Computer glitch

My computer has been slowing down a bit at a time. I kept telling Jeff it had problems. Last evening it bit the dust.

We called a friend who is a whiz at fixing computers and he and his family were all set to pop over, they were already out enjoying the beautiful weather, when Jeff was able to get some kind of fix it program running. It took several hours to clean it up but I think its good to go again. Jeff was also able to back up the computer to a portable hard drive.

Mollie and I finished cannng the bacon this evening at 9pm. The last batch was in the canner and Jeff and I went out to eat while Mollie watched the canner. She called and said there was steam coming from around the edge of the canner. She shut it off and when I got home I found the gasket messed up. I have a large canner but I was pretty sure it would not fit under the hood on the stove of the 5th wheel. Jeff wanted to see for himself if it would fit. Upon actually trying it we found that it does indeed fit, but barely. It does sit squarely over the burner so I transferred the jars to the big canner and was able to finish canning the bacon tonight.

Total bacon canned was 17 quarts and 52 pints. It seemed like out of every batch 2-3 jars didn't seal. So each batch had a few with new seals and re canned. At the end I had two quarts that didn't seal and probably will end up with a few pints that didn't seal. I will just use them istead of recanning. We will see tomorrow.

We will take Sunday off and on Monday we will begin canning the pork butt. I am estimating 96 quarts of pork butt. We will see how close my estimate is.

Jeff unloaded my wringer washer from the storage trailer and helped me set up a washing area at the end of the storage trailer. He installed shut off valves on the filling hose and the emptying hose. Now its easy to fill and empty the tub. I also like the power wringer because its easier to wring out bigger items. I had already washed the clothes by hand so when the wash area was set up I washed Jeff's work coat and two rugs. Those type of things are harder to wash by hand. And almost impossible to wring out by hand. The power wringer will be very helpful with jeans too.

Having the wringer washer set up to use will also enable me to wash only every two or three days instead of every day. Washing by hand had to be done each day or it was too tiring for me to wash too many things by hand. I do have a system worked out so I know I can wash by hand if necessary.

One tip to keep from breaking zippers and buttons when putting them through a wringer is to fold the item of clothing so that the buttons lie flat and are covered with fabric. In other words fold the sides of a shirt over the middle where the buttons are. Same thing goes for zippers. Fold the fabric over the zipper and run through the wringer.