So Exhausted

Again I ask myself, why don't I just buy canned foods at the store? It's cheap and easy. Of course I know the answers by heart. But when I'm 8 hours into processing, I start to rethink my good intentions.

Now I sit on the couch with sore feet, a stitch between my shoulders, sweating and ready for bed at 6:35pm. On the plus side, we have 25 pints of apple butter (that's roughly 40 lbs of apples), 31 pints of pickled green tomatoes and 4 pints of spicy pickled green cherry tomatoes. We didn't get to the beets, which will be another 5 pints, because I'm beat and need to put my feet up and enjoy a glass of wine. Jeremy is trying to talk me into the beets - we'll see. He has more stamina than I do. But I just heard him crack open a beer, so I think we are couch bound.

Canning tip of the day - use masking tape to label the top of your jars. I initial, for example AB is apple butter, and include the year. Masking tape easily comes off so you can reuse the lids.