My friend Becky got me on this  pickled asparagus bandwagon. I never had even tried pickled asparagus before she told me I would like it and that we should can it together. I would almost say she forced me into it, but that would give off the impression that I am not happy with it- and that is not the truth, so forced is not the right choice of words. It is the same feeling I got when she got me to run my first half marathon a couple years back, it was amazing, rewarding and yet a lot of work. Canning is an effort and it is wonderful to store up for different seasons, but it is a much greater joy when the experience is shared- plus it goes quicker. Are you up for this challenge!?! It isn't as hard as training for a half marathon by the way, it only takes a bit of one day. So you grab yourself a friend, and convince them to do some caning!!

Here is the way mine ended up working out, if you need to plan for your batch. I bought 46 lbs and it ended up filling 32 quart jars. Becky bought 60 lbs.  and got about 40 full quarts.

Mrs. Wanda Wilson's Spicy Pickled Asparagus Recipe

Liquid ratio: 2 cups Vinegar to 1 cup water.
Depending on how many jars you are filling you will need more or less of this liquid mixture. I recommend heating it in a pot on the stove and ladling it out into each jar as necessary.

Per Jar:
2-3 Cloves Garlic
1/2 tsp to 1 tsp Red Chilli Pepper Flakes
1 Tbs. Dried Dill Seed (or a few sprigs fresh)
1 tsp Salt
Optional: "Hots" to taste (this just depends on how hot your 'hots' are and what type of spice you enjoy. Remember that the flavours will intensify as they sit.) Try to find smallish peppers though, and insert them whole, yes stem and all :)

1) Wash, snap and trim your asparagus to fit into a quart sized jar. Peal the garlic cloves and have them ready to go.

2) If you have caned before, you know the drill: sterilise your jars (you can do this by running them through a dishwasher cycle, the heat will do it).

3) This recipe calls for hot packing, so snatch them out of the dishwasher put in all the spices, peppers and garlic and pack them with the asparagus, pack as tightly as you can, and then add more.

4)Once that is done add the liquid heated to just pre-boil, or boil in a large pot on stove or in the microwave. Pour vinegar and water mixture over the asparagus leaving just about 1/2 inch head-space (meaning don't fill all the way up leave 1/2 inch).

5)Heat the right amount of lids in boiling water on the stove, when they are ready place them on the jars and screw on the rings. Heat canner (water bath works just fine) water to boil and then fill with jars. Allow water to return to boil and then process the asparagus for 10 min.

6) Remove from canner and place on a counter atop a dishtowel at at least 1 inch apart so the jars can cool. You should hear them seal- it could take a while, it might not.  I usually just leave them there overnight and they have all sealed by morning. Now the hardest part is waiting 2 weeks for those pickling juices to take effect, but it is well worth the while!!

And who is Wanda Wilson you may ask?? Well, she is the awesome lady who taught Becky this recipe, and she taught me. It is all about passing things on and sharing right!?! I haven't met her, but I am sure Mrs. Wanda Wilson is of the spectacular sort, you will too after you try this recipe. 

Enjoy!!

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What are a few of your favourite things?? Think about today, yesterday or last weekend- do you have moments you are capturing to not forget?

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I am coming to embrace hope, but only in the joy that the All Knowing One gently holds my life as the most precious gift to His own heart. I do not hope for more, for something different- just a hopeful contentment.  He is not endebted. I am. As this sinks in, and rings true in my depths I feel change. A joy that is complete. The longing falls like scales from my weary eyes, and I blink away what was blinding me- to see that there are no limits to His dreams for me, that even my own hopes are limiting to the God who holds it all. The dreams I dream, I hold with open hands. The desires I seek, I release too.

My prayer is to have a heart that sings a beautiful song no matter how dark the storm ahead.What if life stays just as it is, will I be content? Or do I constantly see something brighter ahead, something that is fleeting, something shinny and run toward it? What  if nothing needed to change in order for my joy to be complete? This is truth. Nothing needs to change outside me, and yet I need to embrace the change of living without my own expectations on a God that is absolute love, He does me no wrong. Each day I live He has walked through before I was there, while I am there and after I pass to tomorrow.

What if I could just hold my hands open? What would He have for me then?

I just need to release the dirt I cling to, and see it as it is instead of my last hope. To look up, smile at what He brings and accept it as it comes- that is the heart of contentedness. Not to cringe, not to wad my arms across my chest in a pout, and not to gloat when I see the blessing coming at me full strength, but to always remember that my God is the Giver, the Father of All Good Things.

A very sweet sister sent me this verse, which I think fits here perfectly: "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning". James 1:17

This song has been my anthem this week. If I trust He will not withhold no good thing, I can open my heart. I will open my heart to receive all that He has. I love the line- "pain is no measure of His faithfulness, He withholds no good thing from us". I listen over and over. I hope this blesses you too.

If you haven't read the story our our little Shiloh, read here.

If you read this post and it blessed you, let me know-it blesses me so to hear it, or send me an email if you would prefer.

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Sometimes it seems I can meet my own needs pretty well, that I can endure in my own strength. Which means that I take a good running start at life screaming;  "this too I will CONQUER!!". And when the storm is over the horizon, when the stillness settles in I am to be found clinging to the ground before me crunched into a ball, self pity a mist all around me. There is something wrong with this, very wrong. Self pity only comes to my aid when I try to muster things on my own.When will I learn that I have no victory that I can claim? That all of it comes from my Abba father. I was not asked to conquer in battle, I was asked to be faithful, I was not called to be victorious, I was told to stand firm and even this I was not told to do of myself. The blows will come, they are not mine to face.

I regret not one day, or one instant that I have walked in complete faith. I only regret the instances of doubt, of fretting, of trying to make myself more through actions, though possessions. I can add to myself no value, not a grain of worth. I see me for what I am when I allow my heart to recognize the wholeness of my maker. Me being who I am, He being who He is- yet he loves to lavish me. He pours like rain upon my thirst, I have not a need He cannot meet, I have no dream that He could not grant. And yet,  He rewards in ways so incomprehensible to me, ways that create and transform in a breath, unite and forgive with only a sigh.

I am so little, I need not be big. He is all the big for the both of us, He is the strength that moves me, the force that lifts me from any desperate place. I don't ask for Him to give me strength, but to just be mine. He swoons when I ask that of Him, when I give up and call out. His tears fall when mine do, and the instant I ask for love, hope, or faith to meet my lack- He breathes it into being.

I know I forget how big my God is, and that is what makes me feel the need to conquer, to be a fortress on my own- what do I have that could not be taken? I have nothing but the breath he gives me. My heart is commanded by his fingertip. The second I am to be no more on this earth- I will be taken.

The more I learn, the more I live, the more my eyes don't see it fit to be limited to what is here before me. The pain I endure is not  a measure of His faithfulness, or of His lack.  I hold on and wait  because I was told there would be pain here on earth, that it would leave me wanting, longing for more. Pain does not describe me, nor own me. Grief is not my maker, or my lover. All I am is what He has given, and not what this world has taken. I only have what He has granted. I am free.

I have been listening to this song all day, it has words that rock me. I love it.

If you haven't read the story our our little Shiloh, which is what started this journey, read here. 

If you read this and it blessed you, let me know-it blesses me so to hear it, or send me an email if you would prefer.

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Today is my eldest son's 8th birthday. Somehow I don't know quite how that happened. The time passed and he went from a baby  to 8 years old in an instant. Jackson is my kind-hearted, cautious, thinker, tough and sweet wrapped up in one boy. He prayed for snow for Christmas, I told him it was too warm for snow, but then he ended up getting it today, in late March, the day after Spring started, I guess good things come to those who wait.

The snow today was the good kind too, not what we usually get, it was deep powder, great for snow men, snowballs, snow baseball, snow-well, snow anything really. We enjoyed it. I hope you enjoy these pictures of our Spring snow.

The snow dog. I wonder if all goldendoodles are particularly insane for snow.We've seen it before.  It is almost like he was bred for it or something, he is never happier than when we get a good snow. Julius prances and bounds and, get this- he makes DOG SNOW ANGELS!! Yep, see below- he can't get enough. I have never seen a dog act like this in the snow.

Of course we have to have boys going at each other in a snowball fight. That is what snow is for right? The little one always comes in crying, snow down the back will do it to you each time.

So that snowman we made?? It did have a carrot nose, didn't it?? I think it is obvious who stole the snowman's nose. The boys were glad we didn't make any more features out of food. They begged me to take the carrot from the dog, I couldn't, it was just too funny. He would have gotten it when the guy melted anyway, right!? Silly dog.

Today really is a great day for a birthday.

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