Mistakes were made...

Using 30-06 shells to measure and store Hodgdon Triple-7 is NOT a good idea.

Triple-7 is not "glazed". That is, it is not tumbled to knock off the corners and polish rough surfaces. FFg (the "g" stands for "glazed") black-powder flows well. Triple-7 has a distressing tendency to "cake" after sitting for a while. That means you have to poke something down into the shell to loosen up the powder to get it out of the shell. On days when Triple-7 is feeling pissy, it hangs up on the  shoulders of the case without aging. So, bad idea.

Sighting in

The sighting in of the muzzle-loader is roughed in. I got it about a half-inch high at 25 yards. Now I need to get out to a 100 yard range to refine things.

Portions of Michigan that are under CWD alerts have very liberal "muzzle-loading" season. I can use my primary, modern weapon under those conditions. The DNR wants the herd knocked back to limit the spread of CWD.

The point is that I don't NEED another muzzle-loader. I just want one in case the laws unexpectedly become much less permissive. 

A trip to the gym

I was feeling house-bound and it must have shown. Mrs ERJ suggested that I hit the gym to work off some excess energy.

I read that all of the cool kids are now using the rowing machine for exercise. I thought, "I know how to row a boat" and thought I would give it a whirl. 

I found that I had forgotten my gym shorts when I got to the parking lot so I made a side-trip to a sporting-goods store. I looked at the men's shorts and decided to take a pass. Brilliant, vivid colors that remind me of candy are not my thing.

So, I exercised in my jeans. But not on the rowing machine. Somebody had parked their water-bottle on the machine so I went to the dead-lift platform.

I started with 135 pounds (the bar + two 45 pound plates) for a warm-up. Then I went to 205 pounds, which is my maintenance weight, by adding two more 45 pound plates. Holy-smokes. I was weak. I struggled to get three reps.

Wait a minute...135 + 45 + 45 = 225 pounds.

I dropped back to 185 pounds to regain my confidence. I did three sets of 6 repetitions at that weight and decided that the rowing machine had to be available.

I went back and the water bottle was still parked on the machine.

However, a second machine had been dragged out of a corner and I used that one.

I got in twenty minutes before I called it a day.

I am not sure that I like the rowing machine. I will give it two or three more tries before I decide.

Canning notes

Four quarts of the soup-stock that I canned (diced zucchini and stewed tomatoes) have mold in them. I am not sure I am going to do that again.

---Post mortem--- The lids had crud between them and the rim of the jar. That is evidence that I did not cook the contents long enough BEFORE putting it into the jars. Vegetables and fruit have substantial amounts of air in the spaces between their cells and significant amounts of CO2 dissolved in their cell contents. Cooking purges those gasses BEFORE they go into the jar. Failure to cook them long enough results in the gas "blowing" solids between the seal and the rim of the jar as it attempts to escape. Three of the four quarts were from Lot B.

Low acid fruits

Tolman Sweet, an apple variety that I wrote about a week or so ago has a pH between 4.3 and 4.8 depending on ripeness and how much CO2 is dissolved in the juice. Since canning drives off the CO2, that makes apple juice made entirely from Tolman Sweet apples not acid enough to water-bath can according to the USDA.

Looking at the published data, that also holds for most Asian pear varieties. I am going to be tossing out some ginger-pear sauce from 2024 because of that.

One variable that isn't discussed very much are lime deposits that hard-water can leave inside of canning jars. Lime is calcium carbonate and will raise the pH of what you put into the jars. Maybe not a big deal for regular fruits but it could be a factor for varieties that are getting close to 4.6. Hard water deposits are easy enough to dissolve out of the jars with vinegar or vinegar + water.