Labor Day; beginning of the harvest.

Today was a good day for work. My father and I continued work in the upstairs insulating the wall/roof. I continued clear-cutting the blackberry patch since it is full of non-blackberry bushes and old canes that no longer produce, once it is clear cut it will only have fruit bearing branches for next year. This is much easier than pruning other types of plants that don't regrow every year. The New Testament of the Bible speaks of judgment day through a parable about a gardener who cuts off branches that do not bear fruit and throwing them into the fire. Blackberries are pruned Old Testament style: the plants are good, over time, the plants become and full of weeds and less fruitful, rather than picking out the bad parts the gardener clear cuts the whole patch and starts over. Good thing I'm not God. There is no salvation for my blackberry patch.
Today we also harvested peaches. The pear harvest is already underway and I have been selling some at the farmers market, and the trees are still laden with fruit. The peach trees were harvested for the first time today, and it's a good thing we got to them. Some branches were so heavily laden with fruit they broke off. We then took the peaches, boiled, pealed, pitted, and put them in jars into the freezer. While the freezer does consume energy, it also saves. One key to sustainability is eating local foods rather than having food shipped from faraway places on fossil fuel powered trucks from mega-farms. But for those of us in the harsh northern climes eating local fruits and veggies is hard in winter.
Therefore, let us do what our grandmothers and great-grandmothers did before us, canning and freezing! Though I may seem like an anti-technologist, I do thank God for the invention of the mason jar.