My canning jars.....

I made it with out any casualties. I am alive and well (NOT sane, I said well) It has been a busy few weeks. But I can say officially that my canning season has come to a halt, (NOTE: I did not say to a end because if I do, I know 10 bushels of apples will end up on my door steps and you know how I hate rotting fruit). I think I over did it again this year, I will never learn my lesson. But I can say that this year was a douzie. 124 quarts of peaches, 156 quarts of pears, 38 pints salsa, 18 quarts of marinara sauce, some apple sauce?, 22 quarts of pickled green beans, 8 quarts apple juice. No not all of this was done by myself I did have a few good friends over to teach methods of my madness, a good friend and a good sister. It has been a fun year but I am tired now.

In all of this madness I had a offer that I could refuse, BUT OF COURSE I didn't (don't you know me at all????) A friends father in law was going into a nursing home and his basement was full of canning jars. No one in her family wanted them....(hmmmm) This fine lady knows that I Hoard canning jars and will do pretty much anything to get them (not that! get your mind out of the gutter) But there was a hitch to these canning jars.....of course. Nothing is free.Note above "no one in her family wanted them".....go on) These jars were full of food. OHHH and not just any food, food from 1958.....1972...1976....1980....and so on. Most of the food was unrecognizable and foul.

About 300 jars later, compost heap swelling, me dry heaving, good friend and husband laughing, we got'er done! I worked hard for those jars, and so I thought...But I had no idea YET what hard work was. I had been busy canning and had to let these jars sit for a while, when I finally got to washing them, that food (Yep...from 1958) was a little bit hard to get off. It has now taken me 3 days of soaking and washing and rewashing.

Those Canning jars have given me time to think about things. What I found is no matter how much crap and foul smelling stuff is inside of us, we can come clean. We can be sat up on a self for 50 plus years and once we are washed, we can be as good as new again. I tell you these jars sparkle and shine like the day they were first bought. They have a history and Oh how I wish I could see the things that once were inside of them, apple sauce, chutney, green chunky stuff with red flakes(still have no idea what that was). While I was dumping and heaving, I thought to myself one day will this be my stuff being dumped into a compost bin? I hope my kids know the value of canning jars and know all of the work that was put into them. I hope they know that those jars maybe filled with food, But better yet they are filled with love and like us once cleaned are as good as new........