Shortages, shortages

When I plant my garden, I never intend to can and freeze much of my produce.  I feel I'm doing well, at my age, to simply keep things growing that we can eat as soon as it's picked.  The exception to that would be tomatoes, because I use a lot of tomatoes.  I like breaded tomatoes, made-from-scratch spaghetti sauce, and lots of chili in winter.  I do freeze some sweet corn if I have extra, which I usually do; but never more than a couple of gallon bags full for reunions and holiday meals and perhaps half a dozen pints for us.

It looks like I'll be freezing tomatoes too.  There seem to be no canning lids anywhere except Amazon, where the price is sky-high.  I have frozen tomatoes before, and they work fine for my needs.  It seems some foreign country bought out Ball and Kerr, and they will only sell them on Amazon, Walmart, and Ace Hardware; and since they are the only ones selling them, they have a monopoly.  So like everything else, they cost more... IF you can find any.  An employee at our local Walmart told me they can't even get any canning supplies.  Here's the article I found about the shortage. 

Another thing I've noticed is that Walmart can't keep enough of their store brands items, especially their off-brand of round crackers.  I've bought off-brands for years, but two out of my three last trips to Walmart, they had plenty of Hi-Ho's but none of their own brand, which is about half the price of the name brands.  I'll have to stock up on store brand crackers next time I go to Aldi, because that's all they carry.

By the way, it seems a popcorn shortage is coming, too.

I felt really super all day yesterday.  I was in the garden for hours, picking strawberries, hoeing weeds, pulling weeds, and tilling in places.  When evening came, I decided to take a small walk and made it back to the pond and then to the Green Cathedral.  There was one hill that really made my knee hurt, but other than that, it was very enjoyable... the first time in ages I have walked back there at all.  It was probably only a twenty minute walk, but I was happy to be able to at least walk back to the trees.

The new header picture at the top of the page is taken from my back deck right after sunrise this morning.  If you wonder what that thing is that's sticking out of my yard a few inches like a chimney, it's where our septic tank is; just one of the things you live with, out in the country.