Corn Day!

My wife Linda was raised in the country and grew up eating veggies out of their family garden. Nowdays she likes to stock our freezer every summer with all sorts of peas, beans, and corn. Tuesday was corn day! We drove to our favorite produce stand about 45 miles south of Shreveport that morning and purchased 300 ears of sweet corn. That's 6 bushels worth. Then I spent the day shucking and silking the corn on the back porch under a ceiling fan stirring up the 100 degree heat. Inside the house in the kitchen Linda blanched the ears, then cut off the corn kernels from the cob, and bagged the corn in pint freezer bags. We got 72 pint bags worth of cutoff corn; plus 25 of the best ears we froze on the cob. The ears were all filled out nicely, with almost no worm damage. It was really good corn! It was a hot, tiring day, but now we will have corn for the rest of the year. Next Linda will put up pinto beans, zipper cream peas, purple hull peas, brown butter beans, and green butter beans. We eat fresh, frozen veggies year around. Ummm, good eating!

Wednesday both Linda and I were feeling the results of our hard work. The arthritis in my hands and wrists had them swollen and stiff, and my left knee was complaining also. Linda's back was sore from standing at the sink all day. It sure is bad getting old! However, today we both are nearly recovered...and we still have all that corn in the freezer to show for our temporary aches and pains.
It was definitely worth it! We ate some of the new corn at lunch today. It sure had a fresh, delicious, corny taste!

I feel sorry for all those people who only eat canned or frozen, packaged veggies all year instead of putting up fresh summer veggies in their freezers. They are missing out on a lot of great tastes. None of our four adult children & their spouses fool with putting up their own veggies. Too much trouble & hard work for them to want to do it. Yet they all brag on how great Linda's veggies always taste when they eat her cooking. I guess there are a lot of folks who don't know what a corn day is or what its rewards are.