I agree, Wal-Mart here was loaded with canning stuff a week or so ago so I bought pickling spice.

There have been two canning seasons in a row with lid shortages. Maybe this year the folks who never really got around to planting that pandemic garden or doing any canning will realize that they have enough lids to last a lifetime. I'm hoping all needs for canning lids will be met this year.

Walmart has plenty of Golden harvest canning lids and saw 60 boxes on the shelf a week ago for $1.97 ea next to Kerr lids at $2..97 ea. Newell Corp. owns both brands including Ball, and is competing against it's own brands of ball and Kerr with their Golden harvest lids, and a strange Business strategy I don't understand.

What I do understand is why folks who never canned bought lids and supplies. It boils down to basic survival instincts and have no ill feelings toward these people with good intentions, but canning lid availability is solely in the hands of one company and they desperately need competition.

I use about 200 lids a year and know others who use 500 lids, and our buying strategies have changed. Instead of buying for the present year the strategy has changed to buying for the next year or two in advance. I also believe high demand will continue for canning lids because of the uncertainty we live in now, and those pandemic gardeners will keep buying lids for the next emergency like an Inflation garden or any other disaster garden because the pandemic shortage has taken seed in the minds of many.

Although more have come out of the bushes in the past two years with all the senseless food and household item hoarding and stockpiling going on, there will always be people with Chicken Little attitudes who will do what they will do.

I think that is an ugly characterization of people who do food storage. There are a variety of reasons to store food- religious, food uncertainty, cost uncertainty. All good and valid reasons to store food.

We are of course all entitled to our opinions. But characterizing others actions in storing food as senseless, with 'Chicken Little' attitudes seems unneccesarily adversarial.

I've noticed more people are using canning jars for storing different grains/spices/pasta, to use as crafts, drinking glasses and to decorate their modern farmhouse kitchens. They have more uses than just canning food. I have one at camp I use as a flower vase and some others I use as fly catchers. I also like them for storing left over paint and bacon grease to make bird suet.

"I know it runs counter to your apparent habit of stalking my comments and criticizing them (rather than just disagreeing), if you look a bit closer, you'll see the words you cite concerned the panicked hoarders."

The Idea most humans can just eat fresh foods to survive is absurd, and a dream but I'd love to live in that world. Humans have been storing and preserving food since they existed and continues to this day. So storing more than one can eat is an instinctive trait that has been inherited over 1000's of generations and stored in the genes, which influences the action without reason and is related to survival. This is the rational reason people hoard, and also the same reason others attack hoarders because of there own fears and survival instincts.

Sharing is also a trait developed from the same process as survival but the instinct of sharing will often be overshadowed by the instinct to survive. Thinking people will abandon their instincts of survival through social pressure is also absurd, and is like convincing a squirrel to give up it's nuts. In a survival situation sharing rarely extends beyond a small group and forced sharing always comes from the entitled or affiliated elites such as a political party or movement.

I fear a need to prepare less from a natural disaster and more from a man made disaster right now, with a elevated instinct to hoard.

Elizabeth, there's a difference between disagreeing with a comment and criticizing one. If I find a comment for which I have a different view, I'll often (not always) say so. The source I pay little attention to.

"I fear a need to prepare less from a natural disaster and more from a man made disaster right now, with a elevated instinct to hoard."

You're not alone in being concerned about last year's lawless conduct perpetrated by idiots. Fortunately, the rule of law and justice will prevail. Nothing to worry about.