the meaning of everything
She wouldn't let me have a single jar not a one. Nelly - talking about her sister Hildy
She canned faithfully from her garden for the past 30 years but never, ever, shared. Her husband had an ulcer and never went in for the canned goods so they just continued to amass. Scrupulously labeled through the years they just stood in attendance of an obsession.
My canning bible states that food stored more than a year has flavor and nutrition drop-off markedly and food stored over two years should not be consumed or even fed to pigs in fear of botulism. These canned jars reach back to the early 80's.
There is a wide assortment of colorful molds in many of the canned jars, a paralytic reminder of the neurotoxins within - the deadly plenty.
In every-man-for-himself it is always, I got mine - go get yours. So, we glean and we hoard and we reserve and we tarry for the moment when an evanescent sense of fulfillment may flutter past our soul. Enough is enough is never enough as the accordant dogs bide by our side waiting for their meager ort.
