Day: January 28, 2021

Fri. Jan. 29, 2021 – time to garden

Cool, clear, and windy.  [38F at 6am- so COLD, clear, etc]  It was a bit cool yesterday, especially overnight, but once the sun came out it felt like spring.

And with spring in the air, a young man’s fancy turns to getting a garden in.

But first, I spent all of yesterday at home, except when I drove to school to get child 2.  I hit the Lowe’s on the way home to get some more of the bins I’m using to organize my food storage, and they  had vegetable garden plants.    So I bought a bunch.   They were well stocked on seedlings, and the seed display was full too.  It seems a bit early to me, but I’m going for it.

Sometime this weekend I’ll be planting all that stuff I bought.

This time, I’ll use fresh seeds, and put hardware cloth over all the beds.   I’m hoping for much better results, because then I’ll know what to blame, and how to move forward.   “Gardening” is not my thing.   Trying to grow some food to supplement my stores for my family is.  IE.  it’s not a passion, it’s a chore.  Still, I like to succeed when I try to do something.   So far my successes have been limited.  The learning curve is much steeper than I could have imagined.  Get started on your gardens, even if it’s just planning, and just a couple of pots or a window box.  Grow something.  You’ll be glad you did.

Plan for the day is to continue getting stuff out of the house, continue getting my secondary location cleaned up, and continue with all the other myriad things that take  my attention.   Including some more auction stuff.   I let a ton of stuff go by, but I did snag a couple of useful things.   I am focusing, little by little, on what’s most important.

Time for  a Costco order too.  Instacart, here I come.

Stack it up, flip it, rub it down, oh no, this world’s gonna kill me…  Or something like that.  I am a child of the 80s after all.

Seriously though, start something this weekend that you’ve been meaning to get to.  Time’s a wasting.

nick

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Thur. Jan. 28, 2021 – Home today, plenty to do

Cool and clear.  Windy?  Yesterday was.  Very windy and all day long too.   I wore shorts, but also a sweatshirt.    50F when I went to sleep, and not all that much warmer during the day.

I ran my errands, starting with helping my wife pick up the GS cookies.  Did a pretty good job of filling a honda minivan, and then the half of the foyer.   The volunteers at the warehouse rocked.

Then I got some stuff together and took a pickup load to auction.  My check for the last one was about ~$840 after commissions.  I don’t know what my net was but we are getting back into the area I used to be in- a decent part time income from part time work.    If I can get up to doing $500 a week I’ll be happy.  And yes, my wife has a great job, for which we are all thankful.  Everything I make is “extra” if there is such a thing.  I am the ‘stay at home’ after all.

Everyone should be establishing some extra lines of income.  Everyone should be exploring alternative sourcing.   I’ve mentioned I think things are going to get a lot worse, right?  I seem to recall saying something at some point…..    anyway.   People are still buying stuff.   That could and probably will change.  Pokemon cards are not going to fill empty bellies, so there is a ‘sell by’ date on Pokemon.  Ditto for most of the stuff on ebay or etsy.  However, local trading groups and FB, and all the other forms of local selling are going to facilitate barter and money saving reuse/repurpose/resell for the foreseeable future, and may shift from unloading stuff to selling desperately needed basics.

Explore your options now.   Everything has a learning curve.   Whether you’re a buyer or a seller, or a mix of both, the ‘secondary market’, which is where I’ve been living for years, will play an increasing role in your everyday life.  You want to be careful of course.  One man’s money saving yard-sale-ing  could become .gov’s black-marketeering in short order.   The prepper-sphere is always talking about barter for after SHTF.   Consider that the fan isn’t so shiny, and has a suspicious odor already….  and start working on some of those skills.   In Gulag-19, I’m the ‘scrounger’.  Who are you?

Skills, people, stuff.  Stack ’em high.

nick

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