August 24, 2022
I’m more relieved than I can
say that the exceptional heat and humidity of just a week or so ago appear to
be gone. Although the humidity can still be a factor, at times. Especially if
it’s about to or has just rained. Only last Friday David commented that everywhere
he stepped on the grass, he could feel a kind of muted crunch. He concluded with
the observation that we really did need some rain. He’s right about that. And
yes, a bit of humidity is a small price to pay for that.
We got some rain on Sunday,
and again on Monday. Yesterday was dry, but the forecast calls for rain with
thunderstorms later today, and possibly on and into Friday. The crops should be
happy, but seriously, there is so much drought around the world right now. It
truly is a cause for concern.
The drought, along with the
facts that other areas on this continent are having floods, and the problems rampant
with shipping grain out of the Ukraine, all combined means that there is
possibly going to be a world-wide food shortage, and one that will begin in the
very near future.
Our daughter and I are
planning to reorganize our freezer next weekend. We need to take an extensive inventory,
both of the contents of the freezer and our food cupboards and see what we have
on hand. And we want to make room so that, within the next month, we can head
to a local market and begin to purchase a few bushels of veggies. These, we
plan to freeze. We also intend to buy a few extra pieces of canned goods each
time we shop, going forward, to build up our stores. Not a lot, we’re not going
to hoard. But we do want to have at least a three-month supply on hand, going
forward.
I encourage any of you who are
able, to do the same. Canned goods last a long time. It doesn’t hurt to
have a few things on the shelves in reserve. With canned goods, it’s easy
enough to organize them by “best before” dates, so that nothing goes to waste.
And, here, I would remind you that “best before” doesn’t necessarily mean “rotten
after”. I suggest you ask Mr./Ms. Google how long canned goods are good for
past the expiration date. My friends, you will be shocked!
We’re also practicing making
smaller meals, mostly because none of us have the appetites we did in years
past. Making smaller meals means that we have fewer leftovers. And since we
tend to eat our leftovers, that’s all just good. There’s an old saying, “waste
not, want not”, and it’s one that especially during these somewhat uncertain
times, we’ve decided to follow.
We do use less meat these
days, of course, since our daughter has been a vegetarian for more than a year
and a half. She does not eat meat or fish. She started out vegan, but she does
love her eggs, and ended up only denying herself those for about two weeks. I
supposed if David and I had to get to the point where we don’t eat a lot of
meat, this is a really good time to have done so. A pound of hamburger used to
do us nicely for one meal; now I freeze the hamburger in half-pound amounts.
The only exception to that is
our “Nanny Tuesdays” that are pasta days, when our daughter’s grandkids are
here. One of them likes Alfredo and one of them likes spaghetti. The one who
likes Alfredo prefers chicken; the spaghetti man likes his meatballs.
Pasta Day means I make both,
and we eat pasta leftovers for two days. But the kids are happy and that, my
friends, truly is priceless.
One of the other things that
our daughter particularly wanted to avoid, going forward, was indulging in too
many processed foods. I believe we’ve succeeded in keeping that down to a low
level. We generally eat only fresh and frozen veggies, but since she and her
dad like creamed corn, we stock that. I’d prefer to make my own scalloped
potatoes from scratch, too, rather than to use a boxed mix. We do, however,
have a few boxes of mac and cheese on hand, as well as some “instant oatmeal” and
other breakfast cereals.
So, we’ll reorganize our
freezer, and make plans for stocking up, moderately, as a way to protect
ourselves as much as is reasonable against the possibility of lean days ahead. This
isn’t a case of doing something new, either, but rather reverting back to the
way things used to be. This plan is really nothing more than what we used to
practice when our own kids were younger and our money very tight.
In those days, I used to keep
supplies on hand because if there was a financial emergency that would pop up—and
there always were a few each year—then we were ok not buying groceries on any
given payday, so that we could cover the unexpected, instead.
We can’t any of us know the future.
But we can, if we’re observant, know what a few of the possibilities may be,
and then prepare for them as best we can.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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