Yesterday, I shared my delight at getting eight boxes of jars to repurpose. Today, the sort, clean and spray work has begun.

It's a process: I set the unusable ones aside for recycling after I've cannibalised the universal lids so that I can save them for spares - lids don't last forever. Among the loot, were some really pretty, different bottles that I'll be keeping to use either for gifts or to fill with special bits for myself and/or for gifts. Also among the loot were four giant jars: they are expensive and I have two which take turns to house mother. When I had a glut of lemons and wanted to pickle and preserve them, I borrowed another pair. One I've returned, but the other's still working at pickling until she can go back home. I shall treasure these four and am already scheming as to what will go into them...

While I sort and fiddle, the Husband resprays the branded lids. I can source new ones, but with the cost of the courier, it works out more expensive.

I am probably about half way there with the soaking and, scraping and cleaning off the labels. The others will wait for next Sunday or sooner if I get a bee in my bonnet.

Once clean, I line them up on the dining room table and organise them so that I know what's what, what can be used for what and then pack the same jars (or sizes) in marked boxes. Already, I have a full box (24) of the standard round jars I use for marmalade and probably another 24 waiting for treatment. I also have a box of about 18 chutney bottles that I've been squirreling away: apricot season is approaching. I have to decide whether to use these for the apricot chutney or to save them for the peach chutney which, this last year, has proved more popular. It will depend on the number of similar ones I can amass in the next while.

Decisions...

and in a weird link thanks to my reference to squirreling things away...

What has happened to @ginabot?

For those who haven't met Gina, she's the blockchain's essential virtual PA. Or was.

Once registered, you can tell her what notifications you want, from mentions, to when your BFF has published a new post, and a whole lot more. She lets you know via a Discord DM.

But she's either gone on strike or died. I've not had any notifications from her since about six days ago. At 2022-10-10T20:07:21 local time, to be precise, and when she told me that the new edition of the Hive Engagement League had been published.

I've been into the Discord and tagged @neander-squirrel, the developer, and have had no response. I'm not the only one to try to re-register (we know that sometimes she used to lose her brain and we had to reboot): @shadowspub, @readthisplease, @lanzjoseg and @cashheaven did she wake up for you? She didn't for me.

Now what?

I've spent the afternoon going through my Gina "backend" because I'll have to find another way of managing my Hive life. This is also a long way to saying -

If I've missed a post and you think I've been quiet, I have because RL is hectic at the moment, but not that quiet that I've not been able to drop in occasionally. I've also spent time going through who I follow using @peakd, and unfollowed stale accounts and followed "new" accounts and "old" friends . It's a start. In the next few days (once I've worked out how they work, I'll do some lists...

In the meantime, I do hope Gina's not dead or that someone will resurrect her or replace her with a new and improved version. @buildteam, could you let us know because me queries have gone unanswered in your Discord.

TIA.

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma
Post script

If this post might seem familiar, it's because I'm doing two things:

• re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine....?
• and "re-capturing" nearly two years' worth of posts.

I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised appplications.

• From Wordpress, I use the Exxp Wordpress plugin. If this rocks your socks, click here or on on the image below to sign up.

• Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers' community.

Original artwork: @artywink

• lastly, graphics are created using partly my own photographs, images available freely available on @hive.blog and Canva.