One Tub, One Task, and a Whole Lotta Beans

When I got into my early teen years, my mom assigned me the task of “fire-tender.”
I shall explain.

It all started with jars and jars of green beans, all canned and ready to process. Back then, a lot of people never used a pressure canner—and Mommy was scared of them anyway. I’m not sure where all the green beans came from. Probably the same place as the taters—some field we’d borrowed for the summer.

I don’t recall ever picking them, stringing them, or snapping them when I was that age—but I dang sure know it was done, because out of nowhere, there were all these jars full of them!

One summer, I remember my mom setting jars in a big aluminum tub—the kind we used to take baths in when I was really little. (No, it wasn’t the same tub… or was it? I’ll never know. 😂)

Anyway, she set that tub outside on blocks, just high enough to build a small fire under it. She packed the green bean jars inside, wrapped towels around them, and filled the whole thing with water. Somehow, magically, a giant pile of sticks appeared beside it. I don’t remember where they came from, but I’m pretty sure my siblings and I had a hand in it.

That year was the first year I was the fire-tender. Did I know what I was doing? Nope.
Mom just started the fire and told me, “Don’t let it go out—and that tub better not stop boiling.”

I don’t remember how long I sat there on the ground, poking sticks under that tub. I just know I never let it stop boiling—and oddly, I never ran out of sticks.

That’s the only time I remember doing it, and I’m not even sure if I ever did it again. But when it was all said and done, there were rows upon rows of green beans lined up in the basement and that big ol’ tater bin Daddy built, loaded with taters —ready for winter.

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