canning supplies

[Hinotori]

Mom and I are the only ones who do regular canning in my family anymore. Mom only does jams for her yogurt. Mom still freaks when she hears Im pressure canning. It scares her because "your great grandmother had one explode on her". My great aunt said it just blew out the overpressure plug and spewed water and some food over the kitchen. That didn't stop her from canning.

My SIL doesn't understand canning food. She made spaghetti sauce with all the onions and meat, left it set overnight, then jarred it and waterbathed it for 10 minutes the next morning. My brother wouldn't let her feed it to any of them. She hasn't tried any canning again. Mom offered to help her make jam for her first try well before that but oh no. Cant do that.

 

[Hinotori]

Ohh the best part was "I heard that you just add vinegar to make it safe for waterbath canning".

Oh she added vinegar alright. To the water in the canner.

I got the full story out of my brother last year finally.

 

[farmerjan]

Most of the thick/thin thing on window glass is because of the blowing process. It was blown out then flattened, then cut to needed sizes. Blowing causes thickness variations as well as the ripples that are sometimes seen.

The method for making plate glass is what changed that. Float glass is usually how it's done now as it's cheaper to do.

My husband says i need to leave off on the history books and documentaries. I find stuff like that interesting. He says I'm the only one he knows who would read a book on the history of salt for entertainment. I just point out that he's got a ton of books on war history, especially ancient Greek and Roman.

I like to read things like that too.... just for the learning.

 

[farmerjan]

I picked up 5 boxes each of wide mouth and regular jar lids today. WM were ball and were expensive. The reg were the walmart generic. Saw some Anchor hocking canning jars there today too. I must have nearly 600-1000 jars as I have inherited all the family canning jars I think. No one else does it. Have boxes of the bale top jars, that family used. I used them when I first started because they were what we had and used regularly.
Have made many a jar of jelly with wax seals. When we were kids we would sneak into the boxes of jelly with the wax seals and push on them to get them to break the seal so we could get mom to bring another jar into the fridge for us. We ate a lot of grape jelly in those days..... Us kids used to go find the wild grapes for her to make the jelly with...

 

[Britesea]

I like to read things like that too.... just for the learning.

When we moved from our old house in CA to our little house in OR, I had to get brutal about our books- a huge collection of everything from sci-fi to romance to mysteries to cookbooks to anthropology and above all- history books. Everyone in our family is a reader, and we all love reading about the past. I winnowed approximately 2/3 of our collection and let me tell you, it HURT! I took books to the library until they told me to stop. I took books to every used book store in the county, left stacks of books in laundromats and RV parks..... When we got here, I discovered our personal library was STILL larger than the local library branch, lol. I still don't have room to display all of them-- we would need at least one more medium sized room in the house with floor-to-ceiling shelves on all 4 walls (I truly am not exaggerating!)

 

[farmerjan]

I hear you @Britesea , and I can well understand as there are boxes and boxes of books of mine right now in a storage trailer. There won't be enough space in this new house for the books unless I line all the walls with them.... Well, we will see if I get the house, depending on the appraisal since they are cutting it off a much bigger piece of land. Have to have 2 acre minimum here, and that is all that will go with the house which is fine for me for now. There is alot of other property that I have access to with our farming operation. I just want to stop renting a house, and this place is close to where we have the majority of our cattle operation. It is becoming available as they have not done anything with it for over 6 years since the mother passed away, and I had expressed interest last year, and this spring the 3 sisters that inherited it said it was a good idea to sell it. The rest of the land on that side of the road, has their Christmas tree farm, and the other side of the road has a 15-18 acre hay field we rent and the house where one of the sisters and her husband live. Since none of their kids is interested in it, they agreed it shouldn't keep sitting. So waiting on the surveyor and then the appraisal, and then see. It is on a busier road than I like, but hopefully it won't appraise too high since it does need some work inside.
Maybe turn one upstairs bedroom into a library ? I don't know. I also have several tropical fish tanks that got put in storage when I moved here, that I would dearly love to get started again.... I just enjoy the fish and the water is great for watering house plants.....

But I agree 100%... I love my books too.

 

[baymule]

We got rid of so much stuff when we moved here. I still need to go through stuff and get rid of more. I have a couple of bookcases. I would have many more books if I had the room for them.

 

[Britesea]

I have a Kindle for junk reads (romances and mysteries mostly- the stuff that's fun to read once, but that's all). That has saved a bunch of space, even though I much prefer a real book. I mainly got it for the travel trailer, but we haven't been leaving the property much since we got it so...

Isn't there a natural law about Stuff Expands To Fill The Available Space? lol There's also something called the Flat Surface Syndrome, I believe.

 

[farmerjan]

Saw a strawberry farm on the way back from the dr appt in NC and stopped and got a box of already picked strawberries as I still had the walking boot on my foot/ankle and that is so awkward to get around with. They are about 2 weeks ahead of us down along the NC/VA border. Most will get frozen tomorrow but will share some with my son and make a couple of strawberry shortcakes. I will vacuum pack them after I freeze them whole on a cookie tray so they don't smoosh. They were mostly a uniform batch of not real big ones and they are pretty sweet. Of course, the first ones of the year are always pretty sweet!!!!!

 

[Hinotori]

Not exactly canning but came across this about a sealed bottle of wine that's at least 1670 years old. And the wax seal is still intact.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speyer_wine_bottle