Shortages - What We're Doing

Finding things at the grocery is still hit or miss.

Several weeks ago, when the pandemic had just started, I had used the last of the chicken in the freezer and headed to Kroger.  No chicken.  AT ALL!  There was SOME pork and beef, but no chicken!  When chicken finally appeared in the meat department, there was a sign on its refrigerated case that said customers were limited to two packages of chicken.

That situation continued until a couple of weeks ago when all the meat cases were consistently full again.  Woo hoo!  Unlimited meat products!

Then some of the meat and poultry processing plants started shutting down because they had sick employees.  And now, the signs are back up.  I went to the store yesterday, and there was some chicken, but no skinless, boneless breasts.

And there is still no flour, sugar, yeast, dried beans, or rice.  There are canned beans, but not much variety.  You can make chili - there are plenty of kidney beans!  Hardly any toilet paper or paper towels - still!  I grab what I can find, and there are those signs - only ONE package of paper goods allowed.  There is bleach on the shelves, but just a few jugs.  At the beginning of all this, it couldn't be found at all.

Frozen vegetables have been hard to find, too, and not just recently.  Almost as soon as the pandemic was acknowledged, frozen vegetables in the stores disappeared.  You can sure tell what people DON'T like - that's what's left - lima beans, for one (yuck!), riced cauliflower, edamame (soy beans), broccoli cuts (which are mostly stems).  No peas, green beans of any kind, broccoli florets, cauliflower, mixed vegetables, corn, mirepoix mix (diced onions, carrots, and celery), or chopped onions.

I've been searching for chopped onions for a couple of weeks because I'm getting low (one package left).  Yesterday, I finally decided it would be a good idea to just buy some onions, chop them up, and freeze them myself.  There weren't many onions in the produce department, either!  But I did get some.  Better than none!

This afternoon, I took out the food processor and got started.  I filled five quart-size freezer bags with onions.  I had to process them in three batches, but I got it DONE.

Nine onions in these bags.

         

One large-ish cucumber.

I figured I already had the machine out, so what else needed processing?

One entire bunch of celery.

Well, cucumbers - why not?  That Man likes them on his salads.  I was on a roll.  And how about celery?  That can go on the salads, too, and some can be frozen for cooking.

So I sliced and chopped my way through a pile of produce.  FUN!!  Except all those onions killed my eyes - ouch.  Better than doing it by hand, though.  I got to play with my sorta new toy, plus I feel like I've accomplished something I needed to do.  Always a good thing.

Anyway, food shopping has become a competitive sport and I'm doing the best I can with what I can find.  I hope you're having luck finding what's on your list!

Rain, Backyard Chickens, and Sustainability

Rain, rain, and more rain.

It's all my fault.

I went out to work in The Garden Saturday morning, and a rogue thought came to me - "Oh, I don't want to water the garden.  Maybe it will rain and I won't have to."

And it did later that day.  And every day since.

Ugh.

The front yard is flooded, and still it rains.

I got out this morning and ran.  At least it didn't start raining until after the house was nearly in view at the end of my run.  It rained last time I ran, too. I'm tired of trying to run around thunderstorms.

I'm just tired of rain.

But a low pressure system has been sitting over the midwest for a week.  The forecast is gloomy.  No end in sight for now.

So I lost myself on the Internet looking up information on Backyard Chickens.

Yes, Backyard Chickens.  And Urban Chickens.  And Pet Chickens.  And Chicken Coops.  A garden and backyard chickens would go together so well!

Then I found that we can't have chickens inside the city limits.  Curses, foiled!!!

Believe it or not, there is sort of a chicken...movement.  A groundswell.  People in Indianapolis are putting up chicken coops in their backyards, at schools and workplaces!  There's even a Tour de Coop bicycle ride/tour of several urban chicken coops in the fall.  Crazy!  But oddly compelling.

My great uncle Earnest (yes, spelled with an "a") lived in Orange County, California - NOT in the country, and he and my great aunt Edith had chickens and a garden, and fruit trees.  I clearly remember the chickens, and  "picking eggs" for Aunt Edith.

Maybe I just want to relive my childhood.

Or maybe I want to pretend I live on a farm..

Or maybe I'll give it a politcally correct label - an Experiment in Sustainability.

Yeah, that's it - Sustainability.

Maybe next I'll look up goats.