Happy spring!*

 Well, friends, I did it.  I had the dry pinto beans out, so I filled a quart canning jar with dry beans and weighed them (if you don't know what I'm talking about, click here.  Don't forget to read the footnotes).  All the beans I had, which weighed a little under 1½ pounds, came up to where a 1 inch headspace would be on the quart jar, and 1 inch headspace is the amount of headspace specified in the recipe.  So yeah.  Not sure where they're getting that 2¼ pounds of beans per quart jar from.

It was a full day yesterday.  I spontaneously decided to make and can some chicken stock.  I am not a spontaneous person.  I am a planner, and I don't like it when things don't go according to plan, even good things.  Case in point: sometimes I decide to make cookies and take the butter out of the fridge to soften.  It is not unusual for that butter to still be on the counter softening 3 or 4 days later.  Because I can't make cookies, or do pretty much anything, spontaneously.  

I decided to make the chicken stock, because I was going to be cooking beans in the pressure cooker, and I figured I might as well make the stock first†, since I was going to haul the beast out.  And I already had all my pressure canning stuff out** from canning the beans the other day, so I figured I might as well can the stock.  I felt strange the whole time, because this wasn't something that I had been planning to do, and it feels like too big of a job to just start on a whim.  Yet, there I was.  Acting like a spontaneous person.

I say it was a full day, because it felt busy.  I crossed 11 items off my to-do list, when normally I shoot for 5, and am happy with 3.  The stock was not on the list--nor were the beans.

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Anyway.  It's spring.  Both meteorologically and astronomically speaking. 

I was appalled when I discovered that meteorologists say that spring starts on March 1 and ends May 31.  I mean, everyone knows that the first day of spring is the day of the vernal equinox, right?  And summer begins on the summer solstice, right?

But we all know that the equinox is not all it's cracked up to be.  At least, those of us who either read or wrote my equinox blog post know.  And this year, I decided.  Spring started March 1 for me.  It's easier to keep track of, and I'm still feeling a little bitter about the whole equinox thing, so, yeah.  I'm feeling pretty good about it, and I'm not going to let anyone bully me into not letting spring start until March 20 or 21.  So there.  It's spring, and I'm happy about it.

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* I feel like this blog post is much more about chicken stock and beans than it is about spring, but I'm keeping the title.  I hope you don't feel too too baited and switched.

† I've been saving the bones from the 10 pound bag of chicken wings I bought because Hubby wanted chicken wings and no one had them except for Sam's Club.  We finally finished the bag on Sunday.  I'm a little sad that I didn't make stock from our Christmas turkey carcass, but I forgive myself, because at the time we were not using much chicken stock, and now, well, we are.  Next turkey, I'm making stock.

** Not to worry, friends.  The canning stuff has been put away, so there will be no more spontaneous canning projects in the near future.