Prep Genrl Weekly Prep Thread: March 15 to March 21, 2026

[SouthernBreeze]

We got our walk in for today. It was nice. Now, Cary is treating the house for termites. He does this each Spring. Sure saves money by doing it himself and works just as good, since we don't have termites. He inspects the house each Spring, too, but hates the small crawl space underneath the house. You couldn't pay me enough to get under there!

I've managed to set out all of our patio furniture and table umbrella. All that is lacking out there are the bedding plants for all my planters. Some times, they overwinter, but with the hard freezes we've had, none of them are showing signs of coming up. I'm going to wait a bit longer about buying new ones in case we do have a late freeze. Some of them might surprise me and come up.

On days like today, I wish I could just sit out in the sun and soak up the rays of sunshine.

 

[hd5574]

We have an Aldi..it is tiny went once about the size of a gas station convenience store...got a few things..some canned green beens..had stems still on some of the ends....uck..that ended it for me..
it was tight miserable to shop..never had the desire to go back ..

We have a Lidl...wonderful clean store with mostly European foods..for inexpensive prices...great quality foods...love their stuff a 1000 % better store

 

[Meemur]

Aldi is hit or miss, depending on the area. I don't go to the one in S. Des Moines. It's nasty! But the ones in Ankeny and Grimes are totally different, and if I shop carefully, I can save $9 - $14 per trip vs. shopping at Fareway or HyVee. The key word is "carefully" because not everything is a bargain, nor are some of the products worth buying, but I do well with canned goods and general pantry staples. Fresh produce can be questionable. It might be cheaper but can often spoil quickly. I buy frozen veggies and berries if I go that route, but I also freeze a lot of the harvest in the fall.

I've heard of Lidl, but we don't have any in the area.

 

[summerthyme]

Our Aldi isn't very big, but the produce quality is excellent. There definitely are big differences between stores!

Summerthyme

 

[SouthernBreeze]

The Aldi's in Tupelo is very small and their produce and meat isn't very desirable. Everything else there is good and a few cents cheaper than Walmart. I think a Lidl would be even better. Instead of Tupelo bringing in more grocery stores, like Lidl, they are building a Target, of which, I will never set foot in.

 

[hd5574]

I love the Italian pasta at Lidl...very inexpensive....we don't eat American ..but the grocery stores are super expensive for organic or italian..amazing chocolate..super cheap...big bars less than the price of a little American candy bar..even less expensive than Walmart on lots of things...they have wonderful frozen sea food..and imported European cheeses...french melt in your mouth made with.butter bread sticks..all types of german baked goods at Christmas..
love their speculoos cookies....SB..sure Cary will understand..lots of German products..
There is an Aldi in the next county over but about 50 miles round trip..not worth to see if it is or to save a couple of bucks....

I don't ever do Target..

 

[moldy]

I hit aldi every time we go to Kansas. Our nearest o e is 8 hours away.

 

[SouthernBreeze]

I love the Italian pasta at Lidl...very inexpensive....we don't eat American ..but the grocery stores are super expensive for organic or italian..amazing chocolate..super cheap...big bars less than the price of a little American candy bar..even less expensive than Walmart on lots of things...they have wonderful frozen sea food..and imported European cheeses...french melt in your mouth made with.butter bread sticks..all types of german baked goods at Christmas..
love their speculoos cookies....SB..sure Cary will understand..lots of German products..
There is an Aldi in the next county over but about 50 miles round trip..not worth to see if it is or to save a couple of bucks....

I don't ever do Target..

At one time, when in Tupelo, we would stop in at Aldi's to stock up on German foods and their chocolate candy bars. After trying the German foods for a while, Cary decided it wasn't worth just going there to buy it. He didn't care for some of it, once he tried it. Not homemade kind of thing....Now the chocolate candy bars are a different story! Love those bars. We still go there around Christmas time just to load up on their chocolate.

When our boys were small, Cary's grandparents over there would send us big packages at Christmas time loaded with the same brands of chocolate bars that Aldi's carries. We were eating "gummy bears" and other German candies years, before they ever arrived in the US.

 

[anna43]

Beautiful day here. I worked outside for an hour clearing the asparagus bed and one flower bed that didn't get done last fall. Tulips are up, daffodils are way up and peonies are breaking ground as is rhubarb. I was exhausted after an hour!! Creeping charlie has taken over large areas of the garden which means I need to hand dig that out before tilling. If there is one thing I hate more than any other it's creeping charlie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I washed sheets this morning and bed is remade. I debated hanging them outside, but it's still muddy under the clothesline so I passed on that for now. I'll do towels after my shower this evening. Leftovers for supper tonight and women's prayer breakfast at church in the morning. We usually have great food there.

Finished Judges in my reading through the Bible in a year, so on to Ruth which is one of my favorite books of the Bible. Near to finishing Mark in the NT. I just hope I can keep going and actually finish this time.

I'm lucky to have Aldi, Walmart, HyVee, Dollar Tree and Target (never go there) within a block of each other plus pass Fareway coming and going. I buy most of my food at Aldi or Walmart, shelf-stable milk at Dollar Tree and meat at Fareway. I never buy meat at Walmart. I seldom buy meat at Aldi, but what I have has always been good. In the past year I've been buying more food from Walmart and have been happy with the quality. Price on most items is within a couple pennies of Aldis.

Another cousin passed away yesterday. Don't know when the funeral is yet. It will be in Central part of the state with burial in Southern Iowa which is more driving that I can manage. DD has to work or she would drive me. I need to go online and find the funeral home which should have all information plus obit. I will leave condolences there for her immediate family and send cards to her brother and sister.

 

[ginnie6]

Aldi here used to be great! Used to be, the last few times I’ve been in there the meat cooler has been disgusting. Meat either standing in liquid or congealed crap on it. Either way I’m NOT buying that! We do have a Lidl and I need to go back to it, but I’ve been doing pretty good on deals at food lion lately. In checking prices FL has beat Aldi on several things. Surprisingly.
We went and got a truckload of dirt for the garden yesterday and have a dump truck load coming Monday. I brought home three pallets of cardboard, you know those big boxes they put melons or bananas in at grocery store? Three pallets of that size. The whole garden is covered in them. That should help with weeds! And new dirt can’t hurt. I’ve been researching homemade fertilizer too. This needs to be a good garden year and it’s what I plan on spending the majority of my time in this summer. So I think between some recipes I found and our chicken run we should be ok without buying any. My grandparents never did but they had cows. I remember carrying buckets of cow patties to their garden. I do have a friend who rents her pasture out so if I’m desperate I can go collect there too.
I spent the night Thursday at DD’s they had a visitation they needed to go to and dgd had a stomach bug so I went to them. Little man felt fine while sissy slept the whole time. That boy wore me slap out! Refused the bottle completely but ate any food I put near him. We played and played and I put him over my head so many times I was surprised I could lift my arms yesterday lol.
Today is more garden prep. I’m also setting up two beds at the chicken pens for herbs and considering blackberries there.

 

[SouthernBreeze]

Back when we were growing a big garden, our neighbor had a goat farm. He would clean out the barnyard each Spring and load it in a wagon. He would bring it to our garden and spread it out over the whole thing. Then, he would use his tractor to till it all in good. We grew more food than we could handle from that garden. Cary kept it tilled good, so there wasn't that many weeds. I did have to do some hoeing in between the plants, but that was it. No commercial fertilizer was ever used. Neighbor showed me how to make goat manure tea for the garden, too.

When we went to all raised beds, we always buy large bags of cow manure, and do the same.

If we have anything this year, it will be all tomatoes. I wouldn't be growing them if I didn't need some for canning.

After going for my walk, yesterday, for the first time, since the weather turned warm, I had spasms in my back the biggest portion of the night. Knee did ok, but I wore my knee brace while walking. Back is ok this morning.

 

[patriotgal]

Did the grocery shopping at nearest town so we would have time to get more painting done at inlaws. Mountain Home has 3 groceries stores owned by same company and Walmart. Picked up some apples at wally world but got groc at one of the other stores. A new Aldi is under construction but the people who rule Mountain Home commerce tend to make newbies match the local prices, food, clothes, doesn't matter what it is. They keep prices high. So I expect the West Plains MO to continue having prices about 1/2 of Mountain Home prices while the new Aldis is maybe a few cents cheaper after the big opening.

I need to grow tomatoes this year but it might be difficult since my lawn ornaments include live deer. Working on a solution for that. Since we no longer have cows, I can use some cattle panels. DH wants chickens but not bad enough to commit to being the one taking care of them. Same with a big dog. I am DONE taking care of animals. 60 years is enough. I was bottle feeding calves as soon as I could hold the bottle and not get pushed over. I pray there are no farm gates in heaven.

Washing linens today. I can get around really well now as long as I have knee brace on. I hardly notice it until late in the day. Will be wearing it until my knee feels "right." Can't explain it. I just know it isn't right and walking without the brace is risking my mobility.

 

[SouthernBreeze]

I need to grow tomatoes this year but it might be difficult since my lawn ornaments include live deer.

Yep. We have those same lawn ornaments! We counted six that bed down just over our back fence each night. There is a huge cedar tree that they like sleeping under. We enjoy watching them graze early morning and late afternoon. They aren't even afraid of us anymore. None of them have ever jumped the fence to get in our gardens. Ground hogs are our problem.

 

[Meemur]

It's supposed to go to 90 degrees today! I thought that someone made a mistake, so I checked several different sources. Wow. That's really high for Central Iowa in March. We have had low 80s before (86 is the record) but we're typically in the 40s/50s with the occasional 60 degree day towards the end of the month.

I've got a second load of blankets washing. When they are finished, I'll hang them up and hit the trails for a short bike ride and walk (out to the swamp). I'm hearing reports of butterfly sightings. It's about two weeks early for them.

 

[SouthernBreeze]

It's supposed to go to 90 degrees today! I thought that someone made a mistake, so I checked several different sources. Wow. That's really high for Central Iowa in March. We have had low 80s before (86 is the record) but we're typically in the 40s/50s with the occasional 60 degree day towards the end of the month.

I've got a second load of blankets washing. When they are finished, I'll hang them up and hit the trails for a short bike ride and walk (out to the swamp). I'm hearing reports of butterfly sightings. It's about two weeks early for them.

I saw our first butterfly this morning while watching the birds feed. It's going to be 86 for us, today. Sunny skies, too. We could be bumping 90+ degrees in a few days, according to our forecast.

I'm wondering if the corn farmers in our area will begin planting, today. Mom always told me that when you begin hearing turtledoves cooing in the morning, it was time to plant corn. We're already hearing them. Cotton follows soon after. I'm still afraid we will have a late freeze. Usually we have a late freeze during Easter. The farmers might wait till after Easter to plant. The weather seems nice enough for it, at least, right now.

 

[ginnie6]

Lunchtime so Breaktime! Got two beds at the chicken coops ready to plant in and one more to fill. Dh okayed blackberries or whatever I want lol. I have enough room to do a good stand of blackberries and the herbs I want for the chickens. Just need to sit down and get my list written down so that next week I can go get them. Also completely terrorized the chickens by building them a new roost in their run How dare I?
Dh is busy cleaning up stuff he’s brought home over the years. Like scrap metal and I-beams and such. He has a plan for them. Weather app says it’s 74 but it’s cloudy so doesn’t feel hot also air quality is supposedly really bad right now too.

 

[prudentwatcher]

Took grandson to the flea market to burn off some energy. Found a coin dealer who had silver. Bought a silver round for $65, then he sold me a walking liberty for $60 as that was all the cash I had left. Thought it was a good deal.

 

[Meemur]

It has made it to 87 degrees F so far. I had to change into shorts and a tank top. I also got out my double window fan so I can being in some cold air this evening. It's far too early to put in the window a/c.

 

[SouthernBreeze]

My windows are open, today, but it's still a bit early for Cary to get out our floor fan. If we do reach into the 90's, he'll need to get it out and clean it up. I went ahead and moved some of my houseplants out to the front porch, even though, I may have to bring them back in if we get too chilly again.

I went for my walk. It is so nice that I decided to grill hamburgers for, tonight. I'm finished with those. I did them early, because Cary wants to watch a soccer game, later. I watch with him. I can always heat them back up in the microwave when we get ready to eat. I should have thrown some chicken and chops on the grill while I was at it, but they were all still frozen. I'll do that the next time. Today, was a spur of the moment thing.

 

[Meemur]

We hit 90 degrees. Amazing! I hope that we don't end up losing the fruit crop.
I'm continuing to buy and dehydrate apples.

I see it's a live link. It was 90 degrees at 3 pm today.

 

[moldy]

People are nasty. That is all I have to say. Working on cleaning a house and the bathroom took me 3 hours due to there being feces packed behind the toilet. I'm glad I'm being paid well.

 

[nomifyle]

85 here toay, winter is gone and summer is nipping at the tail of spring.

Most of the fruit crops wre killed by the recent freezing temps.

 

[patriotgal]

Yep. We have those same lawn ornaments! We counted six that bed down just over our back fence each night. There is a huge cedar tree that they like sleeping under. We enjoy watching them graze early morning and late afternoon. They aren't even afraid of us anymore. None of them have ever jumped the fence to get in our gardens. Ground hogs are our problem.

Our record for groundhogs is 11 in a 2 week period. They somehow finally got under my concrete foundation for chicken house and caved the floor in. They have done so much damage to our place. I told DH it's a good thing he wasn't putting notches on the stock of the bang bang. There wouldn't be any stock left!

@moldy DH and I have cleaned 2 hoarder houses. Had to glue trap catch snakes out of one before we could clean it. When you walked across the floor on the 12 inches or more of trash, mice jumped everywhere. Hence the snakes. It is truly amazing how nasty people can be.

SB, Our deer are like yours. They sleep in the backyard. Mama's leave their babies back there when they are tiny. They don't care what we do. The red squirrels are not only used to us, they will come close to see what we are doing. And tell us off royally if we are interfering with their plans. One of them came up to me one day and chattered like our pet squirrel used to. Made my day.

90 today. Tackled the stove and fridge at inlaws. We did their dishes for the last year they were in the house but they wouldn't let us do anything else. No idea how the front of the fridge got so nasty. The side was gross but they had a trash can there and it appears a lot of the trash splashed on the fridge. They have 3 bathrooms. 2 of the toilets can be saved with vinegar. (Water is really hard here. Lots of lime.) It will take a bomb to clean toilet #3. If we should ever end up living there, all the toilets will be replaced with taller ones. MIL is very short.

Called nursing home about covid. Now it is in the memory unit with several people being quarantined in their rooms. We can still call but it is not the same.

 

[anna43]

It hit 87º here today but tomorrow is back to more normal with 42º high and 24º low.

Talked to my neighbor to ask if I could cut four trees from his hedge. He said he had someone hired to take down his standing dead ash trees and would get the ones from the hedge too. I hope he means soon.

I would believe any hoarder story you tell after the mess I had next door for 20+ years. Hazmat suits and respirators for initial cleanout and six large contractor size containers of trash.

 

[moldy]

From what I understand, she had a dog kennel next to the garage. At some point, she moved the dog inside, and filled the kennel with her hoard. The walls from about 12 inches up from the floor were coated with a fine coat of dog poo. I also made the mistake of opening the dishwasher - full of mold.

My 'boss' is great, He was mightily ticked about the human poo. The owners (daughters, maybe?) think that this little 2BR1BA 900 SF house in a small town that has foundation, roofing, and sewer issues is worth $250K. Cleaning this house is not just putting lipstick on a pig - it's putting chapstick on a dead pig!

 

[hd5574]

They have 3 bathrooms. 2 of the toilets can be saved with vinegar. (Water is really hard here. Lots of lime.) It will take a bomb to clean toilet #3. If we should ever end up living there, all the toilets will be replaced with taller ones. MIL is very short.

We have used the finest grade of wet/dry sandpaper on impossible toilets a couple of times...the super fine doesn't scratch them ..
One friend was able to raise his toilet several inches with a tall seat...he was in construction and got it at in plumbing supply..place

 

[anna43]

My former neighbor had 16 cats in the house ... she put out maybe one trash bag twice a year. You know what cat pee and poop smells like? I could smell it next door. Plus, she was feeding 40 feral cats who were using my property as their litter box. I tried for years to get her help, but she refused to accept any help. When she was finally removed by court order, she rented an apartment in a neighboring town ... two years later she sadly died in a fire in the hoarded apartment but at least no pets ... by court order. She was a decent person until the hoarding mental illness claimed her. I felt so bad for her and eventually felt bad for me living next to her. The house was gutted, rehabbed and sold so I now have a new neighbor who is friendly.

Moldy, I hope you had proper hazmat suit/respirator equipment while cleaning that mess.

 

[patriotgal]

Maybe it's just the farm girl in me. We wore masks and gloves, skipped on the respirators. I have shoveled plenty of stalls. Shoveling 12 inches of dirt and crap off countertops wasn't that different. We went to the nearest DG and bought all they had of certain cleaning products 3x in a week. Found a trash man that hauled a load out every other day. The saddest thing about it was the girls from the store asking if we were cleaning that house out on hwy xx. It was a beautiful family home, designed and built by the owners. Formal dining room. Formal living room. Was so nice the first few times I visited. Spotless. Then their daughter moved in and filled it so fast.Like a month fast. She lost her mind shortly thereafter. Sad.

 

[ginnie6]

OOf! And I thought my Grannie's was bad. I feel for y'all. Grannie just saved everything but no poop or animals. We did find a few mice but it was an old house.
They make a pumice stone for toilets now that works great. We have hard water so every so often I have to go in and use that to clean the water line.

Don't know why I'm up so early but I am lol. Just couldn't sleep any longer. I did sleep almost 12 hours Friday night so maybe I'm all caught up?

Today is an easy day. we did a LOT yesterday. Three beds made beside the chicken runs to grow herbs and maybe blackberries, the truckload of dirt we picked up Friday leveled out in its place and ready to plant, dh did his yearly battle with the wisteria, and we took the ice make apart and cleaned it. It's still not draining like its supposed to so he thinks we need to open the extra drain that's on it and run it outside. There's a little pump on it like what would be in an aquarium filter or one of those fountain dog/cat water bowls. I told him I could take it apart and clean that but he was leary of taking it apart. Never mind that I did that on the aquarium for YEARS. Oh well at least I have ice again.

You know I see these little videos on FB or IG where they're wearing masks to clean the chicken coops, I never have. I grew up with grandparents raising cows and we ran barefoot through the pasture and shoveled many loads of cow patties without the benefit of a mask. I think I'd suffocate if I tried to do that in a mask.

 

[WanderLore]

OMG the hoarder stories! Holy cow!

Good morning yall

 

[WanderLore]

One time Scot and I dropped off patient in city and had to run call there.
Big old house, over 100 cats. We couldn't get past the front porch. FD had to come in with full hazmat gear. Hoarder +cats. Oh boy.
Can't even remember what chief complaint was?
Heard later house was condemned and burnt down.

 

[feralferret]

Weekly Prep Thread: March 22 to March 28, 2026