Field notes · 2026-09-15
You remember the weekend, not the year
The lid looks familiar. The date does not.
Most jars do not fail in the canner. They fail on the shelf, months later, when nobody can say which Saturday they were packed.
Write the batch once while the lids are still warm: the name, the method, the date, how many. That is the whole record. A Sharpie on the lid helps until it smears. A ledger still knows what the lid forgot.
Croft is that ledger. Not a safety certificate. A place to keep the date so the next jar you open is the one you meant to open.