What did you do in the garden today?

[gtaus]

Variety [having many shoes and boots] is the spice of life!

I suppose I am spice less. Guilty as charged. I don't think I would ever consider a new pair of winter boots unless something happened to my 20-year-old pair of boots that will probably outlive me.

 

[gtaus]

Two words... power outages.

We can have outages that last for 3-4 days. That's why we have a generator: for running water (our own well and pump) and to keep the fridge/freezer running. The woodstove can keep the house warm, or at least tolerable.

That makes sense. We have never had a power outage for longer than a couple of hours. So, I was not even considering that aspect. Thanks.

I don't have a generator either. Power outages just never have been an issue for us. But if I lived in an area where we got bad storms or electrical outages, I think that would be on the top of my list.

We do get micro-outages that may last for a number of seconds, or even a few minutes, a few times a year. Because I have lots of computer equipment that runs 24/7, I have a large battery backup system to condition the electrical supply and provide about an hour of power in case of an outage. The software is set to automatically shut down the system if the power outage is prolonged.

Speaking of battery backups, I have seen a number of YouTube videos on battery backups for the house. One guy was talking about his system that could run on battery backup for a couple of days before he would have to recharge his batteries. For people on the grid, he advocated for the battery backup system with a small gas/diesel generator in case the power outage lasted more than a couple of days. Made sense to me as I expect most people that are on the grid have power outages that are measured in minutes, rather than hours or days like you mentioned.

 

[TJAnonymous]

No. But good for you just the same.

Realize that if you got charged for 3 bags when you only bought 2, and then you went back to the store, I doubt they would have believed you and refunded you that third charge. I never hear that happening.

If it's a small business run by a family, then I'd probably be more inclined to pay for the undercharge. But I cannot tell you how many times WalMart has overcharged me for products that have one price on the display and another higher price when you check out. No honesty there unless you catch the price markup before you leave the checkout.

I've had our Farmers Co-op make mistakes on my orders several times. Both to my benefit and to theirs. I've had them give me bags I didn't pay for and I brought it back. I've also had them refund me for an overcharge days after the mistake was made or even replace bags that had questionable contents. They have never balked at it or even hesitated. Despite being a rural community, they still stay pretty busy. I feel they have always wanted to do the ethical and honorable thing, no different than me.

 

[gtaus]

I've had our Farmers Co-op make mistakes on my orders several times. Both to my benefit and to theirs. I've had them give me bags I didn't pay for and I brought it back. I've also had them refund me for an overcharge days after the mistake was made or even replace bags that had questionable contents. They have never balked at it or even hesitated. Despite being a rural community, they still stay pretty busy. I feel they have always wanted to do the ethical and honorable thing, no different than me.

I think some smaller businesses still live up to that standard. WalMart came to our community and wiped out a lot of our small businesses. I guess we get what we deserve. WalMart here is known to treat the customers bad, and their employes even worse. And yet, the WalMart doors are open and the small businesses are shut down.

It's a different world than the one I grew up in. I don't feel the same relationship shopping at WalMart like I did when I bought goods at the small mom and pop stores I grew up with in our town.

Ethics and honor don't have much place in any of our big stores. Home Depot now has all their tools locked behind cages so you cannot even pick them up and test them for feel in your hands. Yeah, you can go looking for an employee somewhere in the store that can open the case, but even testing out a tool has now become a big issue. I guess too many products walk out the door.

I wonder if I will live enough to see that all our products and goods are ordered online and just delivered to the house like Amazon orders. Lots of stuff I used to buy locally are now only offered online even at our brick-and-mortar stores. Post COVID, some of our fast-food restaurants have permanently shut down their in-house services and are now only drive-through.

 

[Smokerbill]

I wonder if I will live enough to see that all our products and goods are ordered online and just delivered to the house like Amazon orders. Lots of stuff I used to buy locally are now only offered online even at our brick-and-mortar stores. Post COVID, some of our fast-food restaurants have permanently shut down their in-house services and are now only drive-through.

That would solve the consumer-side retail theft problem. I'll be getting a 40# bag of chicken scratch grains delivered from Walmart today, free shipping because my total order was over $35. To drive to Walmart to get it would've cost me nearly $10 in gas.

 

[saysfaa]

...

Considering the time it takes to can goods and expense in canning equipment to start with, can somebody tell me what the advantages that canning has over just freezing?

I don't worry about losing electricity. But it still costs about $30 a year to run a freezer. The cost of heating the water for canning offsets that somewhat, more/less depending on what you freezing, what you are canning, and how much you are processing at a time. Oh, and whether you have a gas or an electric stove -gas being less expensive.

The much bigger reason -
Shelf space is much less expensive than freezer space. I just build shelves for (9'x2'x6' I had to do the math) 108 cubic feet of shelf space for less $100 (counting the original cost of the "scraps" I used.) It cost over $600 for 20 cubic feet of freezer space.

Also, I have more basement space than garage space and cannot get a freezer down the basement stairs.

Using prices from a few years ago for both canning equipment and freezer equipment because I haven't checked prices of either lately:
Canning: pressure canner $100, tools (jar lifter and lid magnet) $15, quart jars with lids and rings $10/doz x 10 doz $100 for total of less than $250.
Freezing: freezer $600, ziplock freezer bags $8 for 120 quart size, $8 for 60 gallon size for a total of over $600.

Most of my jars were bought at garage sales, auction sales, or inherited but I bought enough brand new to remember the price. The price give was the price new then - its about $15 or $16 per dozen now.

Numbers of jars/bags are kinda arbitrary but the proportion is noticeable. Even if you buy all jars new and never need to buy plastic bags for freezer food, the cost difference doesn't change much.

Canned food is a bit lower in nutrition value than frozen food on day one. But canned food holds its nutrition value better than frozen food.

I like the taste and texture of some foods better when they are canned than when they are frozen (especially peaches). To be fair, I like other things better when they are frozen (like broccoli).

I like having both options.

 

[Sally PB]

I dread the day when I can't go to a store to look at and touch some of the stuff I'm interested in buying.

Garden seeds? I'll get them online from Baker Creek, Sow True Seeds, or Seed Savers Exchange. T-shirts? Yeah, the fit isn't important enough to need to try on, so I can get them from a catalog. Books? Fine to buy online.

Groceries? I want to look at the produce, I want to read the ingredients on the package. Shoes? I ABSOLUTELY have to try them on.

 

[gtaus]

That would solve the consumer-side retail theft problem. I'll be getting a 40# bag of chicken scratch grains delivered from Walmart today, free shipping because my total order was over $35. To drive to Walmart to get it would've cost me nearly $10 in gas.

To be sure, there are some advantages to online shopping and free shipping to your house for those of us living out in the country. It costs me about $5 to make a round trip to town. But not everything I want to get is available locally, so ordering online and shipping to the house is much less expensive than driving to that town.

I used to order tools from Harbor Freight when we did not have a local store. For a flat $6.95 shipping fee, I could get a whole order shipped to my house. If I had to drive my car to that town, the gas alone would have cost me about $50 and taken all day to pick up the tools.

I did not know that WalMart even sold chicken scratch. I looked online and they were all currently sold out. But, like you, it would be cheaper for me to have a bag(s) of chicken scratch shipped to the house rather than driving into town and picking it up.

 

[Smokerbill]

There's no way I'd be able to get what I bought yesterday online. I needed a single #10 stainless steel pan head Phillips drive sheet metal screw, 1 and 1/4 inches long. Plus a thin nylon washer. The local hardware store had them. Cost, 73 cents. Plus a buck or two in gas to get there.

Edit: Actually, it was only 70 cents because the cashier pulled 3 pennies out of the penny jar. And that definitely wouldn't happen online. LOL

 

[Sally PB]

I like having both options.

Yes! Home frozen and canned food both have a place in my home.

Next time I make bone broth, I'm going to pressure can it. I have been freezing it, but I have lots of space in my (new) basement pantry.

DH hates the smell, so I have to do it when he's gone for the day. Thanksgiving will give me a turkey carcass, and I have lots of veg ends in the freezer to make it with.