Valencia Family Memoirs: Fruitful

I have found some amazing resources recently. I think it began with some small intention to try to stock up on a few food items for the winter and while I had a few extra dollars from my yard sale. First I found a great source for bulk orders of local raw organic butter. Then I found a source for discounted bulk orders of raw local honey. I did research on beef, found an old family friend who raises beef and am waiting for my cow to be butchered to stock my freezer full of beef (we have plans to go meet our cow first). A couple weeks ago someone offered me a flat of blackberries and I made some fantastic seedless blackberry jam. And from there I got the canning bug and wanted to can more. I called all the grandmas I know, looking for unused canning jars. It really isn't cost effective to can unless you already have supplies on hand and I only had a small supply of things. Jars, lids, rims, canners and of course the food can be quite expensive to buy. I have time, but not the money. So my search began. After only a few phone calls, I got lucky. Family friends that live down the road from us had some jars they've been trying to give away for years but couldn't find anyone to take them. Until now. Lucky me, lucky them! I had to make several trips to get the dozens and dozens and dozens of super old canning jars that had been stored in an old basement covered in few decades worth of cobwebs and dust. I was so grateful (they have more too in their rental house I will get later)! And then they offered me full access to pick from two plum trees in their huge back yard. All I wanted. And apples. Pears and grapes too when they ripen. Gratitude overwhelmed me. Still. They are happy to have less fruit rotting on their lawn, and I am happy to turn their unused fruit into something that can be preserved and eaten gradually over the next several months. Every time I go back to pick fruit, I bring them a can or two of whatever I have canned.
I've also been able to use the fruit and jars to trade for other things. I traded some plums for several boxes of unused canning lids. I then traded that same person more plums for some canned asian plum sauce she made from the first batch of plums. I came across someone who needed quart size jars but only had jelly size jars so we traded a few dozen of each straight across. I met a girl who was looking for a place to pick apples and took her apple picking with me in exchange for pint size jars. My mother-in-law gave me a large water bath canner (the one my mom gave me developed a leak so I really needed a new one). A friend gave me a new dehydrator she never used. I was set and somewhat in disbelief that everything kind of just came to me when I needed it!!! I've been canning, dehydrating, juicing, freezing and eating a lot of fruit over the past several weeks. There will be much more canning and preserving over the next several more weeks and I can't wait!!!
Here are some of the photos I've taken from the past few weeks of us going over to pick fruit and some pictures of what I've done with the fruit...pictures are in no particular order.

Fruit leather!

Apples and plums! We only have to walk two blocks to go picking. One day my sister came with us and we took the double stroller for the kids and the wagon for the fruit.