I learned canning when I was a little girl with my Grandmother, & Mother and have taught my own girls how to can. We have been very successful with not havind unsealed jars. We have canned close to 100 25# boxes of tomatoes this year. Salsa, Stewed, Chili Sauce & Spag Sauce to name a few. We have followed the new rules to a T and still have several in a batch that do not seal with these new lids. We did 34 jars on Monday, waited the 24 hours before moving or washing them. Checked several times and found 5 that did not seal so I put new lids on and reprocessed them and they seemed to have sealed. When I went to wash the jars to store them, removing the rings found 2 more that had not sealed but I had previously checked the lids by touching and they were all sealed and indented. We want to make vegetable based soup to store for the winter but am afraid now to do it and put them on the shelf for fear the lids will pop and they will spoil. TRASH THESE NEW INVENTIONS AND GET BACK TO THE BASICS.

No cookie jars in my house ! I would have to refill it every day if I had one around, too much temptation. I will occasionally buy ONE really good big cookie at a great bakery or store in my area with the intention of eating it later. I did that yesterday a big, warm delicious chocolate chip cookie , they bagged it up, I had it eaten before I even got to my car!!! No will power :(

House chickens? LOL, those are very spoiled chickens indeed. Mine stay in their coop even at -20F. It's not heated but is well insulated and I have Michigan chickens who are used to the cold, mostly Rhode Island Reds. They do have an electric dish to keep their water from freezing. I have a sheet pan for the coop that scraps go into. If I'm trimming beef or pork, the raw fat chunks go into the pan with vegetable scraps, stale cornbread, leftover yogurt, this morning's oatmeal, leftover beans, etc. I don't feed them junk, like cake or chips. If it's trim from cooked meat, that goes in too. Liquid fat is either cooled until it hardens or if it is liquid at room temperature it is mixed into something, like oatmeal or their scratch grains. With only Elery and I, we accumulate enough scraps to feed the chickens a couple of times a week, and we have 30 chickens, so enough that everyone gets some, but not so much that it spoils or that the "girls" get too fat. Remember, their DNA is closest to the T-Rex, so the little dinosaurs would probably eat ME if they were big enough! Annie

OK, additional update - I did several more jar lids for 18 hours in isopropyl alcohol and it has taken the majority of the stink away, however it took a few hours in direct sunlight to remove the lions share of the remaining smell. There's a tiny bit left, but it's faint - I wouldn't feel bad storing my own stuff in these, but I'm hoping to use them for kefir grain starts and I would prefer to have no smell remaining. I'm hoping increasing the time of my soak to 24 hours and the time spent outside to a day will entirely eliminate the spice odor. Happy surprise is that the combo of IPA and sun has bleached all of the spice staining from the liners as well. I'm also testing a lid in some vodka to see if that works also, it does appear as though it's going to though, which will be nice as the isopropyl alcohol mixture I'm cycling lids through has turned yellow from the turmeric stain on my turmeric jar lid, and I have a lot of vodka and not a lot of IPA in the house.