GratiTuesday - Bug Bites, Sharpie Stains, & Frozen Corn

It's that time again.

Time to begin food storage for winter.

Actually, we've been doing that for a while now.  We've already stored berries and strawberry jelly in our freezer, but now the corn stalks are tall and waving their tassels proudly.

As a kid I loved helping to freeze corn.  My dad always seemed so strong and sure as he ran each ear quickly through the cutter.  I could never figure out how he could do it so quickly or without getting cut or burned.

My mom always kept everything else running smoothly.  She cleaned the ears, blanched them, cooled them, and had them ready for my dad.  She monitored my sister and I as we scooped the corn into bags and got the kitchen cleaned up afterwards in a snap.

I did the corn one year by myself.  It was completely depressing to do all that work by myself, although I did enjoy my freezer full of corn all year long.

That made my joy even brighter, though, when the kids began to help with this process.

For the past few years the whole family has worked together to husk the ears. We generally do a fair amount, and it can be hot, buggy work to husk all that.  

My Big Helper has been chief bag label-er and corn scooper for the past few years, and we've developed our own simple system for making it all happen.  I've enjoyed working with her.

This year was different, though.  

Daddy had to be away for work, and so we purchased the corn ourselves.  We took chairs outside under a tree and husked away.  (My Big Helper kept pointing out the myriads of mosquitoes on my legs while worked.  She failed to mention the myriads on her own - until the next morning.)

Next we moved inside, and I half expected My Little Man to bow out and find a book to read. He scrubbed his hands and pulled up a chair, though, after asking what his job could be.

He began by labeling the bags and eventually moved onto corn bagging.  Despite my many years of helping to preserve corn, though, My Little Man surprised me.   He didn't just do the basics but thought of something new.

Maybe he was remembering our trip to the art museum the day before.

Whatever it was, he decorated the bags!  He drew pictures to go with his labels.  At first they were simple things like smiley faces, but as time went on he drew complete scenes.

I smiled through the rest of the corn cutting (still wondering how my dad ever did all of that without burning himself), until it was time to put away the bags.

Then My Big Helper began to yell, "Oh, no!  Sorry, Mommy!" and hop around on her chair.

I looked to where she was pointing, only to see that the corn juice had run onto the bags and then transferred the happy blue pictures onto my countertops.

The pictures looked great on the bags.  Somewhat less so on my counters.

After removing all corn, juice, and bags, we discovered that Mr. Clean's Magic Erasers really are magic, and they do remove Sharpie stains from countertops.

Phew.

So now, I'm sure I'll be smiling every time I pull a bag of corn out of the freezer.

First at the cool blue pictures.

Then at the memory of how they got there - three sweaty people, singing along to the radio and working together to story up for winter, all while one short person constantly exclaimed, "Isn't this fun, Mommy?"

Lastly at my sight of my counters - blue-free.

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