First it was toilet paper. Then flour and yeast were scarce. Seeds! Gardening supplies! And eventually, canning lids.

I don’t need jars – I have more than plenty. I don’t need the rings that hold the lid in place; I reuse those, and I have two heaping boxes full of regular and wide mouth sizes.

But lids. Lids – the one-use-only component of a canning project – I still can’t find those.

Chuck saw a few boxes at the grocery store in November – wide mouth size – so he bought them all and wrapped them up for a Christmas gift. Yay! I use wide mouth for pickles, applesauce, and more.

But regular size? The smaller and more common lid size? The one I’ll need for jellies and jams, apple butter, and just about anything that goes in a half pint jar? I have plenty of jars. Plenty of rings. But I only have a few tiny boxes of lids.

I’ve put the word out. I have friends and extended family members searching their basements in case they might have some to spare. I keep checking all of my main sources: Fleet Farm, all of the hardware stores, grocery store aisles, and more. I’ve stopped making in person trips and started looking online as though I were ordering online to pick up in store. No luck – yet.

I managed to pick up a few odd sets, older or fancy colors, from garage sales last fall. Some sealed; some didn’t. My success ratio was okay – a little more than half were successful. But the rubber ring on a canning lid can dry out over the years, so there’s no guarantee of a good seal.

Now that I’ve vented, I will keep calm and carry on. I’ll keep checking my favorite stores, and I’ll hit the garage sale circuit with a vengeance come summer. Maybe some of last year’s cooks new to canning will have decided it’s too much work, and they’ll sell their supplies.

I can only hope – there must be a source out there somewhere.