simple. She tells me what to do and I do it. I had this inner pride that I had to prove to myself I could do canning alone. I started with my pears in the sink and I washed them. I was feeling pretty confident in my abilities to solo-can (I made that up too :)).

I was trying my best to follow "The Ball Blue Book" with some tips from my mom that I remembered using.

I started peeling them. This task, that I thought would take a few minutes, made a GIANT mess in my kitchen. I had a sink full of pears with Sticky Pear Juice, cutting boards with Sticky Pear Juice, counter space with Sticky Pear Juice, knifes with Sticky Pear Juice, hands with Sticky Pear Juice, and a floor with Sticky Pear Juice (I managed to let one or two (or more) slippery suckers slip out of my hands..).

I was beginning to see the benefit of canning with two people. My sink full of pears was taking a real long time to peel and half. I was beginning to get discouraged in my solo-canning abilities.

After an extended amount of time I finally had them all cut and put them into boil for a few minutes. This continued my floor with Sticky Pear Juice mess  because I had to bring the pears from one counter to another.

Across the floor...

They left their stick and I was reminded of it every time I lifted my foot off the ground.

These pears were supposed to boil for 3 minutes but that turned into 10 because I figured if I tripled the amount of pears I put in the pot they would get done faster. So I tripled the amount of pears I put in and I tripled the amount of time they were to boil.

Time was a-tickin.

After my 10 minutes was up I started spooning them into jars, remembering too late that I wasn't supposed to get the top of the dirty... but guess what?

They ended up with Sticky Pear Juice all over them.

I was beginning to decide after my experiences that canning was a lot easier when you can co-can.

I water-bathed the jars on my moms out-door burner because my stove unit wasn't big enough for the pot. When they were finished. I brought the jars to my house on a cookie sheet. My mom gave me a few jars of spaghetti sauce that we had done a few days to take back with the pears that I had done all by myself (other than water-bathing them on her burner).

As I was bringing the jars to my house, I had my hands full with the heavy cookie sheet full of my freshly finished pears (that had taken all day and drenched my kitchen with sticky pear juice). I decided in order to open my screen and unlock the door I was going to have to free one of my hands.

Well.. I balanced the cookie sheet with my jars on my leg and raised a hand. As soon as my hand came up the cookie sheet tilted sending the jars crashing down at my feet right in front of my door. I heard glass breaking as I jumped away. I didn't even want to look down to see the damage..

It was turning out to be One of Those Days.

When I finally did look down I was happy to see that some jars had survived the crash to the cement but still discouraged some had broke. I worked really hard for those canned pears.

I put the glass in our outside garbage and hosed the remains of my beautiful pears and spaghetti sauce off the porch.

It turned out to be One of Those Days, but it could have been worse...

At least they ALL didn't break. :)

And I headed in to clean my Sticky Pear Juice kitchen.