I think a lot of jar manufacturers changed the threading on their jars to keep people from using them for canning. Maybe liability issues? I have lots of old Classico jars and don't use them in the pressure canner, but do a lot of my HWB canning in them. I love them, but they have a smaller capacity than the standard quart jars. And that's perfectly fine for some things I don't really need a full quart for. I use lemon juice for tomatoes as well. Am satisfied with the taste. If it tastes too sour, you may add sugar safely. It masks the acidity, but supposedly does not affect the acidity of the product at all. I have never been one for electric kitchen gadgets, but the rationale behind the vacuum sealing for freezer products is very valid. If you are using zip lock bags for irregularly shaped products like breads, where you cannot get the bag to fit them without air space, there is no reason you cannot wrap the product in plastic wrap first and then bag them. Freezer burn is such a wasteful thing.

We use a combination of Nickel Plus and K-Phite. It's working great. We spray with both, using a sticker-spreader we got at Tractor Supply. We also add their blue dye now, because it helps us see where we have missed a spot. It isn't very easy to see through goggles, with sweat pouring down in your eyes. Just avoid spraying any blossoms, unless you are really desperate for a blue daylily. We were advised to spray once a week for 3 weeks, then wait 3 weeks before spraying again. I've only sprayed once this fall, since it has been raining off and on ever since. Occasionally, I will have a plant that shows sign of rust, but nothing like it was before I started using the nickel. I wouldn't use anything else. Well, let me take that back. I am going to try some Actinovate on just a few isolated and unimportant plants to see how it works. The only thing I don't like is having to don all that protective gear, but I wouldn't have it otherwise. I'm very cautious. We use goggles, a special pesticide mask we bought at Lowes, chemical gloves (also at Lowe's), rubber boots and a yellow rain slicker. My hubby and our yardman refuse to put on a garbage bag drawstring skirt, but if I'm doing the spraying, I wear that, too. I'll have to get my hubby to take a picture of me in that fancy outfit so everyone can get a good laugh. When the weather is warm, we get very sweaty in all that garb! We start very early in the morning while it is still cool. We have a big tank sprayer on wheels we pull behind our riding lawn mower. It runs on the lawn mower battery. We got an extra length of hose so we can cover more territory. One of us drives the lawn mower while the other sprays. I could do it by myself, but it takes longer to have to keep stopping to move the mower ahead. We wash the tank out thoroughly after spraying and run clear water through the wand when we have finished. Aren't you cold climate people lucky??? Nancy

Oh my yes, I am doing a little quilting. A blue and cream quilt just popped up out of nowhere, LOL. I stole two of the September lotto blocks I fell in love with, and went from there. I decided to put a Carpeter's Wheel in the centre and use the blue jewel boxes around it, but may shift gears mid-stream. I am taking the smaller blue/cream scraps and instead of throwing them in a scrap sack, immediately sewing them on foundations blocks in a crazy quilt pattern. When the big quilt top gets done, I'll automatically have a smaller blue/cream crazy quilt done in the same fabric. This may get finished off as a welcome to the world gift for my newest step g'grandchild. We'll be going to the farm to spend the holiday for a cookout with my son and his family (just cross- country about twenty minutes). Aside from that, no plans for the long weekend. We are getting rains, yeah!

I've finally gotten around to Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel and it is very easy book to read. I'm glad I'm listening rather than reading because the margins would be covered with arguments and I'm sure my blood pressure would be through the roof. Listening moves me along to quickly to get too invested in counterpoints. He cherry picks the data that supports his theory and ignoring what doesn't. I was willing to believe his biological arguments because, well, I'm no biologist. But when he started the discussion of the domestication of animals, I thought of all the recent research on the expression of genes that makes his entire premise wrong. I hate it when people get interesting ideas about the way the world happened and "feel" that the idea is just too great to rigorously verify.