beans

Monday, the older kids were sent over to the cabin to pick the beans. Paige went with them. There they picked over 37 lbs of beans in a little over an hour, including a distraction courtesy of Happy.

If you have read my 10inthecabin blog you know that we have these ground hog things here that create huge holes in our pasture. You also know that the dogs have treed two of them in the past. Well this time I guess Happy was determined to take care of the situation by himself. While picking the beans the kids saw Happy running by the garden with a ground hog in his mouth!! He kept dropping it and picking it up. When the kids got to them, the ground hog was pretty injured, so the older boys shot it, to put it out of it's misery. Which Paige took exception to....poor Paige, she was staying with us to see what farm life was about......she got to see up close and personal!!

When they came home, we went swimming for the rest of the morning. In the afternoon while Max and I napped, the older kids got to work snapping beans......and snapping beans......and snapping beans..........and, well you get the picture. They also watched two movies while snapping.....they were at it for awhile.

They were still at when Max and I got up. Max jumped right in and helped, well at least that's what he was trying to do.......

Mostly he stood in the way of the TV and bothered Paige.......

After dinner Brent and I blanched them. Here is Brent pouring them into the pot.

Here is the sink set up. We poured the beans into the cold water in the bowl in the sink and after they were cooled put them on the cookie sheet with a towel on it.

Jayden was right there helping anywhere we could use him.

Paige using the vacuum sealer.

And the boys watching....

Collin writing the date on the bags. We did the sealing and writing in fits and starts....because there were so many helping hands, Brent couldn't keep beans in front of them. They would watch the Olympics and then they'd come in on commercials and pack whatever was on the table and mark them, then go back to watching TV until the next commercial.

Jayden and Max really didn't have much interest in the Olympics, the beans were waaaayyyy more interesting to them. I'm not sure why. We packed the beans in zip locks for the first bit, but them Brent pulled out the vacuum sealer and that worked really well, and we used it for the rest of the beans. WELL, that got Max and Jayden's attention!!! They were RIGHT there. I had to make bags, which you do by taking a roll of plastic that is essentially one long bag, with no seal on either end. Then you cut it to size and use the sealer to seal one end. Then you have a bag to put the beans in. Then you activate the vacuum part and it finishes off the bag by sucking out the air and sealing the bag.

It did not take long before they had taken over making the bags!!! BOTH of them..........



Oooohhhh my aching head!!!! Not really, Brent just caught me adjusting my bandanna! But working with those two at the end of a long day, really had me holding hard to my last nerve.

And tomorrow we get to do it all over again!