I'll never get tired of pics of this special room in the woods! Any nature lover would love to spend time there. It's right out there in it, yet has all the comforts. DD, I said ALL the comforts, I don't think you forgot one thing! LOL Thanks for sharing your fantastic space, and the great tips like the Gorilla tape, I never would have guessed that the glass had any help with stability. ~tenderlee

LOL; that's exactly what my 7yo had said when we finally saw a monarch cat pupate last year, and I got it on video w/sound! I had to reassure her that it was the skin; it was priceless. Nothing else gross SHOULD happen, and I'm not going to go there. They eclose from 9 to 15 days, in my experience. I never bothered to see what my average was, although I do keep it documented. One of these days...

I am using an old computer, don't have a firewall and free-edition AVG hasn't deleted some nefarious tenants, having notified me of their presence, I believe ... ... so I don't do financial stuff online. I have a bank-issued credit card with accounts at the bank that issued it and, being a senior, don't have to pay a fee to pay credit card, utility, oil bills and such. I'm red-faced, though - when the electric bill came in on Thursday, it had last month's bill added, as I hadn't paid it. That was during the time that I was having a difficult time being mobile and I missed paying the utility bills ... at the bank. During that period I've considered that it's time to have some of the money-related situations that I deal with, including gov't.-related pensions and income tax issues dealt with by automatic electronic transfer. ole joyful

Thank you Annie and Dave for the words of encouragement. After doing some serious thinking about it, I wonder if having too much water in the canner caused the problem. I had the empty pints jars in the pressure canner covered with water like I do with BWB to be extra careful on keeping them sterile. When I took the jars out, filled them with soup then returned them to the canner, I didn't remove any of the water so instead of a couple of inches of water, I had it going well over the tops of the filled jars. I think I'll just take a break and stick with BWB recipes for a while like you suggested, Dave. Annie, there was some diced onion and celery along with the chicken along with the stock. I made sure that there was only half veggies and chicken and half broth in each jar. It was the Ball Blue Book recipe. DH was in stage 4 cancer so they removed his right ear and the ear canal. That's when they found microscopic cancer tumors on the lining of his brain. Chemo and another surgery were out of the question so they put him under radiation. He now weighs almost 30 lbs. less than me - arrgh! His last scheduled radiation treatment is next Tuesday and, hopefully we'll get good news from the doctors. He should have been dead many, many years ago due to motorcycle crashes when he was racing them for 8 years, being a Army Ranger in Vietnam, the crash of plane he had reserved to fly then decided not to fly that day and the people who decided to take it up stalled and it killed the four of them plus their dog, his many heart attacks starting when he was 38, even when he had one that lasted 3 days and the doctors said there was nothing more they could do for him, well, you get the idea. Talk about a cat with nine lives, well, we're hoping this continues the streak.