Canning, canning, and More Canning!

For such a bad start to the gardening year, I sure got a lot grown to can for the year. We had a hard frost the second week of September and when I was not at work, I had to finish canning the veggies. I don't know how the apples survived the frost, or the butternut squash, but I have to pick that next and put it in jars and the freezer. This is the first time in years I have had to buy more canning jars!

I tried to do a panoramic (sort of) shot, but I don't have that function on my camera, so some of it got shot twice. I also have zucchini and green tomato relish that gone done after the pictures were taken. I'm  not sure where to put them, or the apples and butternut squash, since, as you can see, the shelf is quite full now. At least they have a cool basement to be placed in. We butchered a cow and all my venison from last season had to be canned, so they are in the first picture. then bread and butter pickles. The second one is dill pickles, yellow squash, corn and some sweet potatoes. The third is corn again, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, and strawberry-rhubarb jam. The zucchini will probably be put before the jam (I'll have to move the jam). I do have a small shelving unit next to those shelves which is used for storing stuff that can totally be tossed, so I'll probably toss them, and use it to put the rest of the goodies on. No, if can just find a nice BIG bag of white potatoes (mine didn't do so well!) I can can those too, just so I have them. Busy, busy, busy.

It's time for the corn to be harvested and the soybeans will be close on too, if, as suspected, the heavy frost didn't ruin them. I've seen a lot of fields that are black because of the frost the beans are a total loss. Ours hadn't had a chance to make beans yet, so we aren't sure how they came out. Only time will tell, but they probably won't do much. Who needs a casino? I'm a farmer. We gamble every time we put a plow in the ground and plant something.

Why I Buy American

There has been a campaign for Americans to buy American.  I am a big cheap skate- there's no getting around it, but when I can, I do buy American. I was in the store the other day doing some shopping and I was looking for shaving cream for my husband.At Dollar General they had a store brand completely comparable with Barbisol, right down to the size of the can, and there's was $.35 less. Do you know why this cheap skate paid extra? The store brand was made in China and the Barbisol is made right here in the United States.

I also went to Wal-Mart. They used to have an entire campaign around their goods being 'Made in America' and one day they just stopped. I wonder why? I happened to need canning lids. I am canning a huge amount this year and had run out of lids (the flat part that seals the jar for those who don't know what I'm talking about). They were all out of my trusty Ball and Kerr lids so I got their brand (Mainstays), which was actually pretty cheap. I got three packages that comes out to thirty-six lids. Of the thirty-six I used thirty. I tell you what, I have never, ever seen lids buckle before; one even did it when I screwed the cap (ring) onto the jar before I even put it in the canner. I replaced that one with a newly sterilized one and put it into the pot and secured the lid and commenced to pressurize the canner. I kept hearing a whistle I couldn't account for. This was the second time in two days I had heard this. I finally figured out what it was when I opened the canner and found for the second time in two days, jars with the lids bulged and literally buckled underneath the ring. What the???? I looked at the box and, you guess it- Made in China! I will never buy anything else but Ball or Kerr lids again (unless I get where I can afford those nice Tattler Reusable lids. They are expensive and you occasionally will have to replace the rubber ring, but they are reusable, so in the long run, they end up being less than the other ones and there is less waste. They are also made in the USA!) Now, however, I am worried about those other twenty-eight jars of food that did seal. Will they stay that way?

Has anyone else noticed how much the quality of clothing (including your socks and undies), linens, and other goods went down hill once they were no longer made in the USA? China has now been approved to export chicken products to the U.S. Excuse me; this is the same country that stretched out the pet foods they sent to us with Melamine and it killed our pets with painful deaths. They even put it in infant formula sold to their own people for their babies. Why on Earth would I buy food made in China? Watch out for your chicken nuggets! I understand Smithfield Foods has been bought out by a Chinese company. No more Smithfield hams for me. But then, I like to grow my own anyway, so I guess I'll get those pigs sooner rather than later.

Buying goods made in America means we are supporting Americans by saving their jobs, and by doing that we are improving our economy and the quality of what we buy. Why would you buy anything made anywhere else if you had the choice?

FYI: I am not being paid to put Tattler Reusable Canning Lids on my blog!!