Canning Confession

The late summer canning season is upon us.  Beans and cucumbers are growing with gusto and my pantry shelves are filling rapidly.  It's great.  But -- and here's where my nerdiness comes shining through -- as much as I enjoy seeing the shelves fill, what really excites me is adding another year to my canning jar lids.  It's almost as much fun as hearing the pop of a jar sealing.

I know, the instructions say not to reuse 'em, but my grandma did, my mom does, and I do too, and we all have great sealing success.  And every time I do I write the year on top in permanent marker.  The majority of my lids have at least three years penned on them.  My mom has one with ten years marked on it!

Today I was cleaning my canning jar lid drawer (yes, there is a designated drawer in the kitchen), tossing out rusty rings and weeding out lids with damaged edges or rust spots.  And I cringed every time I had to toss one with more than three years on it.  One even had five -- it was half way to fame!  "Man, there goes a fun one!" I thought.

Today I got to add "13" to ten more lids (it was beans today).  One lid graduated to its fifth year; several received their first markings.  But I'm optimistic that with careful opening, they'll be around to rack up many more pen marks.

Happy canning to all you garden-happy people out there!