Sun. June 14, 2020 – stuff to do gets in the way of doing stuff

By on June 14th, 2020 in decline and fall, personal, WuFlu

Hot and humid, cooler in the shade.  And I’ve really got to figure out why my weather station isn’t working.  I changed the batteries for fresh, but I guess I got one in backwards or something.

Yesterday was about as nice weather-wise as Houston gets in the summer.  Blue sky, cooling breeze and not stifling.  Still hot as blazes in the sun though.  We’re supposed to have a couple more days without rain, which will be nice.

I hope I have the issues with my garage fridge sorted, but it’s not actually getting cold as quickly as I’d hoped.  The freezer is still solid, but the fridge is only 45F.  I fit all the important stuff into the kitchen fridge but it’s packed solid now.  I need the garage fridge to be working.  I’ll check it again, and if there isn’t any change I’ll try to figure out why.

Instacart came promptly with my resupply drop.  Only a couple of things went out of stock between my starting to order and when he started picking.  Soda for the kids and cheap bacon showed in stock, but weren’t.  Turkey legs got substituted with turkey thighs.   The thighs aren’t  as much fun to eat, but the guy made a good choice.  If you’re as picky about shopping as I am, instacart isn’t a great choice, but given the times, I’m being more flexible.  There are definite limits to what’s available and I don’t know if they are service related or if the items are truly not in the store.  If they’re not in the store, then disruptions in supply chain are more widespread than they look.   There are a lot of items that Instacart doesn’t even list as available.  If I had the time and inclination, I could compare to the HEB app, or walk the store myself, and I might just so you don’t have to…

Speaking of food, we are eligible for the P-EBT summer school lunch card.  It would be about $700 bucks between the two kids.  It’s based on your school, not your particular family need.  My wife does not want to get it.  She feels that we don’t need it and shouldn’t use it.   I’m reluctant for the same reason, but am practically considering that $700 buys a lot of food.  Food that might be in short supply later in the year.  It raises a moral question for me, as I don’t believe that giving everyone the money is a good thing or a proper use of tax dollars.  On the other hand, they are giving the money out no matter what I think, and it would be nice to get some of our tax money back.  I don’t think I’ll be working too hard to convince her we should apply.

Looking at the shelves and the pantry, it hardly looks like we’ve even dented the stacks.  We’ve been able to resupply and eat most of the stuff we would normally eat anyway.  On sale meat is the exception to that.  There was only so much freezer space, and we went into this full up.  We are depleting my stores of frozen meat.  Costco and HEB both had it, but the prices were high.  The real question is, are the high prices the new normal, and in 6 months I’ll wish I bought every scrap I could at that price, or will prices come back down?  Anyone have anything more than a gut feeling?  I’ve been wrong about the direction of the price for food on just about every previous occasion.  Crude oil too, for that matter.

Outside of stocking the freezer, I’ve got so many projects that it’s starting to get fractal.  I need to seriously get some done to make way for the others.  I’m working on that today.

Dinner last night was a Costco pre-cooked meal, hawaiian chicken with pineapple specifically.  5 minute rice as a side, using up the last of my minute rice.  I was stocking minute rice as part of my ‘intermediate’ preps on the theory that it takes a lot less energy and time to prepare, and energy might be scarce in a post-disaster situation.  It was worth the small cost premium to save the coleman fuel required to cook rice for 30 minutes.  It’s still convenient, but I have so much regular rice that I really need to work on using that.  For quick rice, I have pouches for the microwave.

Take a good look at your pantry.  No one ever said, I have too much food, or too much money, or too much ammo when times get tough.  Keep stacking.

 

nick

 

 

47 Comments and discussion on "Sun. June 14, 2020 – stuff to do gets in the way of doing stuff"

  1. Ray Thompson says:

    I’m reluctant for the same reason, but am practically considering that $700 buys a lot of food.

    Get the card. Never turn down money. Was I affected by COVID-19 and needed the stimulus money? Nope. But I accepted the money anyway. Do I apply for rebates? Yes. Do I use free 8×10 prints from Walgreen? Yes. Two for the price of one at Hardee’s (Carls Jr)? Yes. I never turn down free stuff. Money from the government is not free but if I don’t take it someone else will. So get the card, $700 is $700 less you have to spend.

  2. Pecancorner says:

    I was stocking minute rice as part of my ‘intermediate’ preps on the theory that it takes a lot less energy and time to prepare, and energy might be scarce in a post-disaster situation.

    My favorite thing learned from my dehydrator: you can dehydrate leftover rice, so long as it was cooked without oil or butter. Or, for this kind of situation, cook up a bunch and dehydrate it for the future. It tastes amazing – much better in our opinion than Minute Rice. It rehydrates by simply pouring boiling water over it and letting it sit. Only thing is that it is sharp & will break the seal on vacuum bags, so the best way to store it is in cans or jars, or else in a paper bag before putting it into the vacuum.

  3. PaultheManc says:

    @Nick – I go with @Ray.

    My view is that you don’t get to design the tax and benefits systems – you just have to adhere to them. I am sure there are particular taxes you would choose not to pay if you could – but you can’t. Benefits work the same way – take what you are entitled to – not what you think is ‘right’. If you are concerned (you don’t ‘need’ it) then you can reallocate the money to a deserving cause – of YOUR choice.
    In the UK pensioners get a GBP200 winter fuel payment – which I don’t ‘need’. I take it, as, as I said, I didn’t get to choose my tax contributions.

  4. Greg Norton says:

    Speaking of food, we are eligible for the P-EBT summer school lunch card. It would be about $700 bucks between the two kids. It’s based on your school, not your particular family need. My wife does not want to get it. She feels that we don’t need it and shouldn’t use it. I’m reluctant for the same reason, but am practically considering that $700 buys a lot of food.

    The money isn’t completely free. Chase runs the EBT cards IIRC. HEB, Visa (?), and the various banks will all data mine the transactions. You might get some interesting junk mail and/or e-mail.

    A girl from my GTE new hire training class whom we called The Mouseketeer ended up with a director job at Chase by accident by being in the right place at the right time, working at a small dot bomb company in Tampa which the bank bought out when the Feds awarded them the EBT contract.

    None of rest of us from the training class saw that one coming, but it makes us wonder about the EBT system. Not everyone was held to the insane standards of the new hire program in the interest of diversity even then.

  5. MrAtoz says:

    This rioting and protesting *must* end before it affects the release of my favorite TV shows. You don’t want to affect the release of my favorite TV shows!

  6. Greg Norton says:

    Capitol Hill didn’t get cleaned out last night, during the opportunity hour in the media cycle. I wonder how much that has to do with Seattle and how much it has to do with what happened in Atlanta. Newsrooms weren’t running skeleton crews last night.

    People in WA State along the I-5 corridor love to dump on The South, particularly Texas and Florida, but they also seem to love to have the option of moving down here if things get bad enough for them in Utopia.

  7. Greg Norton says:

    Dinner last night was a Costco pre-cooked meal, hawaiian chicken with pineapple specifically. 5 minute rice as a side, using up the last of my minute rice. I was stocking minute rice as part of my ‘intermediate’ preps on the theory that it takes a lot less energy and time to prepare, and energy might be scarce in a post-disaster situation.

    If you don’t already have one, the output from a standard rice pot beats minute rice every time for the tradeoff of a little longer cooking time. I like Zojirushi basic *mechanical* timer rice pots, but fancier models will do brown rice and start on a timer.

    If you’re more concerned about post-disaster, H-Mart carries P/N brand Korean pressure cooker rice pots which can, in theory, use any heat source capable of boiling water except for a microwave due to the metal construction. I’ve never quite got the hang of mine, but I can produce edible rice in a pinch. Mastering that gadget is on my never ending list of to-dos. I’ve seen that type of pot produce excellent rice in the hands of an expert.

    P/N is Made in Korea, not China, so you will pay a premium for the cookware. You might have to scrounge in your HMart’s kitchenware section and possibly ask for help in finding one since the pots are not something familiar to most non-Koreans.

    We keep the equivalent of a couple of the big bags of Jasmine rice from the Asian market in a sealable storage bin in our pantry, and I top off when the bin drops to 1/2 to 1/3 full. Bay leaves and avoiding Costco Jasmine prevent bug problems.

    We’ve been buying Three Ladies brand Thai Jasmine. Adequate stock is never an issue, but price has gone up a *lot* in the last 10 years, from ~$10 for the big bag to almost $30.

  8. Nick Flandrey says:

    jebus. Are they doing it on purpose?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8418741/PICTURED-Atlanta-cop-Garrett-Rolfe-fatally-shot-Rayshard-Brooks-outside-Wendys.html

    I guess I was tired when I scanned this last night. “Asleep” in his car in the drive up lane means “passed out from drinking” to a five 9s certainty. and it’s not impossible that he was initially cooperative and then flipped.

    added

    Two Atlanta police officers were called to scene at around 10:30pm on University Avenue on Friday
    Cops received reports of a man who fell asleep in his car as it stood near the drive-thru window
    Police say Brooks failed a field sobriety test and video shows him fighting with officers
    Brooks is then seen grabbing a Taser from one of the officers and running away as two cops gave chase
    New surveillance video shows Brooks turning and pointing an object at cops, which they say is a taser
    Officers opened fire and Brooks was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital

    There will be more video though.

    n

  9. Nick Flandrey says:

    And FFS Fox, you gave them an opportunity to gas light the original photo, which is legit, by your antics.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8417987/Fox-News-removes-altered-photos-Seattle-protest-zone.html

    But then Fox was taken over years ago.

    n

  10. Greg Norton says:

    And FFS Fox, you gave them an opportunity to gas light the original photo, which is legit, by your antics.

    More troubling is that the photo wasn’t even from the “CHAZ”. Under normal circumstances, the residents in Capitol Hill would have flipped out if Old Navy had attempted to move into the neighborhood.

    The younger Murdochs are “woke”, and the old man is circling the drain.

  11. JimB says:

    Nick, what you said about cooking reminded me of something. My wife has used a microwave oven for decades as her main cooking appliance. She is great at making it do many things, but knows it is not for everything. She is always experimenting with other types of cooking appliances, such an an Instapot, but can’t live without a microwave oven. The few times when we have had one fail were dire indeed.

    We started with a Litton in 1975 or so, and that one lasted a very long time, with only a couple of minor repairs. We always have had a big, powerful one. About 18 months ago, we had our second Sears box quit. I bought a new Panasonic, and it has been superb.

    Of course, I looked inside the failed Sears one and verified that it wasn’t something simple; looks like the diode shorted. It still sits disassembled. I also have a virtual clone Sears unit we used for some years before its magnetron failed. Saved it for parts. So… I now have two almost identical ovens with different failures. I plan to try to make one good one for a spare, if the parts can interchange. These ovens can be so cheap on sale that it doesn’t pay to buy parts to fix one, but it will only take a small amount of time to try this little escapade. Don’t worry, I have experience working around even higher voltages and currents.

    Whether or not my repair plan works out, I might also suggest to my wife that we watch for sales and buy a brand new spare as a prep. That first Sears one was a top of the line model that was on a half price sale, and cost us $70. Amazing, since we would have paid almost anything to get a working oven quickly. Almost. The second one wasn’t on sale, but was also cheap. The Panasonic was pretty inexpensive, also. Not gonna look it up. She is overjoyed with it, and that is priceless. The trend is that our microwave ovens last only about five years. No more Littons.

    I have mixed feelings about microwaves. They take a lot of amps, and are probably not very generator friendly in an emergency, but they sure beat an open fire.

  12. Jenny says:

    @nick
    Re: meat
    My thoughts? My rabbitry is up and running. I don’t think meat availability or costs are going to improve. Our freezer is full, we will replenish with rabbit, our chickens, and Costco meat as we can. Watching our local buy / sell groups an increasing number of folks agree. I noticed a big bump in people looking for meat rabbits. Our local shelter posted half a dozen rabbits and they were gone that afternoon. Not a normal level of demand. It’s virtually impossible to find cage wire locally from about 4 weeks ago.

    I expect feed prices to go up for chickens and rabbits however we have a couple different resources to tap there.

    We were going to treat ourselves with fresh grilled steak yesterday. “Cheap” steaks at local butcher were well over $12/lb yesterday, with our preferred steaks over $20/lb. We ate burger.

    The kits opened their eyes yesterday, about ten days old, and are mighty cute. They’ve become active as well. Second doe hasn’t kindled yet, I’ll give her another two days then she goes on a brief period of reduced rations (not pregnant = fat; fat rabbits are less fertile) and will get bred again. She was a bit young the first time I bred her so not a big surprise if she’s not pregnant. 30 days gestation, 6-8 kits per litter. 4-6 weeks nursing, slaughter at 3 months / 4-5 lbs. even with high Alaskan feed prices, estimating $2.50/lb in the freezer. I mostly won’t bother to tan the hides. Rabbit hide at that age is fragile and sheds like crazy. Skins too thin to be worth the effort.

    Chicks are in the coop and have access to the run now. I think they’re about 4 weeks. Any roosters will grow out til September then go to freezer camp.

    There’s a lot of poo. And urine. I’ve rigged a system that lets the urine pass thru to buckets so the poo stays dry and inoffensive. The raspberries like it.

    We’re doing this on 7,000 sf in the middle of Anchorage. Heat would be the biggest obstacle in TX. The rabbits can’t tolerate it. Lots of folks use fans and misters to manage.

  13. Greg Norton says:

    We’re doing this on 7,000 sf in the middle of Anchorage. Heat would be the biggest obstacle in TX.

    Heat, homeowners associations and NIMBY types. And even if you think that you live far enough out in the boonies that you don’t have to deal with development, development is headed your way in Texas.

  14. paul says:

    Heat would be the biggest obstacle in TX. The rabbits can’t tolerate it.

    This tidbit of information is useful. So much for trying rabbits.

  15. Nick Flandrey says:

    @JimB, there are some cool things you can build from old microwaves, spot welders and small stick welders being the main thing. There is a part in there that will generate toxic dust if disturbed. I believe it’s in the magnatron.

    @Jenny, rabbits for meat sounds good, but when you detail it out like that it sounds like a lot of work too. Sometimes that’s what it takes, and you guys are at the end of a long supply chain.

    I watched a dumpster diver on youtube who did it for food, mainly for his animals. He fed a lot of expired chips and snack food to his goats, iirc. Other than the high salt content, it’s mostly grain and fat. It was definitely ‘out of the box’ thinking.

    I’m thinking that there might be some chickens available when the current crop of chicks outgrow their cuteness and the reality of keeping chickens sets in with folks here. I’m keeping my eyes open.

    Your note about cage wire rang true, I’m bidding on a roll of ‘hardware cloth’ (wire mesh) and someone ran the price way up. I wonder it there is a local shortage here too?

    n

  16. Nick Flandrey says:

    Just some ‘teens’ celebrating the end of the school year…

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8418569/19-year-old-woman-killed-three-end-hospital-shot-Bronx-park.html

    Except that it’s really a raucous summer party, with alcohol and drugs, and gangbangers bangin’.

    “It’s usually very loud and rowdy. It was a huge crowd,’ the witness said who believed there to have been around 150 other teens all gathered at the park.”

    The two shooters fled in a silver BMW. Police say the motive is unknown but may be gang related.

    So really, not at all some innocent little kids playing in the park to celebrate school being out. FFS, school’s been out for 2 months.

    n

  17. Pecancorner says:

    Congrats on success with the rabbits, Jenny. I admire your “pluck” to use an old word. From what others have said about raising them, and from your posts, they require a lot of work and attention. But gosh they make delicious meals. I wish we had a local source that we could buy them from, I would keep a couple in the freezer. There’s little more delicious on a cold day than rabbit fricassee in the slow cooker!

    We know a lot of people who raise hens for eggs , but hardly any of them actually butcher the old ones or roosters, instead, most post those for sale or even “free”. The folks who do keep them as meat sources tend to do like you are doing with the rabbits: raising specifically for that purpose, then slaughtering many at once in a hard-work weekend.

    We had green beans and new potatoes from my garden for lunch today! I am ecstatic! Mainly because last year none of my beans ever bore a bean. Not enough sun, as near as I can tell. Apparently “location location location” is a thing with green beans too LOL

  18. SteveF says:

    Our neighbor got half a dozen ducklings to raise for eggs and meat. The meat idea was abandoned because his family thought they were too cute to butcher. And it became moot because they were all slaughtered one night by something that came out of the forest and was able to get through the chicken-wire pen.

    My wife and her mother had suggested a few years ago that we get chicks for eggs. I resisted, partly because I knew it would become my job to take care of everything and partly because of the forest less than a hundred feet away. How do you like that? Once again I had some clue of what I was talking about.

  19. Greg Norton says:

    Your note about cage wire rang true, I’m bidding on a roll of ‘hardware cloth’ (wire mesh) and someone ran the price way up. I wonder it there is a local shortage here too?

    Everyone has to try that Flex Seal boat, just like the commercial. 🙂

    Those ads run endlessly on H&I during the “Star Trek” hours. Flex Seal and, lately, Colonial Penn.

  20. paul says:

    I like the part of the Flex Seal commercial about how it’s so great to seal around the skylight on an RV. The dude is clomping around wearing work boots. Might as well duct-tape chunks of 2×4 to his feet.

    The Colonial Penn commercials, yeah, $9.99 per $1000 of coverage if you are a 39 year old female. Why not put $100 a month into a Savings account? $1200 a year adds up and if you really need the money, you don’t have to die to get it.

  21. Nick Flandrey says:

    I always look at what they’re spending to try to sell it. If there’s that much profit in it, it’s a bad deal for me.

    n

  22. paul says:

    I have not tried ducks. They need some kind of pond, I think, and I’ll pass on creating a place for mosquitoes to breed. What about a night? Will they go to their coop or is it a constant chore to lock them up?

    Chickens, I can do chickens. Chickens are easy. I do have to shut the coop door at night. The raccoons around here like chicken. One summer I had the live trap sitting next to the coop. No bait, just set. I saved a .22 shell for each and gee, 47 raccoons, generally one a morning, was pretty weird. The place where I dumped the bodies was popular with the buzzards.

    Having 20 buzzards flap out of the trees when you get near with with a squeaky wheeled wheelbarrow containing their breakfast was a strange thing.

  23. Greg Norton says:

    The Colonial Penn commercials, yeah, $9.99 per $1000 of coverage if you are a 39 year old female. Why not put $100 a month into a Savings account? $1200 a year adds up and if you really need the money, you don’t have to die to get it.

    Life insurance is exempt from taxes and probate. It makes sense for some situations, but not for the target audience of those commercials. The ads are about generating cashflow for the parent company who already went bankrupt once in the last 20 years.

    As a heart transplant patient, my father-in-law paid a mint for about $600k in combined coverage from his AT&T retirement and Perot Systems employee policies. He was fond of younger Asian women and kept the policies as “bait” for lack of a better word. Before he died, I joked that one of those dragon ladies would eventually kill him for those policies’ payouts … and then one actually did!

    BTW — My job at the Death Star had nothing to do with my father-in-law. He always said I wasn’t a “real” programmer not knowing COBOL and my way around a mainframe.

  24. Nick Flandrey says:

    Wow, 96F in the shade. I cut the grass, front and back. The yard is in shade in the afternoon and there is a small breeze, but whew, it’s hot.

    WRT my garage fridge, everything was running, cold air was getting into the fridge area but it just wasn’t getting COLD. Then I realized I’d left out some plastic trays and a duct in my rush to get the food back in the freezer. I put that back now and I’m hoping that is the missing piece to being back in business.

    Trying to let my brain cool down.

    n

  25. lynn says:

    Dinner last night was a Costco pre-cooked meal, hawaiian chicken with pineapple specifically. 5 minute rice as a side, using up the last of my minute rice. I was stocking minute rice as part of my ‘intermediate’ preps on the theory that it takes a lot less energy and time to prepare, and energy might be scarce in a post-disaster situation. It was worth the small cost premium to save the coleman fuel required to cook rice for 30 minutes. It’s still convenient, but I have so much regular rice that I really need to work on using that. For quick rice, I have pouches for the microwave.

    Take a good look at your pantry. No one ever said, I have too much food, or too much money, or too much ammo when times get tough. Keep stacking.

    People are stocking their pantries out here in the sticks of Fort Bend County. There were huge holes in the canned vegetable aisle of our HEB last night. And my friends just told me that they have abandoned Kroger for HEB because their canned vegetable aisle was totally empty except for unsalted corn.

    I’ve got somewhere between 20 person months and 40 person months of food for the three of us, the amount is hard to gauge. But we could easily gain another 3 to 5 people in a disaster situation. Or, we could bug out to our tertiary location down the coast. Moving all that stuff would be difficult.

    My big shortage is the ability to cook food if the natural gas stops working. Three 20 lb propane tanks ain’t gonna cut it. Maybe ten tanks to get through next winter. Maybe 20 tanks.

    I am gonna assume that the water is going to keep working since my area (300 homes) is on our own three collective water wells. Those pumps use a boatload of power though.

  26. Nick Flandrey says:

    That’s good. If we can avoid desperation we can hold this all together longer.

    n

  27. Nick Flandrey says:

    Communities will still be ‘safe’ without cops, says Ilhan Omar – but fails to explain how Americans will be protected or crimes investigated without law enforcement

    Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar claimed Sunday that American communities will still be ‘safe’ without cops
    She failed to provide an alternative for organized law enforcement in the face of calls to defund police departments
    ‘No one is saying that the community is not going to be kept safe,’ Omar asserted to CNN in an interview Sunday morning
    ‘What we are saying is, the current infrastructure that exists as policing in our city should not exist anymore,’ she continued

    –$20 says “Sharia Law”….

    n

  28. Greg Norton says:

    People are stocking their pantries out here in the sticks of Fort Bend County. There were huge holes in the canned vegetable aisle of our HEB last night. And my friends just told me that they have abandoned Kroger for HEB because their canned vegetable aisle was totally empty except for unsalted corn.

    Our local Sam’s didn’t have any small cans of green beans again, but they did have at least one variety of Campbell’s Chunky soups today.

    For a change, the pasta pallets were not completely cleaned out.

    Meat wasn’t subject to limited quantities, but prices were high.

    Both Costco (yesterday) and Sam’s (today) had plenty of Spam. I guess people figured out that they really don’t like the taste of the stuff. My kids like it.

  29. Nick Flandrey says:

    google phone heard me talking about Dune with oldest, today it’s in my ‘Recommended for you” list.

    n

  30. Greg Norton says:

    google phone heard me talking about Dune with oldest, today it’s in my ‘Recommended for you” list.

    Firefox did that with me and “Dead Again” about six months ago.

    “Dune” has, at least, been in the news lately with another remake in the works.

    The David Lynch flick is still worth watching. The look and production design are awesome as was the casting.

  31. lynn says:

    Looking at the shelves and the pantry, it hardly looks like we’ve even dented the stacks. We’ve been able to resupply and eat most of the stuff we would normally eat anyway. On sale meat is the exception to that. There was only so much freezer space, and we went into this full up. We are depleting my stores of frozen meat. Costco and HEB both had it, but the prices were high. The real question is, are the high prices the new normal, and in 6 months I’ll wish I bought every scrap I could at that price, or will prices come back down? Anyone have anything more than a gut feeling? I’ve been wrong about the direction of the price for food on just about every previous occasion. Crude oil too, for that matter.

    I would assume that everything is going to double in price by the end of the year. Weird things are happening right now. I would not take pricing into account for your preps. Everyone with half a brain is stocking up right now, their behavior is going to drive the marketplace.

    The real question is how the brick and mortar stores (HEB and Walmart around here) going to react to the continuous demand ? Are they going to keep on buying everything in sight from wherever they can find it ? Their buyers must be going nuts about right now. How do they know that the demand will continue ? They sure do not want to continue buying at this level and all of sudden the demand goes down and they fill their warehouses to the brim with unwanted crap.

    Watch the state and federal governments. They do not like big times increases in consumer pricing. If the prices go up too much, they will try to limit the price increases. Then the fun will really start as the suppliers cannot stay in business by selling their products at a loss. We got a taste of that in the 1970s with Nixon’s price controls. That did not go well for the country.

  32. lynn says:

    Speaking of food, we are eligible for the P-EBT summer school lunch card. It would be about $700 bucks between the two kids. It’s based on your school, not your particular family need. My wife does not want to get it. She feels that we don’t need it and shouldn’t use it. I’m reluctant for the same reason, but am practically considering that $700 buys a lot of food. Food that might be in short supply later in the year. It raises a moral question for me, as I don’t believe that giving everyone the money is a good thing or a proper use of tax dollars. On the other hand, they are giving the money out no matter what I think, and it would be nice to get some of our tax money back. I don’t think I’ll be working too hard to convince her we should apply.

    RBT said to stand in line and get all the handouts when the bad times come. His main purpose in that was not to standout from the masses.

  33. Nick Flandrey says:

    “RBT said to stand in line and get all the handouts when the bad times come. His main purpose in that was not to standout from the masses. ”

    –that is a good point

    n

  34. Jenny says:

    Re: rabbits / chickens / effort / cute factor
    If you put some thought into your setup it doesn’t need to be time consuming. Twice a week I deal with poop, took less than 10 timed minutes. First time I dealt with the urine since installing the management system. I spend less than 10 minutes a day feeding. Maybe 10 minutes twice a week watering. So call it less than two hours a week in 10 minute increments. I spend more than that time reading comments here. Butchering – disclaimer, I am slooooowwww at processing an animal – this has taken me 20 – 30 minutes per rabbit in the past, with not much practice. I expect that time to get shorter. So figure 2-3 hours every 6 weeks for that noisome task. The chicks are currently taking 10 minutes a week twice a week to feed and water, and maybe 2 minutes a day to open and close their coop. Easy peasy. The coop is set up to clean 3 times a year, takes me about 20 minutes. When they start laying add a couple minutes each day to gather eggs. Winter double the feeding time for everybody.

    My daughter was pretty sad about butchering the cute little sheep that lived in our backyard for a couple days a few years ago. The sheep earned its fate by not working for the dogs learning sheep herding. I offered to buy it after the third time it lay down instead of accepting its fate as a training animal. Kiddo was with me, I warned before it went in the car that it was food. Sheep had a name before we left the farm. Anyway. She made a pet of it. I slaughtered it. Tears and recriminations, then fascination once the hide was off – I showed her how to blow up the lungs, cool gruesome trick – and then cooked her the heart right away in too much butter and garlic.

    That did the trick and now she’s on board with eating cute and fuzzy. She is lobbying to keep a skull from one of the rabbits. Sure. Fine. I agree that skulls are pretty nifty.

    Heat – I cut a worn out 2′ x 6′ 3/8″ sheet of plywood in three chunks, slapped white paint on both sides, drilled a hole in each, then hung them to shield the rabbits from the sun. We’ve got about 19 hours of daylight currently. High 70’s start feeling toasty when you get that many hours of sun.

    I’ve got some pics of my setup over on my site. Site loads slow and is unsophisticated .

  35. lynn says:

    This rioting and protesting *must* end before it affects the release of my favorite TV shows. You don’t want to affect the release of my favorite TV shows!

    BTW, our Super Walmart closed at 5pm last Monday and Tuesday. They were worried about rioting in Sugar Land during the George Floyd funeral and decided to close the store early. They were not to allow the store to get damaged or their employees hurt. That really surprised me and cued me into the fact that they are worried about flash mobs.

  36. lynn says:

    Whether or not my repair plan works out, I might also suggest to my wife that we watch for sales and buy a brand new spare as a prep. That first Sears one was a top of the line model that was on a half price sale, and cost us $70. Amazing, since we would have paid almost anything to get a working oven quickly. Almost. The second one wasn’t on sale, but was also cheap. The Panasonic was pretty inexpensive, also. Not gonna look it up. She is overjoyed with it, and that is priceless. The trend is that our microwave ovens last only about five years. No more Littons.

    I have mixed feelings about microwaves. They take a lot of amps, and are probably not very generator friendly in an emergency, but they sure beat an open fire.

    I just bought a 1,000 watt, 1.1 ft3 Hamilton Beach microwave at Walmart for $70.
    https://www.walmart.com/ip/Hamilton-Beach-1-1-Cu-Ft-Black-Digital-Microwave-Oven/283509715

    Microwaves sure are nice and save a lot of time. My parents bought our first one for over $1,000 ??? in 1974 ? 1975 ?. Was a Panasonic if I remember correctly.

  37. lynn says:

    Communities will still be ‘safe’ without cops, says Ilhan Omar – but fails to explain how Americans will be protected or crimes investigated without law enforcement

    Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar claimed Sunday that American communities will still be ‘safe’ without cops
    She failed to provide an alternative for organized law enforcement in the face of calls to defund police departments
    ‘No one is saying that the community is not going to be kept safe,’ Omar asserted to CNN in an interview Sunday morning
    ‘What we are saying is, the current infrastructure that exists as policing in our city should not exist anymore,’ she continued

    –$20 says “Sharia Law”….

    I ain’t gonna take your bet.

  38. lynn says:

    Having 20 buzzards flap out of the trees when you get near with with a squeaky wheeled wheelbarrow containing their breakfast was a strange thing.

    Having over a hundred buzzards eating a dead fawn, road kill, scatter across the front field at the office when I drove past them was a strange thing a few years ago. All they did was continue circling around and knocked the inner ring of eaters off their food.

  39. Greg Norton says:

    This rioting and protesting *must* end before it affects the release of my favorite TV shows. You don’t want to affect the release of my favorite TV shows!

    The rioting will stop for Baby Yoda season two.

  40. ITGuy1998 says:

    I guess people figured out that they really don’t like the taste of the stuff.

    I like spam. I slice it, fry it up, dice it, add scrambled eggs, garlic, and jalapeños. My wife just turns her nose up at it. I don’t think she’s ever actually tried it. Her loss.

  41. Nick Flandrey says:

    I like spam too. The bacon flavor is nice. Daughter 2 loves that stuff.

    n

  42. lynn says:

    “Coronavirus 2nd Wave? Nope, The U.S. Is Still Stuck In The 1st One”
    https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/12/876224115/coronavirus-second-wave-nope-were-still-stuck-in-the-first-one?utm_source=pocket-newtab

    “”Prominent forecasters are predicting a slow but steady accumulation of additional deaths between now and Oct. 1 — more than 56,000 by one estimate, around 90,000 by one another.”

    “”We really never quite finished the first wave,” says Dr. Ashish Jha, a professor of global health at Harvard University. “And it doesn’t look like we are going to anytime soon.””

    Yup. See the graph.

    We are going to be dancing with this nightmare for a long time.

    Hat tip to:
    https://drudgereport.com/

  43. Marcelo says:

    I’ve got some pics of my setup over on my site. Site loads slow and is unsophisticated .

    Jenny, although I am copy/pasting your comments for the possibility of someday having a hands-on expert guide, I must have somehow missed your site URL. Would you like to disclose?

  44. Jenny says:

    @marcelo
    Sorry, something goofy happened. Here it is.
    http://twogeeksandadog.com/?p=2996

  45. Marcelo says:

    Many thanks.

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