I went with what I know, and what I've grown successfully before -- tomatoes, and chilis. "If we have too many," I told ana, "I"ll can them. Just think of it -- canned tomatoes, canned tomato sauce, pickled jalapenos. It'll be awesome."

I walked to the local hardware store a few weeks ago and purchased a pressure cooker/canner. I looked at the canning supplies. I downloaded the USDA home canning instructions. I looked at recipes.

Yesterday, we went back to the hardware store and got jars (pint and half-pint), tongs, and a funnel. There were a bunch of jalapenos that needed to be picked and dealt with, so that seemed like an excellent first project. I spent today reading recipes, deciding what I needed, and, finally, pulling the trigger.

I used a simple pickling recipe -- vinegar, salt, mustard seeds, and white peppercorns, with garlic, a pearl onion, a few slices of red cayenne peppers for color, and sliced jalapenos. In half of them, I added a bit of honey, just to see what would happen. The jars went pink after I pulled them from their hot water bath. Based on the instructions, I didn't use the pressure feature of my canner -- pickles are acidic enough that they don't need it.

I am way too pleased with myself. My tiny little jelly jars are lovely. I'm already thinking of doing something like this for Christmas presents for ana's family. There are still plenty of blossoms on the pepper plants. I feel competent, and self-sufficient, and ready to rototill my whole front yard for a vegetable garden next year.

Mostly, though, I'm feeling connected. Not just to the garden, or the season, or the cycle of growth and decay. I'm feeling connected to the two generations of my family who came before me. My grandfather always had a huge garden. It was something of a joke, how much food he grew. My brothers and I gathered five-gallon-bucket after five-gallon-bucket of yellow squash, and cucumbers, and green beans,  and okra. Inside, I helped my grandmother freeze and can.

In my earlier years, I watched my mother can green beans grown in our rented back yard. She coaxed the beans from the dense red clay, and we ate them all winter, when we couldn't afford to buy much food from the store. She never let us (very small) children into the kitchen when she canned. I remember, though, that a jar exploded as she removed it from the canner and scalded her chest. She was wearing a flowered sundress, and the skin blistered and ran. I was afraid, and she didn't cry. She wasn't even 30.

I'm thinking a lot about my mom and my grandparents recently. I've started a writing project, collecting the things I've written about my mom. I'll put those together with the diaries I wrote last winter about caring for her in her last weeks, and do $something with them. I'm not sure what, at this point, but I'm ready, I think, to read them again, and to revisit that agony.

I had to stop myself several times this afternoon from calling my mom, to find out how I'm supposed to make these pickled peppers. "Well, shug," she'd say. "I never did jalapenos. I don't like hot stuff. But if they're like regular pickles...." I wouldn't need the internet or the USDA if she was still here. I still imagine sometimes, that she is.