Last of the bean banging

This afternoon after cleaning out a section of the barn I finished up the dry bean harvest from last year. Yes, a little late. These were all light red kidney beans, the pods still attached to the plants, all dry, banged around inside a clean garbage can, so that the beans drop out of the pods into the bottom of the can. Next the few dropped pods and stems are cleaned out, and the beans are transferred into the upside down top of the can, picked over to take out a few small stems and bad beans, and poured from as high as I can reach back into the can itself, the wind taking the chaff while the beans head straight down. Six quarts all told which, along with the four quarts of black beans from a couple of weeks ago, will provide 160 individual meals--soup, chili, baked beans, curried beans, beans and rice, refried beans, etc. Early in the morning I harvested more snap peas and parboiled and froze three pints--not a lot of work there. They're still coming, while the podded peas are slow this year due to lack of rain when the pods should be filling out. I also trimmed the grass around the trunks of the young apple trees, to discourage the apple borers.