"It Came From The Shed"

A few weeks ago, rummaging around, I found some rather old boxes of canning jars in the shed. The roof had leaked on them, the boxes were nasty, so I stole away about 9 half pints that were empty, took them in and washed them.  But that left several jars with some unnamed crud in them - labels gone, rings rusty and I waiting until today to go after those jars - I want to make some dandelion apple jelly!

So I posted on our Facebook page (do feel free to join it if you haven't already, BTW!) that I was going after the jars as soon as the clouds cleared. I jokingly asked if people wanted pictures, and actually got some yeses!  So while the clouds never did clear, I went out after these jars - and here's the pics.

Tools gathered - bucket with soapy bleach water, trash,. can opener.

The boxes in the garage:

Yep, that's dried mold. Yep, I wore gloves.

The mystery jars.

What was in the mystery jars - it was purplish-brown, runny, and had this residue in the bottom.  The jars were still fully sealed, the rings were tight but rusted, so I threw out the rings as well.  As I emptied each jar into the trash, it went straight in the bucket of soapy bleach water.

No mold, no odd spores, so I took the chance and smelled one.  Now I know what it was - these jars date from 1999!  Let's see if you can guess - I'll reveal it later.

So the jars got washed in the yard, and are now in the sink doing another soak.  I regained 12 quarter pints, and 7 half pints.

Amber - of my longer time friends and a follower on Facebook, told me this:   

"Don't do it!!!!!! I watched a horror movie as a kid in the early 70's that had jars with an unknown substance in them. As the jars were opened things happened to the people!!!! I remember this movie to this day! I could not been more than 5 at the time!"

Well, that led to this:

Don't worry, that's not sludge from the jar, that's meat marinade - closest we could find in color... the first jar is a jar of pear butter I made a couple weeks ago.

My daughter is a good sport, even if she couldn't stop laughing when I was trying to take the picture.

So, what do you think the stuff from the shed was?