09:56 – Barbara is off to the gym and supermarket. Colin and I are doing kit stuff.
If you’ve been meaning to stock up on whole egg powder, you might want to visit the Augason Farms website. Today and tomorrow only, they’re having a 30% off sale on 18-pound buckets of whole egg powder. Regularly $248.99, on sale for $174.29. That 6-gallon bucket is the equivalent of just under nine of their 33-ounce #10 cans at $20/can, and is sufficient to provide a dozen eggs per week for a year. I’m not ordering a bucket because I already have quite a bit of AF powdered eggs in #10 cans and because I expect the price of powdered eggs to drop further any time now, but then I’ve been expecting that for months.
When we lived down in Winston, Kevin, our regular USPS carrier, would have someone riding along with him maybe every six months. That person was evaluating his route to make sure that it required about the same amount of time and work as all the other routes served by that post office. Lori, our carrier here, has mentioned more than once that the increase in volume from Amazon.com is killing her and the other carriers in the Sparta post office. They haven’t had anyone ride their routes with them since Amazon’s volume started ramping up big-time. As Lori says, that means they essentially end up delivering Amazon packages for free. The post office gets paid, of course, but the carriers are having to deliver much, much higher volume. That takes them more time and more work, and they don’t get paid any more for it.
USPS also treats in-town carriers and rural-route carriers differently. In-town carriers are provided with vehicles. Rural-route carriers, including ones that are actual USPS employees rather than contractors, have to buy their own vehicles. They’re paid mileage, but even so it’s a hassle that in-town carriers don’t have to deal with. Lori is still driving the RHD Jeep Wrangler she’s been driving for years. I actually emailed the postmaster general a month or so ago, and suggested he give Lori one of the new vans that USPS is starting to deploy. I haven’t heard back from him yet.
I’ve been so busy with science kit stuff lately that I haven’t had time to do any prepping to speak of. We do plan to make a big Costco run in the next couple weeks to restock on stuff we’ve used over the last few months and add more flour, sugar, oats, and other bulk staples.