Prep Genrl Weekly Prep Thread: June 11 ~ 17, 2017

[ReneeT]

Whoops - another week snuck up on me! Last week was a busy one - extra hours at work, hauling grandkids here and there, plus working in the gardens in my spare time. The sales seem to be for things we don't use, so I'm waiting in hopes that the mid-week ones have something worth stocking up on. 90* plus temps have left people a bit on the cranky side, and the full moon seems to have brought out the crazies in force - not just inside our psych unit, but out in the public world as well!

The gardens seem to be doing very well so far - though I'll need to be out watering them tomorrow if it doesn't rain. I also need to set out some pans of water for the bees - if the rotten raccoons will leave them alone and not tip them over!

I did have a good evening on Saturday - the hospital I work for celebrated their anniversary by hosting a very nice party for staff and their families - free food, drinks, sno-cones, kettle corn, face painting, bounce houses, a band, etc... Staff were able to get off unit long enough to grab some supper - and for me to find my family for some quick hugs before finishing my shift. I joined my family after I got off work and we listened to the band and played games for an hour or so until a very excellent fireworks display set to music ended the evening - a selection of music from Star Wars, Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah, and ending with 'God Bless America'. I am so blessed to work where I do - they do not bow to those condemning patriotism or religious beliefs.

Guess I'd better run down and take a couple of shirts out of the washer and hang them to dry - the grandsons are attending 'Super Hero Camp' this week and will be making 'capes' from these t-shirts tomorrow. The neighbor lady was disappointed because I have to work on Friday - she was planning to rope me into helping with tie-dying at Bible School (can't remember their theme this year.) In spite of that, she did promise to pick me up a fish dinner at the Legion benefit dinner being held Friday night; and gave me advance notice of what she's carrying to the Vietnam Vets benefit bake sale on Saturday at the same location - I'll have to get up early to get one of her yummy cinnamon rolls! I have to run in to town tomorrow so will pick her up some half size blue plates with stars on them to use to plate the cinnamon rolls. I can give them to her Wednesday morning after we finish weeding the flower bed under the church sign - the things I get roped into

 

[ReneeT]

It's a beautiful gray and drizzly Saturday morning here, with temps in the 70's So nice to have a break from hot weather!

The neighbor lady stopped by around 7:30 this morning to pick up the plates for the bake sale - and conned me into giving her $20! They are having a pie auction during the bake sale, so she kicked in $10 as did her 3 adult kids, and with my (and I guess Hubby's) $20, she can bid up to $60 on a pie - she promises to cut it into only 6 pieces This is for the Vietnam Vets benefit, so it is well worth the money - plus I will get pie

I know that a lot of my chatter on this thread likely sounds more like, well - chatter - and not about prepping at all. But I strongly believe that investing in, and being a part of your community is an important part of prepping. It helps you get to know not only who people are in your community - but also insight into them. Having that information is important in good times as well as in hard times - and I believe will be important in a survival type situation as well.

I still well remember overhearing something my father told my mother when I was about 8 years old - he'd pulled into the gas station on his way home from work on a Friday night to fill the car with gas and went inside to wait to pay. It was winter time, and a neighbor man was in with a 5 gallon oil can, getting fuel oil for their heating stove. He only had it filled half full because he said he was short on money - but had a full pint of whiskey in his pocket and a couple of packs of cigarettes on the counter. The owner warned him that there was a big storm on the way, but the man paid his bill and took his cigarettes and half full can and walked out. Sure enough, the storm hit and we were all snowed in for 4 days - and the second day in, our closest neighbor 'R' called my father and told him he'd be down on the tractor to break a path through the snow to our house because he needed Dad to bring our car down to the other neighbors to load up his wife and 4 kids as they had no heat in the house and it was too cold to haul them all back on his tractor or in the back of 'R's' truck. Dad said 'R' told him that the neighbor had gone home and gotten drunk instead of putting the fuel in the tank and was still drunk when the stove went out for lack of fuel and ended up pouring half the fuel on the ground instead of in the tank; and couldn't get the stove started again. Dad said after the women and kids were loaded in the car, 'R' told the man he could ride to 'R's house on the back of the tractor or he could stay at his own home, and maybe he'd sober up enough to get the stove going before he froze to death; didn't make a difference to him, but he wasn't going to let his family pay the price for his stupidity. After Dad told Mama this, she took the roast she'd cooked for our dinner and shredded it up, then sent Dad down to 'R's' before the road drifted back shut with the larger portion of it and several jars of home canned vegetables for his wife to use to make soup to help out with feeding the man's wife and kids.

That story taught me a lot about what kind of people you could trust - and what kind you couldn't; and why it was important to know the difference.

Okay, back to happier things

I got all the hand/hoe weeding done among the plants in the gardens by Wednesday afternoon and had just started tilling between the rows when I got hit with a blast of wind coming from the southeast. I had to race to the shed to get the tiller and myself both inside and the door down, then stood and watched the soil-filled wind roll across the fields toward us. The nearby weather station reported the winds were in the 45-60 mph range and I have no trouble believing that from the amount of corn I saw laying at a heavy slant in the fields as I drove in to work on Thursday morning. We got a good rain after the wind passed - neighbor reported a couple inches plus in her rain gauge, so I shouldn't have to water the gardens for a while - I was starting to worry about the water level in my big rain water tank. Hubby finally found the plug for one of our stock tanks and got it set up under a gutter downspout on the shed; the storm filled it full so that will take some pressure off the big tank.

I had the grandsons Monday and Tuesday; granddaughter was hanging out with the other grandma and older cousins at Six Flags. I took the boys to visit a friend to watch a Lego Batman movie while I hit the stores Tuesday early afternoon looking for something Hubby insisted existed; guess he's going to have to go look himself because I sure didn't find it! As I said in my earlier post, there were no good sales; so I settled for picking up 10 bags of dried fruit of types that we don't grow here to vacuum seal and store away, plus some more dry beans at Aldi - I will get them canned up into pork and beans while I'm off work this weekend. I also need to check the beets to see if they are ready to pull and pickle, which will mean putting beet greens in to the freezer as well.

When I took the grandkids home Tuesday evening, I popped into the weekly farmer's market looking for zucchini (I know - they'll be coming out my ears in 3 weeks lol!) and we got to talking.... She and her husband are thinking about putting out a couple of acres of strawberries, so I offered to swap them the use of my transplanter if they'd order me a hundred or so plants to put in my garden - she said it sounded like a good swap to her, so I think I'll start hauling home manure from the sale barn again and get a small piece of ground worked up. If they don't decide to plant berries, I will just order some for myself and plant them in the spot as my old plants are about done for.

My co-worker gave me the mid-week grocery store ads from his newspapers when we came to work Thursday morning; again, no good sales unless I wanted to buy canned vegetables; store brands were 39 cents/can, but I passed on those. But speaking of canned.... my jar connection co-worker picked up 4 hours on our unit last evening; while she was there, she asked me if I could use more pint jars - I was very excited to say "YES!!" I doubt that Hubby will be anywhere near as excited as I was And my best/friend co-worker Buddy likely won't be either, because I'm betting he'll be the one picking them up and hauling them to me

Guess I'd better run in to the bank and cash a check; I'm taking son-in-law, daughter, the grands and Hubby out for supper tonight for Father's Day. I got a refund on my health insurance (only took me 6 months to figure out I was overpaying ) so I got a nice refund check. I think we'll take it to Rural King after we have supper and spend some of it on ammo - or maybe that new carbine Hubby has been wanting...

Take care all; have a safe and happy weekend!