Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for July 22, 2020

As if we had space!

It’s true here in Kerala, India too – I have restocked my supplies, despite my electrical equipment being unhappy. This, after a 3-4 weeks long of cooking spree to “de-stock” older supplies!

Time to get that chest freezer. Get two, in case of the Zombie Trumpocalypse

Lessons Learned from Covid19, Round 1a: Prepared for the Unexpected. Don’t prepare to fight the last one (well…maybe a little.)

No chips? And, hey, our Salsa hoard is getting low.

Buy the powdered soup mixes. Easy to store.

Arlo needs to crank up the old grill!

Great, now people will be hoarding toilet paper again, also.

<—— 2 people, 2 dogs, 2 refrigerators and 2 freezers. Seems like the twin life rules here.

I finally found hand sanitizer. Haven’t seen any since February of March. Still haven’t seen Lysol or Clorox wipes. Fortunately we have 4 gallons of bleach to make our own wipes.

BTW does anyone watch “Hoarders” or are we too busy living it.

Time to buy more TP! Actually is, we bought a bale just before the pandemic started and are down to the last six-pack.

Just saw an article on the internet about the new Brazilian bikini’s and thought of Janis. I can only wish. Such a hottie.

If they only had a Brian.

As I was a boy scout my motto is still “be prepared”.

Well here in Florida, if you don’t have at least 3 months of food on the shelf, you aren’t too smart. Hurricanes are very unforgiving. We use 5 gallon orange home depot buckets that have enough food and stuff in them (screw on tops) for two adults for a month (each bucket). And it is portable, grab it and go with a backpack containing cooking/fishing/utensils and built in water camel: you are good.

I’ve always kept twenty pounds of rice and about 40 pounds of wheat (I mill my own flour), plenty of dried beans and such, plenty of salt, and big canisters of Gator-Aid. I now also keep a case of shelf-stable milk. I only draw on my 100 gallon propane tank for the range, so it’s good for along time, and I have access to the water table and can boil. And I have a generator and a lot of gasoline. And radio communications duplicated in the car. And the ability to grow food. Simple things, but something like the coronal mass ejection of 1859 would make life endlessly more difficult and dangerous without them.

They are good for about two more pandemics and one invasion.

We decided, when the TP vanished, to go ahead and get some meat. We had been planning on getting some even before then. Went out to get a new freezer to put the meat in. There were none in the whole country! Not sure if it is still that way but you could not buy a traditional type freezer. We ended up getting one of those you see in a store, with the glass sliding doors on the top. I’d be surprised if you could even find one now. Hopefully they are out there now.

when this all started I bought a freezer and filled it with an assortment of meats. Also bought enough dry and canned foods for at least 4 months. The funny thing is over all this time besides the tp and 70% alcohol I never had a problem purchasing anything.

My mother will be 90 here in about a month, (Dad is 93). She still fixes meals almost every day and cans or freezes food regularly, although not as much as she used too. Only critters they have anymore are chickens so they eat eggs quite often. Just the other day she told me “Sometimes I’m ashamed of how much food we have.” She remembers quite well how much harder it was to keep a family fed during the Depression even on a farm.

The good news about all this is that my wife has learned to cook again. I like it.

We were at the point where we only ate dinner home 4 nights a week – Wendys lunch daily. Days we ate dinner home basically bought for that night that day – or maybe 2 days at a time, except when a winter storm was coming we would make sure to have food in the house for that.

Mid March (we live in NYS which was hit hard) he decided we needed to stock up on food, but he was already afraid to go to where there were a lot of people. Rarely order things delivered as always problems – but I offered. Ended up at a supermarket not near our house as it was bigger with about the same number of cars in the lot. As of 3/1 no 1 time use shopping bags to be given out, so we brought 2 of the larger new plastic shopping bags and 3 of the old ones (in my pocket). He panic shopped – bread in bag first, cans on top. When we left he figured we had maybe enough food for 2 weeks. I figured at least a month. I was also amazed how much food we found in the house including our emergency supplies expired in 2005.

Did not buy food again until mid May – he ordered from Walmart (warehouses not local stores) & we did not really need to buy anything – but it made him feel better & then went to Walmart Neighborhood Mkt for cold items. Mid June he decided again we needed to buy food & did both – order and shop again. He has again decided we need to buy food – no orders as food came too damaged – just to the NM. Dining room table is still completely covered with food, + 4 large plastic boxes filled with food, refrigerator’s freezer &2nd small freezer full, plus pantry closet! When a big thunderstorm comes he is fear that we lose electricity & the cold foods. (Too many hurricanes and big thunderstorms in last decade have done so). Will go this coming week – have the list ready, but more being added daily of things we may or may not really need.

That’s because you don’t have a Quality Dairy store on the corner