Yesterday morning, I bought a new-to-me freezer. A friend of mine helped me find it on Facebook Market. It ended up costing me a fair amount of stress and about 1/4 the money I would have paid for a new one. The seller lives in an area of Vegas I haven't gone near since the early 90's. And given the rate at which this area grows, you might guess that I saw NOTHING familiar. I had directions from the internet which were rotten directions. I ended up "lost" twice. The first time I was fortunate to be able to stop and get directions. The second time I was able to figure out on my own that all I needed to do was backtrack--a lot. According to the internet, it should have been a 20 minute trip. It took me a full hour. I was really stressed by the time I got there. The lady showed no signs of bargaining on her price. I was a bit shocked at that in that she was obviously pretty well to do. I can tell you that her property is valued at about 2.5 times what mine is. I am driving a 16 year-old van. I saw a boat, an RV and a truck parked behind her house. If the freezer lasts me at least 2 years, it will have been a good investment, given that the life expectancy of a new freezer these days is around 8 years.
A friend of the person who helped me find the freezer, owns a truck. This guy who I'll call Mike, met me at the seller's and hauled that freezer home. I don't know how, but he managed to load it and unload it by himself. It is sitting close to where the old freezer was, but it is just maybe an inch or two wider than the old one. So, it was VERY hot and humid in the garage. He ended up just sitting it more or less near the hole from the old freezer, but much more out into the garage space. There is, for now no hope I'll park in the garage any time soon!
Sitting in front of the house is my old freezer. Sadly it still has some stuff in it. It is going to stink to high heaven if it's ever opened again. I'd go work on hauling some stuff out of it but the guy who put it there put it face first about 6 inches from the building. At this point there is no hope I'll be able to move it or open it..... I'm going to have to see if I can hire someone to haul it to the dump.
My last canner load did not go well though I'll be darned if I can figure out why. My canner is made to can a double-deck of jars. I put 8 wide mouth jars on the bottom, 2 wide mouth jars on the top and 6 regular mouth jars on the top. All the wide mouth jars had meat of some sort in them; the regular mouth jars had beans in them. The processing was done according to directions with all instructions scrupulously followed. I certainly didn't want to waste any food. Well, the results are freakish and I can't figure out what happened. All the wide mouth jars, both bottom and top rack sealed properly. NOT A SINGLE ONE of the regular mouth jars sealed. I don't have any explanation for the failure to seal. I also asked on a canning board I follow on Facebook and no one there has even hazarded a guess. I placed the jars of beans that did not seal in the new-to-me freezer and I'll still be able to use them. Thank goodness!
So today I'm doing laundry, cleaning, labeling, and putting away the jars that sealed and trying to do something about the kitchen. And I actually ate something before dinnertime--I fixed myself a serving of grits for which for some reason I had a craving. Anyway, I am very far behind on household stuff. I may not be canning, though I could easily justify one more load. But, I'll be busy..................
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