hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

[hqueen13]

@Britesea no, not much. I have about 1/4 bag of frozen, and some random bags of frozen veggies. I've got about a dozen potatoes (which for the two of us is enough for a couple of dinners). I had been buying fresh stuff along the way, and of course that's now biting me in the butt. And with the restaurant closures happening tonight the grocery stores are mobbed AGAIN, so I'm not going out today for sure. I'm now searching online to do an online order. Even if it takes a week or so to get things we'll be fine for that length of time.

 

[Britesea]

Ah. I've always tried to have several cans of at least things like green beans, beets, and carrots on hand. They're not great, but they have come in handy before when I discovered something had gone bad without my noticing it.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Sure hope you have some luck with an online order!

 

[Britesea]

Walmart still has 6 packs of green beans, corn, tomatoes etc available online. Amazon had NOTHING

 

[hqueen13]

I DID have luck!!!
I had to go to the farm to turn out this morning since I wasn't able to yesterday, and I had that little nudge to go to the store on my way home, even though I was "supposed" to be in the office (thankfully they don't really care about my hours, so I figured if I was a little bit "late" getting home from when the office opened it wouldn't be a big deal). I'm SO glad I did go!!! $130.00 later.... I think I'm good. I got some broccoli, which I think I'll blanch and freeze, and cabbage, and carrots and potatoes, and a corned beef to do later this week, which will last us a few days. I just hope that we can get the guiness to put in it tonight (Not sure if the liquor stores are open or not...). I stocked up on several things that we were low on, and even managed to score 2 boxes of gloves and 2 small bottles of hand sanitizer. At this point I think we'll be fine for at least 2 weeks (it might not be pretty towards the end... but we'll be fine), and now I know the trick of going EARLY to the store, so that should be ok, especially if I don't go the day of some sort of restriction change. I think the grocery stores are getting a handle on the supply chains, so they are keeping up a little bit better. As it was there was still NO frozen veggies, like at all, and hardly any cans of anything, either.
I'm so grateful that I'm resourceful enough, and can figure things out.
I did see a post today that Amazon is shutting down any non-essential orders and will only be supplying medical supplies, and groceries at least until April in order to manage demand. They're also hiring massively, and offering a pay increase temporarily right now to try to manage demand. Craziness!!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

OH dang - no Amazon! That's annoying... But really glad you got provisions!

 

[Britesea]

Whew! I was worried for you there!

 

[BarredBuff]

I think the grocery stores will be recover by next week. The current stock has just been emptied, but the warehouses are probably good and full. Plus more on the way...

 

[hqueen13]

Yes, thanks yall!!
You are right, @BarredBuff however, the long term projections/implications are NOT good. So that bumps up the plans to actually get my garden started here. I just wish my dang boss would close the office officially so I can focus on other things!

Still haven't closed the office.
BF's company is doing good things to distance people. Since they do equipment rentals they will likely stay open as long as possible since some of what they provide could be considered essential to a certain degree. They did say that anyone who tests positive will be given 80 hours of additional sick time, and if a manager feels the need to shut down a store the employees will all receive 80 hours of PTO, which makes me feel MUCH better about our financial situation.

Not much else to report, I'm working from home today, again. I just pray that my boss closes down except for emergencies only because I'm supposed to cover one of the other offices on Monday, and I'm NOT interested in doing that. I have so many other things I want/need to focus on right now that I really have no interest in working. So it goes.

 

[hqueen13]

I thought I was supposed to be less busy due to quarantine, not busier?!
Friday we ran some errands and got the lumber needed for the garden boxes. The BF was able to get one built when we got home. I have most of the seeds I want, there's a few more I'd like to get, but I'm not sure exactly what I want to do just yet. I need to sit down and do some planning to figure out what I'm going to need to manage.
Saturday I headed over to SR's farm to help out. Last week they had 30 orders for delivery and pickup... this week it was 60. They were currently taking all orders via email, and then getting CC#'s by email or by phone, and having to match all that up, and then make lists of everything that was needed from the 4 different farms they are sourcing things from, and then combine it all into the orders, and then enter the orders into the square system and process the payments. That's about 12 steps... which means there's 12 opportunities for error. I told him that it's not sustainable, and he's only going to get busier, and this quarantine thing isn't likely to lift any time soon.... so he's got to figure out another way to do things. Having to pretty much manually process the orders from start to finish also means a HUGE suck of time, which is costly in the long run. SO this week's project is working on getting them into an online ordering system. I ended up working for 7 hours on at the farm, which is way longer than I expected, but I'm grateful for the extra money. It was cold and damp and rainy, which did not make it fun to get the work done. I was exhausted by the time I got home again.
Sunday I needed the BF's help getting another bale of hay for Storm, and he decided since we had to go to the farm with the truck and trailer with the tractor that we might as well see about getting some manure, too. I was worried it would be too wet and muddy, but he decided he could manage. We didn't get our communication quite as clearly as we should have, and I ended up having to wait on him for a while after I had finished my chores. He finally got there and we got the bale put in place, and then he got the truck back behind the barn. I left to go take care of Cowboy and Coyote (way later than I would have liked!) and he loaded the trailer with manure. We met back at the house where unloaded the manure, and then I hopped in the truck to go back to the farm for a second load. We stopped to grab lunch along the way (poor planning... but necessary at that point) and ate in the truck and then got the second load. I was going to follow him out from behind the barn with the tractor, but then he couldn't get the truck up the hill with the loaded trailer. So he gets out, tells me to hop into the truck, and gets in the tractor and goes behind the trailer to push. Our teeny tiny tractor had just enough umph to shove the truck and trailer up the hill. Once I got it to level ground we swapped places and I took the tractor the rest of the way. We left the tractor and took the trailer home again, and he dumped it, and then I left to go back to Cowboy and Coyote's again, and he went back to pick up the tractor. We got back to the house about the same time and I made cat meatballs and he got everything cleaned up and put away. He was even kind enough to go ahead and fill the first garden box with compost. Now I have to figure out what seeds need to go where, and where we want to put the second box.
I was exhausted, so while he did that, I fixed dinner, and then went and soaked in the tub for a bit before crashing. Hopefully this week won't be nearly so busy! I'm going to work on some online ordering options for SR and hopefully we can get that up and running for them.