Saturday Thoughts...Michelle is filling her new pantry!

Since she got her new pantry shelves last month, my daughter-in-law Michelle has been busy filling them up.  She has been canning meat..Beef, Pork and Chicken to help keep them going.  She got the pork on sale for 99¢ a pound last week! And she bought the beef and chicken on sale too.

Left: Canned Chicken Breasts, R. top: Canned Pork Loin,
 R. Bottom: Canned Beef  

She says “I can’t remember the type of beef roast (hot pack) it was but I was able to get 5 pints. The 3 whole pork loins I cold packed and got 28 pints total. The chicken was hot packed, boneless chicken breast, I got 8 pints.”

She added a lot to that meat shelf in her new pantry!  The shelf with the boxes and empty jars on it now is filled with pints of canned meat and poultry!
One of the biggest problems is trying to buy canning lids…she had plenty of jars.  They hit the nearest Amish store, the farm store, the grocery and discount stores…nothing, and this is in farm country were many people can from their gardens and farms all the time.
Our son called us…I had a dozen boxes of Ball lids of 12 per box that I could spare so we made a quick trip and met in the town half way between our places to pass on the lids.  Luckily, I had purchased some bulk lids (packed 345 to a tube) before the pandemic started, and hadn’t started on them yet, and still had some more Ball lids too so I could afford to share some.  Right now, I can't get those bulk lids anywhere either.
We’re happy to see them getting their food storage in place; and they see a new urgency as our son had his hours cut down this week too.   His work had been unaffected up until now.  But they are both good managers and hard workers so we know they will get through this downturn.  Living in the country where they have a garden and chickens helps too.