Cherries and a Blow-out

No, no one had a blow out from eating too many cherries. But I was so excited to use my cherry pitter and can some cherries, I forgot basic canning info.  When you can, the bottles should be hot along with the fruit, etc.  I raw packed the cherries and made a very light syrup to pack them in.  (7 cups water + 1 cup honey) I had boiled the syrup, but then turned it down to skim the foam off the top.  It really wasn't that hot.  The cherries were room temp and I had just taken the bottles from the dishwasher.  I filled and packed as usual, but when I put it in the bwb, the bottom of the bottle blew out and the cherries floated around.  My DH said to just process them as usual and pull the cherries out afterwards, along with the bottle bottom.  In this case, haste truly does make waste.

I didn't pick the cherries myself, I got them on sale at the grocery.  I did use the pitter and found that it is missing a small rubber thingy that removes the pit from the cherry.  About half of the pits were still attached, but it was still much faster than doing it all by hand.  I guess you have to expect that from something that was 30 years-old.