The Harvest

So, I had a woman come over and lemon oil all our woodwork in the house. She was very nice and I thought she did a super job.

When she arrived to give me an estimate, I had to show her all around the house--because there is woodwork all around the house. In. Every. Room.
Every Room is always a bit slovenly. Ahem, I mean, just slovenly right now.

In one particularly frightful room, I looked at this woman, this stranger. I looked her right in her face and said in the most huffy and overwrought voice that I could muster, "I'm sorry about the mess right now. It's just that we are so very busy with the harvest."

She looked around at the masses of laundry, the dog hair, the scattered and abused toys and then over at the very neat, but tiny set-up where I had the water bath canner and my most recent production of 7 pint jars...She didn't bat an eye. She didn't grimace or giggle or derisively snort. She simply said, "I understand."

So, for the record, the "harvest" thus far (and I think the gardening season is ending) is 19 pint jars of tomatoes and 4 gallon bags of freezer tomatoes. Not too bad a "yield" for my first year of "harvesting".