Cameras in the kitchen. Kind of a weird topic, but I must say, it has helped me more than I would think. My memory is getting full (yup, brain limitations) and some things are getting bumped for other things, and dang, I need them all to stay!

This interest started when a little older gentleman, Ray, came to visit my home several years ago and his memory wasn’t so good anymore. He wanted to learn how to can tomatoes. I carefully made sure everything was shown to him. Surprisingly, he took about 60 pictures, step by step by step of absolutely everything so he would remember for himself. Pictures of the water level with the jars in the canner. How full quart jars need to be. Measuring citric acid into the jars with a bit of salt. Picture after picture.

This clicked inside, and I found myself wanting to document more–what my tomatoes look like on the inside, for example.

The unique color inside a black tomato.

How many bowls of raspberries we picked and their beautiful color.

The jars of jam lined up on the table. Quarts and quarts of applesauce. The pot on the stove with lots of different colors of tomatoes. Things that I just want to remember and many things, just for the sake of “seeing” again. I’ve had days where I’ve worked so busily, gotten so tired, and done so much that it became a blur. I couldn’t remember how many jars were done, and it was midnight or later and my eyes would hardly stay open to finish the last batch in the canner. Now, I keep my camera handy to snap a few pictures, then I can look back and smile at my extremely messy kitchen and all those shiny jars.

It really is a rewarding feeling to look at the pictures of fresh, clean jars sitting on the counter waiting to “ping.” We all need to remember the good things we have accomplished and stop to just reflect on all the work we’ve done for our families and, in some ways, for ourselves. That satisfaction when the last apple is out of the box when canning–it can’t be compared to many things!

Some may think it is a bit nuts to take pictures of my work. In my eyes, I want to document my history, and nothing says more than a picture.

Fermenting seeds for seed-saving.

The kids can see these pictures when they are older. Hopefully they’ll then recall how mom and dad would get canning and dad would even sometimes have the canner going in the garage on the camp chef stove. I can only pray that a picture will inspire them to continue on the gift of canning the bounty of the earth. I have faint memories in my mind of watching my mom make jam, cook doughnuts by the dozens, work on garden produce for the freezer…. I wish there had been real pictures rather than just the rusty ones in my head. Hopefully, for my children, memories will stir from the photography how “mom” did it, and how it wasn’t so scary (that’s another story…).

You can also find Moopsee at Yahoo’s Canning2.

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