Ball had coupons in the Sunday paper a couple of weeks (?) ago, $3 off 2 cases. Expiration 7/29/12. They run them quite often through the summer. You can also sign up for their newsletter at their website, though I don't recall them ever mailing or emailing me any. Made pickles last night and discovered I only had a few lids left, plus a dozen (unopened box) rings and lids I bought at Goodwill! Mostly I have WM lids - so time to hit the store to get more RM lids even if I don't buy jars (which I probably will). Too bad no coupon for lids. W@lm@rt is the best place I've found around here for jars and lids, even though their prices keep going up. May be time to hit TSC and see if they've put their stuff on sale yet - seems to me they sold out/pulled stuff from shelves well before Labor Day last year. My grandma used to have a big walkin pantry with a window on 1 side and cabinets/counter/shelves on 2. And the farmhouse used to have an even bigger one (again with a window) with just shelves. Sadly, both houses have been renovated. And I wasn't into canning when we built our new house so have to keep my stuff in basement. Though I always did like to stock up, and asked builder for walk-in pantry with shallow shelves on 3 sides. He said the pantry was too narrow, couldn't do it. But my linen closet in master bath is the same width and they made that deep (stand-in), crazy with 16" shelves, I've got over a foot of wasted space in front of them. But don't want to store jars up there - too humid ;-)

I just did my first batch and followed a set of detailed instructions online - it called for 5 cups apple cider vinegar and 1 cup water. Also - I jarred them whole and just cut a slit in the bottoms.... How will I know if they are good to eat when I open them? Smell? All this talk of botulism and other stuff is discouraging me and makes me feel like its not worth the risk. Ugh....

I guess our metal building is what you'd like to try to avoid, but I'll post it anyways. We did try to blend it some with our house except fell in love with the red. Honestly the cost and maintenance of doing metal was so much less than anything else we priced. At first we were going to do a board/batten with hardi, but that was 20K more than what we have now and would require painting still for maintenance. All our options used a metal building for the shell and had different options for the siding. It was important to us to have an overhang on the roof just like a house would and have windows etc. to minimize the look of a normal metal building. You could use landscaping etc. to minimize the look as well and pick colors that won't stick out. We added the same stone we have on the front of the house on the bottom of the building. We haven't gotten around to landscaping yet. The thing is the developer in our neighborhood didn't want to approve ours with metal siding which is why the board/batten was on the table, but then as they were framing ours a neighbor down the street put up a regular metal building without overhang, normal silver metal windows (we used same as on the house with divided lights), so we called the developer on it and he said well theirs sits behind a tree and isn't as visible. Hmmm you can't approve one thing for one person and not for another, so we saved ourself quite a bit thanks to our neighbor. BTW the tree is gone now as it fell in a windstorm we had.

I wasn't criticizing the way you do it. I was just noting that I changed my method after reading what the NCHFP recommended. Before I read that, I'd never really given it much thought, except to notice that when I used our in-ground tornado shelter for autumn and winter storage of canned goods, I did have to remove the bands because they rusted if I didn't. Now I store them all inside the house itself (in many different places since the pantry can only hold so many) and remove the bands before packing them away in plastic storage boxes with lids to go into various closets or cabinets, under the beds, etc. If a jar goes bad (which really doesn't happen often), I won't even know it until I open up one of the storage totes anyway. I guess I'd notice if one in the pantry or in a kitchen cabinet went bad because I'm in and out of the pantry daily, but it is rare that they go bad anyhow. Mostly I just don't want for them to corrode or rust. Regarding the Ball Complete Book of Canning from 2006, I have it but haven't used it in years, other than to look up a recipe for someone. I tend to go with what is written on the NCHFP's website when it comes to practices and procedures because they have all the latest info based on government-funded research, and I like to stay current or at least know when changes occur. I don't think the NCHFP gets research money like it once did (budget cuts year after year, it seems) because they don't do updates very often at all any more. I generally only become aware of something changing if someone on the Harvest Forum happens to mention it. Otherwise, I'd likely never know when they change the rules of the game.