Starfish Dreams

Canning, canning, canning

We made it through the peaches - woohoo!  We worked as fast as we could, but we still had probably a bushel that ended up as chicken food.  But,  we have dozens and dozens of jars of canned peaches, peach nectar, peach butter, peach jam, peach raspberry jam, blushing peach jam and as of today, plum peach jam.  The jars have been washed, the rings taken off and we're in the process of taking them down to our food storage room.  I am looking forward to washing the kitchen floor - it's SO nice after some heavy-duty canning! 

We have a good storm coming in tonight - looking forward to rain and snow - hooray!  It was 80 degrees yesterday and will be back to the mid-70's in a couple of days (weird, I know).  The cool spell is very welcome.

We had parent-teacher conferences yesterday.  They all went fine except for one.  One of my daughter's teachers did NOT talk to me about her, her grades or her performance - he only wanted to talk to me about our family make-up.  it has nothing to do with grades, behavior, or anything like that.  I left feeling like I had been interrogated by DCFS.  I have had fairly limited communication with that particular teacher - beginning of the year, one email, then last night.  Each time, however, I have been left distinctly uncomfortable.  I do NOT have a problems talking about my family, problems and all.  This teacher, however, wanted to know (and wrote down), the names, ages, races and countries of origin for all my kids.  He also wanted to know how many of them I named myself (?!)  He wanted to know which were "my own", then even added "I know you consider them all your own, but which ones REALLY are".  He made several comments about our family size (like "I'm sure you won't be able to help her because of 'all those kids', but . . .") that make me think he has decided our daughter's problems with learning are because she is in our family.  He did not know (or seem to care) that she came to the US (and our home) 3 years ago, having lived on the streets of Addis Ababa and then in an orphanage until that point.  He did not know (or seem to care) that she is not a native English speaker.  The special ed teacher knows how much she struggled and how much progress she has made, but this teacher commented twice that she was behind (and somehow linked it with family size) and told me he would not show me her grades, which I can only assume means she is flunking her classes.  She is a special-ed student - maybe he doesn't "get" that and he needs to.  But, it's the overall picture that really has me uncomfortable.  It's just weird.  I told (well, emailed) the principal and he told me *he* would have said it was none of his business!  He is going to talk to that teacher (which probably won't help the weird vibes . . . )

Well, I'm off to tidy up and go meet a friend of mine for dinner.  In fact, she blogs here too, over here.  We're excited she's here for the weekend!

A Bountiful Harvest

Oh my, the Lord is good.  I am an avid canner and am working hard to have a year's supply of food for our (very large) family.  This year has been SO tight financially after some intense adoption struggles, but I decided to spend as much as I could on food storage.  I was able to buy - and preserve - about 8 bushels of peaches, then had an additional bushel and a half donated to me.  That was wonderful and I was so grateful.  Yesterday, however, a good friend called and told me than an orchard owner had to declare a loss on their late-ripening peaches, as they were so small.  She can not sell them, so she is giving them away to anyone who can go and pick.  I went an hour this morning, with my friend, her sister and our little kids (all 4 and under).  The harvest is SO abundant in numbers (even if not in size) that in that short time, we were able to pick about 8 bushels.  We're going back tomorrow.  One of my "cardinal rules" for food storage is never turn down free food - we will pick and can and pick and can until we can do no more.    Then, we will go on to apples, with the same deal - free, as many as we can pick. 

We are feeling very blessed today.