When I was growing up, every year we spent the last month of summer picking apricots from the two apricot trees in our back yard. I remember climbing the trees as high as I could without breaking branches, and filling buckets full of apricots. Then lowering the buckets down with a rope to somebody waiting below. One year we had a 3 foot swimming pool in the back yard, and when we'd get too hot picking apricots, we'd go dip our head in the pool and come back with our hair dripping wet to pick some more.I really learned to love bottling apricots. My fingers would be puckered like prunes, and I'd have slime up to my elbows (actually I think the slime came from bottling peaches). But when we were done, it seemed like we had HUNDREDS of bottles of apricots lined up on the counter top, waiting to be put away in the fruit room.
Last week I was commenting to my husband how much I missed having an apricot tree in my yard. It just doesn't seem like a real summer without doing any canning. About 2 days later Tera called to offer me a couple of boxes of apricots she had picked. I was ecstatic! Only problem was, I really didn't have enough time to bottle them before I had to leave out of town. I placed the boxes in my laundry room right next to my air conditioning vent and actually forgot about them while I was at Education Week.
Today I decided I would go asses the damage, and throw out all the rotten apricots... it had been way too long. I was actually afraid to open the boxes, but decided I'd better be brave. What I saw were perfectly ripe, sweet, juicy apricots! I was shocked! I spent about an hour cleaning them and putting them in bottles. Tera gave me enough apricots for 7 bottles. That may not compare to the HUNDREDS and THOUSANDS we used to bottle as kids, but it brought back some fun memories. I really had a nice, nostalgic day.
Thanks TERA!!
