Done

68°f/20°C, clear.  High around 90 expected.

76 quarts! We started canning yesterday at 11:30am, and finished at 6:30. A hard day but now we have our year's supply of yummy tomato juice. 

I am officially out of jars. The last 2 quarts had to go into a pitcher in the fridge. So I won't be doing any more canning until we use up some stuff. Fine by me. Of course, there is still space in the freezers, and the rattlesnake beans are just getting started. And we still have to make that 10 quarts of applesauce.  I may have to borrow a few jars to get that done. The beans I can freeze.

Today my feet are up. I've done some laundry, scrubbed down my poor overworked stove, and made some peanut butter cookies. That's all I am going to do today except read.

I had a nice long chat with granddaughter Sarah this morning. She sent me photos of an outhouse race she and her sister, granddaughter Ally, participated in to celebrate their birthdays, which are just a day apart (5 years difference in their ages). What a crazy idea for a racsawe. By the way, someone had to be in the outhouse as it was being pushed along by team members. This was in Colorado---and their team came in 2nd! Sarah says she has the dubious distinction of having built outhouses on both sides of the Mississippi! The one she built for her cabin here is really a luxe version though!

In other news, grandson James bought granddaughter Haley's first house from her! Haley and her partner bought a place with 10 acres, and had a buyer for their other place, but that fell through. Haley's cousin James is an apprentice electrician and has been living at home, but Haley's little house will be perfect for him, as it was for her when she was single. It's a sweet little place, just 2 bedrooms with a nice fenced yard. It was built in 1925 but was renovated and updated before Haley bought it 5 years ago. My son Aaron, James's dad, lives close to Haley has done most of whatever work Haley has needed---he's a good uncle!-- and of course Derek has been there to help his daughter whenever needed. James is 24 or 25, I think (I do lose track with so many grands), so he's a young homeowner, as Haley was.

So of our 14 grandchildren, 8 are now homeowners, and most of them were under 30 when they bought their first house. That's kind of amazing to think about, in these days when the dream of home ownership seems unattainable for so many. 

I remember when my first husband and I bought our first house. He had been in a minor car accident when he was 16. His parents sued the other driver, and when George was 18 he got a small settlement of $3000. The lawyers took a third, and he bought something or other with the money (a boat, I think) but we used the $1500 he had left as a down payment on our house, which we bought for $17,000. It was about 25 miles from DC, and had a one-acre lot. The house was built in the late 30's by a former CCC worker (During the Great Depression, President Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s to provide work for unemployed men. They did a lot of work in the parks and other government properties, building stone walls, trails, cabins, etc. Much of their work still stands). 

Our house was basically a log cabin similar to those built in state parks by the CCC . Later someone applied a smooth stucco exterior, and added a tiny front porch. The house still had the original full-length screened back porch, and the original 60-amp electrical service-- which was very limiting! It meant no dryer, no AC, and we had to be careful of our usage or we would blow one of the 4 fuses. Our typical electric bill was well under $20 a month. I loved the huge fieldstone fireplace in that house. The logs were exposed inside, so it was a cozy little place.

It was a perfect starter home for us, and in our 5 years there we doubled our investment, which allowed us to pay cash for the land I live on now, and to build this house ($12,000 for 73 acres, and the original cost of our house was $11,000, but it really wasn't finished at that point). Over the years we borrowed money to make improvements, as it was a pretty rough cabin back then, and we bought more land (much of which I have sold over the years, so now we have about 40 acres left). But when I retired Larry and I paid off the mortgage, so once again the place was free and clear. Zillow calculates its worth at around $220,000-280,000 today. I don't know if we could really get that, but still it's a good return on that initial $1500 investment back in 1969.

Do you remember buying your first house? Or have you opted to rent instead of taking on the headaches and expense of home ownership? I swear, the older I get, the more attractive renting looks!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.