Leslie, someday I am going to retire to a life like yoursSo about adding lemon ... the recipe I've seen for canning apple butters calls for adding "bottled lemon juice" to each jar. But I have a "thing" agains bottled lemon juice and would prefer to use fresh-squeezed lemons. Will I kill us all if I don't use bottled lemon juice? Our lives may depend on you, Julie.I am for sure not eating the stuff we found. A few years ago I cleaned out another dark forgotten corner of this house I found some home-canned stuff as old as I am ... Prune Conserve from 1965. Tempting, huh? I probably had to pry it out of Dad's hands ... he'll eat anything ... which might explain why it was hidden away in the first place. I'm just glad I was able to persuade Nelson to eat some home-made strawberry rhubarb freezer jam I made this year. He likes it so much he helped make some blueberry rhubarb freezer jam, too. This is great as I was getting tired of telling him, "NO!" when he begged for store-bought "Grape" jelly. He kept telling me "but it tastes good!" and I kept asking him "compared to what?" Now he knows.Token comments kinda sort on topic: We're building a new section of coop this week before the rain starts. I may discuss it over in the Oregon thread. I've been advised to stay inside while the guys work. But I may just need to go gather some eggs or something so I can steal a look at their progress. I think maybe all our girls except the bantam breeds are laying now.
