Canned another six pints of peach jam yesterday (twelve, eight-ounce jars). It’s far from a lyrical enterprise when you do it by yourself. First of all, it takes a lot of pealed peaches to get eight cups. Then you have to stage your jars to make sure they’re washed and warm. Then there’s the cooking. Eight cups of liquid peaches with 10 cups of sugar and yes, you read that right. Ten.

You have to bring it all to a rolling boil, which means you have created a hot, sticky mess of liquid sugar and peaches. When it’s ready you then ladle it into the jars and make sure they’re full so that they set properly. After that you put all those hot jars into another pot and boil the jars for ten minutes. I only got one burn; a bubble of hot peach popped and landed on my finger. Out of the twelve jars, I had eleven set, which is a good percentage. It means I can store them on a shelf in the pantry.

I’m eating the one jar of jam that didn’t set, it has to stay refrigerated, which is nice because I added cinnamon to this batch and that’s a real flavor bomb. I still have peaches to peel and they’re on my counter, ripening. I may make a simple syrup and can them whole or in pieces; that would be a lot less work than jam. They won’t be all slick like the canned peaches from the store, but I guarantee you in January, they’ll taste just fine for breakfast.