Dec. 28, 2011

Cleaning jars before canning

I wrote about the experience of cleaning out the fruit room and mentioned the cleaning of the jars toward the end of it. Well I was referring to the task of preparing the quart, pint and two quart bottles for the canning process. I would go retrieve them from the Grainery and then rinse them out with a hose on the front lawn and then take them in where we would wash them with soap and water. I hated that job mostly due to the fact that Black Widow spiders loved the bottles. I do not know why but apparently the open bottles stored in a dusty second level of the same building where we stored grain for the chickens had an appeal to the bugs upon which the spiders would live. It never mad sense to me that they could be there but maybe they just slept there and would hunt other places, not likely though since a spider just weaves a web and waits for their food as I understand it. Anyway there was always plenty of dust in the bottles along with the spiders but no bugs, nut have all been eaten which was my greatest fear also. Anyway I would go and get t he box after box of bottles from the grainery and haul them back to the yard, rinse them out and take them into the house. The ones where I would empty the contents from the fruit room were actually harder since I usually had a lot more scrubbing to get the fruit juices and other stuff out with just cold water from the hose. As I think about this I always seem to mention the Black Widow spiders and none of the other species that were also in the bottles but I am sure it is because of my dislike for them the most.