This is the time of year when I stand back in the kitchen, breathe a sign of relief and think to myself, thank goodness all the food is put away for winter. Then I remember there are still carrots and other things in the garden that I've forgotten.

Just a day or two more of working with apples, carrots and other stray things and then I am free to enjoy at my leisure some of them more intricate and artful crafting of concoctions, brews and skincare. There should be a bit more time for steemit too - yay!

Anyways, I've been asking myself if all of this work is worth it when all is said and done. I thought I would share a bit about what it's been like for me and finish with my decision on the value of this type of work in my life.

No doubt about it, this year was a hard one.

Drought. Bugs. Humidity. Scorching heat. I could have killed for some blue skies and gentle breezes throughout the summer. It was truly merciless. I was starting to question my choice of lifestyle and goals a bit. Growing most of what you eat is really bloody hard. (or at least that's what I've experienced).

The garden work is of course followed by spending weeks in the kitchen scrubbing, chopping, peeling, freezing, dehydrating and bottling the food up for storage in the pantry. I ended up with tendinitis from chopping so much, constant back aches and just fatigue.

That said, every time I would unload a canner and set the jars on the counter to cool, I would feel like I've accomplished something big. That jar started with a seed that we'd lovingly saved from previous harvests. It is somehow miraculous and empowering.

A pantry like this is not romantic at all until the work is done. Then I'm like .. This. Is. So. Cool! Come look at my pantry!

I still get a big kick our of looking at all of the colourful jars lined up in the pantry. It feels like I've warped back in time every time I step into this room. I feel like a real kitchen witch. It was worth all of the work and you know what? Every year we get more efficient and better at what we do.

I know what's inside those jars. Organic food, preservative and chemical free. Pure and good. Also, as winter arrives I'll be planning and itching to get back at it again. It is a passion, perhaps even an obsession, and a great life challenge. I learn each year, and adapt so that we garden easier and produce more food.

We have so many herbs and natural medicines lined up on these shelves. These shelves make my heart sing.

The bounty of garlic we've harvested is so rewarding. I remember the days of buying only one bulb from the store and it being so expensive. We've got well over 100 bulbs in the house.

We have some onions and squash as well and the windfall apples that must be transformed into apple butter, wine and apple cider ASAP. They've got bruises and bumps and wont keep long.

These tomatoes were picked green weeks ago and we've kept them in a cool dark place to slowly ripe. The freezer is filled with bags of tomatoes that I have not had time to turn into sauce yet.

OMG! The beans, I have a serious fascination with beans! Beans are so amazing. You can eat them young,fresh and green or let them dry into protein packed, shelf stable dried beans. So much nutrition and diversity not to mention beauty.

I though we would have buckets of dried beans with the rows we had planted and in the end ... we did not. A lot of articles talk about how much food you can grow in a small space but reality is, sometimes you need space and land to grow a LOT of food - like beans.

The fridge is our cold storage and I'll pack it with carrots and food we've fermented such as cabbage, grape leaves, pickles and garlic scapes. There's always some pro-biotic stinkiness going on in my kitchen.

The freezer is packed with berries and I've started freezing food in wide mouth jars. I use a special food saver jar attachment to suck the air out and it works really well. This shelf is lines with pumpkin purée and cubed up beets. The trick is to use wide mouth jars - according to the foodsaver website they've been designed to be freezer safe.

The freezer bags we wash and re-use. There's just too many berries to efficiently use jars so I confess - we do use plastic but we'll wash it and use it again and again.

We still have wine, apple cider vinegar and other ferments bubbling and burping around the house. There's a lot of life in the kitchen.

Our home brew wine rack. A lot of this wine needs to age a year at least for the best enjoyment. We've discovered that patience really does improve these wild crafted home brews. This rack should be full soon.

When you take that seemingly massive pile of food from the garden, clean it up, pack it into jars and discover that you've ended up with a mere 7 quarts of food for all that work - it really puts things into perspective. It is a bit reality check about how much food and work goes into all those jars we buy from the store. This awareness humbles me and fills me with gratitude.

We haven't got full control yet. We still buy salt, pepper and other spices that we love, I think we always will. We aren't doing this to suffer. We do this to empower ourselves.

We still buy wheat, rice, and other basic staples. We are not hardcore - we'd like to be, but we would be quite hungry by spring if we were to live off what we've grown. We are still learning.

Gosh, I feel quite proud. It wasn't that long ago that I was a business professional. A corporate chick. A clacking heels and perfectly fitted suit type of gal. I always gardened and hiked and wandered in nature with a tarp and backpack to camp with my family because it was my calling. I yearned for this homestead life since ...always.

I grew up in a place where it was too cold for agriculture (although there has been some exciting advances in this area in the past decade) and had no one to teach me the ways of a more self sufficient life. This was all new to me and my husband and here we are, figuring it out.

Making a difference however small...

... because we are doing our part in this small way to reduce our footprint on the earth. We grow organically, nurturing the land, we reuse jars and containers over and over again. We aren't using much fuel or transportation, most of the work is man powered and carried from the garden to house and we feel empowered and capable of learning and doing ANYTHING! We all are. We just have to believe in ourselves.