Prep Genrl Weekly Prep Thread: April 5 ~ 11, 2020

[ReneeT]

Morning, All! Hope this week finds everyone doing as well as can be expected.

I had a 3 day weekend off work.... Work. Sigh. Some co-workers are dealing well with the impact of the Corona virus, and some - are not. I worked Thursday night with an are not - and then the third nurse got ill (emesis) right after report and went home, so it was freak out, doom and gloom, we're all gonna die with only myself and the CNA for an audience for the 12 hours of the shift... I swear, I'm gonna put in another requistion for a tranquilizing dart gun or Ativan atomizer - haven't managed to get either one yet despite multiple requisitions during my 21 years on this unit, but I'm still holding out hope

Once I got off work I changed into street clothes and then did some shopping for people who don't need to be out in the public and dropped it off on doorsteps on my way home. I was beat by the time I got home so fell in bed right after my shower and slept off and on for a few hours. Once up, I read for a bit, then did a few things around the house. Yesterday was household chores plus some down time to relax - no grandkids due to not wanting to give them hospital cooties, ditto no walking with the neighbor lady, so mostly decompressing from work by reading and napping.

Today will be catching up on laundry (hanging it on the line), a teeny bit of planting - mostly annual flowers, but also some spinach and some beets for greens. Later in the day or tomorrow morning will be set aside for getting the leaves off the top of the raised potato beds so that they can warm up for planting later in the week, moving the bags of leaves that will be used for mulch, and cleaning up the flower beds in front of the house. Hoping that I can talk Hubby into tilling at least a little bit of one of my gardens to disturb the weeds that grew last year when they lay fallow - we did keep them mowed, so I hope the weed pressure isn't too horrible. I'll get the neighbor over to do them later if Hubby gets stubborn on me; he thinks we don't need so much garden.

Back to work Monday and Tuesday nights. Wednesday will likely be spent sleeping/resting and maybe doing some tilling if the rain stays away. Thursday will be planting root veggies in the morning - Irish potatoes but no sweet potatoes yet as I don't trust it not to frost til mid May, golden beets for eating the roots, red beets for pickling. Then it will be nap time in preps for working again Thursday night. Whatever time I'm awake on Friday will be spent in mowing or weeding; and Saturday will likely be the same - no plans for an Easter Dinner gathering this year so no need to start a cooking or cleaning frenzy. Which reminds me - better text the family and let them know that as well....

You folks all take care out there; stay safe, stay as calm as you can...

 

[Marseydoats]

I've started doing partial loads of laundry instead of waiting until I have a full load. I'm scared the power is going to go off and I DO NOT like washing clothes by hand.
Buying gas every day and keeping the car topped off.
Instead of leaving leftovers until I have to give them to the chickens, I've been trying to make sure the humans eat them. Which is not making the dog or the chickens happy...

 

[nomifyle]

I always let my laundry pile up to full loads, mainly because my mother told me to do full loads and doing laundry at a laundry mat. Maybe I can unlearn that at 73.

Judy

 

[moldy]

Did some canning, and made a huge batch of Rescue Remedy flower essence for my co-workers. I'm taking it tomorrow for anyone who wants some to take it. Everyone is getting so irritable, salty, cranky -whatever you want to call it.

 

[hiwall]

Finished the outdoor weather-proof battery box for my solar system. With that done now I can start on installing the panels on the roof. I had thought I had everything here but I had bought 1" stainless bolts for holding down the panels and now see I need 1-1/2" bolts which I ordered a few days ago so they should be here in a couple more days. Every day I get more done.

 

[SouthernBreeze]

Nothing in the prepping category being done here other than ordering a few items online to keep my pantry as stocked as I can. Nothing major, though. More of the "like to have" things. We're still waiting another week, before going out.

I did manage to get outdoors a few days to get some yard work done. It's been too wet to start a garden. I did get one small raised bed ready for planting squash, but the ground still isn't warm enough to plant.

I also got mine and Cary's closets cleaned out, and switched over to summer wear. That was a job. Some things got thrown away, and some sacked up to take to the Salvation Army. I'm trying to downsize my wardrobe, too. I just don't need as many clothes as I have. I'm trying to only stick with basic wear clothing. Getting too old and tired of trying to stay up with all these new fangled clothing styles. I've got much more room in my closet, too.

 

[nomifyle]

I was going to order some dog treats on Amazon, last time I ordered them was 6-8 weeks ago. The went from 96 cents to 10.00 on one package. I still have some but just wanted to boost my supply, well not at that price I won't. I've got enough to last for the duration.

Judy

 

[Digger]

Our feed store went to call in and pick up only this week. Friday we hubby has a dr appointment for some blood work. We will get more feed while we are in town. I want some sweet pepper starts. My seed has not come up yet. For the most part, the garden is looking good. I am just hoping next weeks cold snap moderates a few more degrees.

My kids both work at a food processing plant. The boss told our daughter that they may be shutting down one line because restaurant food is not selling fast enough. They have a toddler and she would not mind a lay off so she could stay home with him.

I froze some pulled pork hubby made. That will give us some easy, quick meals when we need one.

 

[20Gauge]

We got our new planter on line this weekend. Planted it full of peppers. Then the boy cat got into it and decided it would be fun to play in. We then replanted it and re-secured it. We should be getting some production this fall.

 

[moldy]

All the Flower Essences gone in a little over 24 hours!! Guess I will make a few more. I had a lot of people ask me about them and thank me for making them. They really do help. I got at least 2 new clients out of it (although that's not really why I made them for work).

 

[prudentwatcher]

I had to go to Walgreens to pick up my 90 day prescriptions. It was my weekly trip out for this week. They had no tp, milk, eggs or hand sanitizer. I did get laundry detergent, distilled water, paper plates, potato chips, peanut butter, pancake mix and oreos. Better half is making a quick run to Publix to pick up items for an elderly friend and will get bread and ricotta cheese and a few other things. Neighbor bought a flat of strawberries and will be bringing some over for us.

Good news is that I had been working for a company as a temp for almost two years. Didn't have time to figure out a way for me to work at home before we got the stay home order. Now they are hiring me on their payroll and I will be going back to work, part-time at first, then full-time when things get back to "normal". Some paycheck is better than no paycheck, so I am thankful for that.

 

[ginnie6]

I made my weekly trip out this morning. It was a madhouse but we're set for a bit. The garden is coming along nicely. We had a storm roll thru last night and had hail like you wouldn't believe. I was afraid we'd loose everything but it all looks good this morning. The internet guy was here this morning to install some extenders to try and improve our coverage. With several working at home, school, and a couple binge watching now it's been kinda hard to get online during the day. I've done a lot of yard work though so that's good.

 

[nomifyle]

After a month I finally made a trip to walmart. They were monitoring the number of people going in the store but that was it. I didn't see anyone cleaning anything, some employees were wearing masks but most were not. I had my safety glasses on to protect my eyes, gloves and wore my mask most of the time. I think I had it on wrong and it was seriously uncomfortable. The only limit they was on the usual limited things. Only one loaf of bread and they were fairly well stocked on it. The milk looked pretty well stocked. And they had toilet paper, of course, I didn't need any. I was able to buy six cases of 24 pk sam's brand soda, three different kinds and two bottles of soda. They had water, but not as much as "normal", I got one case although I still have a good bit. I've used a few cans of mandarin oranges so I got six cans, and I also got four cans of the great value mixed vegetables, I really like those. I didn't get any dairy products although there was a decent amount of whatever. I did get candy snacks, DH introduced me to orange slices (unfortunately) and I got two of every kind of package they had and puffy peppermints.

The only thing we really needed was soda and tomato cages. They only had the really cheapy kind of those so we went to tractor supply and bought the good kind.

DH paid for everything, which was nice.

I wanted to go to dollar tree, but skipped it because, for one reason I was able to get the candy snacks at walmart and second by the time I got out of walmart I could barely walk because my hip was killing me. I did slather my hip and back with rub and took a pain pill, but it all wore off.

I was kind of surprised that women were in there with their children, mostly seemed like teenagers, but no one was misbehaving though.

I have a few more tomato plants to pick up from my friend, creole and one cherry. One of the goats pulled up by the roots one of my two cherry tomato plants. After that home for the duration I hope.

Judy

 

[hiwall]

Our oldest son who has been well aware of prepping but had never done anything. A few years ago he did buy a small greenhouse and practiced growing garden plants but only as a learning experience.
Now he and his wife have jumped in with both feet. They had a truck dump a load of black dirt for their new large garden, they bought a hand crank meat grinder and flour mill. When the stores in their area restocked they really beefed up all their food and supply storage. He is now going to put up a rain catchment system. They also now have a some chickens. And they are thinking about a small solar system for their house (though they do have a 200 watt system on the RV).
They had done extensive research on prepping/homesteading for several years but now are actually doing it. Both are active shooters so that has always been covered. Makes me pretty happy.

 

[Digger]

Hubby had a dr appointment. His blood work was back to normal thank goodness and he had lost 7 pounds. I could not go in with him this time. I usually do, but I was ok waiting in the truck.

While in town we did several errands. We needed a ballasts for a light fixture. We went to the commercial electrical supply store for that. Later we were glad we skipped Lowes for that as they were packed with people. We picked up parts at 2 different places, and had bearing pushed off and a new one pushed on at the machine shop. We did a pick up at the feed store. They included the wrong dog shampoo so we will exchange that next trip. We went in Harps in our closest town. We were there early before the dr appointment. It was pleasant with few customers. We got a few items and I found Mortgage Lifter tomatoes in 4 packs. The hardware store up the street had the red lantanas my mother in law had asked for. Again not a lot of people at the hardware store either. We live about 10 miles from the closest town, but there's a plant nursery out here. We stopped in and got another blueberry and grape. Again, few people. Yay!

The garden is looking good. But we are supposed to get near freezing a night or two next week. I hope that changes. It could ruin the peach and plum harvest. They are both loaded with baby fruit.

 

[prudentwatcher]

I was making a pound cake this afternoon to have for dessert tonight (with fresh strawberries and whipped cream) and the mixer broke. It was twenty years old or so (little handheld one). Hopped on to Amazon and ordered another one and bought some more underwear while I was there.

Also have a friend whose husband has shingles. He has been to the doctor and has gotten the medication for it, but is in a lot of pain and is having a hard time of it. My better half is a retired nurse so we are always getting phone calls about "what should I do" from our friends. The medicine has been hard on him and he has been throwing up a lot and is starting to get dehydrated. They didn't have any Gatorade or Pedialyte on hand and the grocery stores closed at 8pm. She couldn't get out earlier as she has 5 year old twins, a mother with Alzheimers and a disabled aunt all living with her. I grabbed a couple of bottles of gatorade and drove over and met her out front (wearing my mask). Killed me that I couldn't go in and see the girls (my honorary granddaughters) whom I haven't seen in three weeks, but we are trying to protect the older two persons in the house. Nice to be able to help out a bit.

 

[Journey]

prudentwatcher, bless you for helping out your friend and her husband! And I know what you mean about not being able to see the honorary grands. I have two boys that call me “Mimi” and I haven’t seen them in over a month. Their dad has a compromised immune system and I’m staying away due to that.