On a recent "A Prairie Home Companion" on National Public Radio, Garrison Keillor lamented the fact that the Ball Co. of Muncie, Ind., no longer makes the ubiquitous glass containers for preserving, the ones with "Ball" written in raised scripted letters on each jar.

Are the days gone forever of feverish washing, coring, stringing, pitting, peeling, dicing and slicing tomatoes, beans, beets, peas, cucumbers, corn, apricots, peaches, pears and berries in preparation of putting them up in anticipation of a long, hard winter?

Is it because today most women work outside as well as inside their homes and no longer have the time to devote an annual frenzy of food preservation? Or has the availability of such items as fresh strawberries in March or corn on the cob in December from parts of the world on a different seasonal system done away with this summertime ritual?

Not so, here in the Sierra foothills. Canning may be more efficient than it once was, but it is still an integral part of summer for many women.

If you are of a certain age, you probably remember helping your mom get down the glass jars (Ball, of course, with Kerr lids, or the older jars that came with their glass tops attached with wires) and inspecting the jars for chips and cracks as you washed them.

Then you brought in heaping containers of produce or fruit from your family's garden or purchased at a local farmer's roadside stand.

Next, your mom filled the big canning kettles with water and placed them on the stove in anticipation.

Then you really got down to work. All the above-mentioned washing, cutting, paring, etc., were tailored to the prerequisites of each individual fruit or vegetable as it was prepared for its final destination.

You and any other able-bodied individual on hand were drafted into the assembly line preparation: The goal was to see just how many jars all of you could put up in one session.

After the produce had been prepared according to its particular requirements, you carefully spooned it into individual canning jars, filling each one to the brim to avoid leaving air bubbles, and loosely screwed the lids on. Finally, your mom placed the filled jars into the large kettles and set them to boil for the allotted number of minutes.

Of course, you recall that it was always one of the hottest days of the summer when your mom was struck by the urge and the need to can. The kitchen always heated to 100 degrees or higher, even with all the windows and doors open. The atmosphere inside was one of steam and often of short tempers, but the smells could be enticing, particularly if that day's product was jam or jelly.

At the end of each batch's designated cooking time, your mom gingerly removed the hot jars from the boiling water with tongs designed just for that purpose. You then were assigned to wipe the jars carefully and officially inspect each one for any signs of irregularity.

After the jars had cooled, you screwed their lids down tight, and your mom lightly tapped each one with a spoon. What she didn't want to hear was a hollow sound: That was an indication that the seal was not sufficient. Since no one ever wanted to put her family at risk of the dreaded botulism, the contents of that jar, and any others with the same telltale sound, you had for supper that very evening before they could go bad.

As the day went on, the increasing output of filled jars was an object of admiration. The final step, after you had climbed up on a chair, was for your mom to hand you each cooled jar to put on the pantry shelves.

Your mom could point with pride to rows and rows of shining jars on shelf after shelf, each jar glowing with the promise that it contained.

There they would stay until about the end of January or first of February, when the taste of last summer's peaches was just a memory, and she would take one down and treat the family to a small serving of hope that summer would come again with its gift of fresh produce.

Patricia Littlefield, a Newcastle resident, has written for several newspapers, including one on Oahu and two on the Big Island when she lived in Hawaii.