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Costco stock up shop: this is what $661 looks like

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*sigh*

We really need to do something about having so many cats.

I headed to the city shortly after 10am, stopping at a gas station at my mother’s town along the way, only to pick up a drink and a road snack to tide me over. I tried a new brand of beef jerky.

I should have gotten the hint when there was no price. In fact, none of the beef jerky, nor most of their snack mixes have prices on display.

It turned out to be almost $21.

Along with the super large Monster energy drink I got, it came to just over $26 after taxes and enviro fees.

It was good jerky, at least, but I won’t be buying it again! I only had a few pieces and the rest is in its sealed bag in the console where we keep things like water bottles, road snacks, extra tissue boxes, extra wet wipes, etc.

When I got to the city, my first stop was at a mall for “breakfast” in the food court. I ended up getting a three item Chinese food meal and a drink – about $16 and change – but only ate half of it. The other half was my supper when I got home.

Before going to the Costco, I swung through the Dollarama that’s right by the food court (I don’t think I’ve ever checked out the rest of the mall) and the doors I parked near. I ended up getting a few things there; four shoe-box sized storage boxes with lids, a refill bottle of liquid soap, and a 4L jug of cleaning vinegar. They have the 10% acidity vinegar that I’d been looking for. The grocery store had only 7% acidity cleaning vinegar. (4% is cooking vinegar and 5% is pickling vinegar) The 10% is noticeably better at descaling our kettle, that’s for sure!

I also picked up a couple more clear vinyl table protectors for the garden. Or for winterizing cat shelters. Either one. I’ll probably pick up more before the snow flies.

I ended up buying another hard sized bag to carry the stuff, and my breakfast leftovers, to the truck. I have lots in the truck but hadn’t expected to get things like the vinegar or soap refills, so I hadn’t brought any with me. Usually, I just take my cart to the truck and pack things up there, but the Dollarama carts can’t leave the store.

That done, I finally drove the couple of blocks over to the Costco, with my first stop being for gas. Their gas was at $1.329 instead of the $1.449 everywhere else in the city, so they were pretty busy! I was just under half a tank, and my fill cost $61.54

Once that was done, I was fortunate enough to find a parking spot right away. Yay! With the long weekend coming up, the lot was pretty full.

Then I grabbed my flat card and loaded up.

This is what $661.10 looks like.

That is not very full at all.

Here is an example of what I did NOT get today.

This is a “family size” package of stew meat. We used to get these all the time. I remember getting this size for under $20. Now, that same size pack costs in the $60 range – and this was NOT the biggest pack in the display.

This is what I DID get.

I got six 9.1kg/20lb bags of kibble. They had the 11kg size, but the Kirkland brand is a better price/gram. I also got a 48 pack of wet cat food and more puppy pads. The cat supplies all together totaled $223.32 before taxes.

*sigh*

The other stuff on the flat cart they scanned included a case of Coke Zero for my husband and I, a case of Monster that my daughter will pay me back for, a 3 pk of oat milk for my daughters, toilet paper, paper towels and a double flat of 60 eggs.

For meats, I got a chub of ground beef and a pork blade roast. I got a pork loin, and plan to try something different with it. I was able to find and get curing salt a couple of weeks ago, so I’m going to try curing it. I also got a couple of 3 pks of Spam (that’s sure gone up in price, too!).

In dairy, I got 4 pounds of butter and Old Cheddar cheese.

For breads, I got two 2pks of rye bread and two packs of wraps. There is also a big case of spaghetti, a big jar of mayonnaise and popcorn. I remembered to get some fabric softener sheets for the drier; that three pack will last use a few years. Last of all, I got a Tuxedo cake. My husband’s birthday is in the beginning of September, so he’ll be getting his cake early!

And… that’s it.

That’s $619.41 before taxes. Of that, $259.94 was actual food for us (not counting beverages).

For the month.

Good grief.

True, we did do an earlier stock up trip at the international grocery store where the only non-food items were some hair accessories, on sale, for my daughter. Costco is also the place were we get the big stuff, like the paper products, along with the cat supplies, and typically bulk sized meats.

Kitten interruption: I went to chase raccoons out of the sun room. The foundling kittens were all crying in distress. No sign of a mama, and the creche mothers weren’t going into the cat cage, though Lady Hypotenose was nursing 5 or 6 older kittens in the middle of the sun room. We don’t have kitten formula, so my daughter and I ended up making “kitten soup” with a can of wet cat food and fed them, one at a time in the bathroom, using a syringe. They were confused by the whole thing, but were very hungry. In my last check on them, they had settled in together in the cat bed and seemed to be calming down with full little bellies.

On the down side, I think there are still four very stupid little raccoons jammed between the counter shelf and the window!

Back to our regular programming…

So this trip did go over our Costco budget, even though we got less than typical. Frustrating. Especially since we’re supposed to be stocking up extra in the pantry to tide us over for the winter, should we get snowed in or something again.

*sigh*

Well, it is what it is. We’ll work things out. We’ve been in tighter spots before.

Excuse me while I go chase some skunks out of the sun room…

The Re-Farmer

First monthly stock up shop: this is what $448 looks like

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That, plus the things I didn’t get pictures of.

Normally, at this point, I would say “but first, the cuteness.” But no. Not this time.

This is not cuteness.

This is Clarence, being a jerk. 😄

As soon as I get up from my office chair, or go near it, Clarence runs ahead of me, jumps onto the chair and does this. As if to say, you can’t be mad at me! I’m adorable!

Then he goes all rubbery when I try to take him off.

Sorry, Clarence. You ain’t THAT cute! 😂

I fooled him this time, though. I didn’t need the chair. He was so disappointed. 🤣

Today, my daughter and I went into the city for our first stock up shopping trip. This is the one where we hit multiple stores along one strip.

Just as we were pulling out of our driveway, though, my cell phone started ringing. My first thought was, oh, no. It’s home care calling to say they can’t do my mother’s med assist.

My daughter was thinking the same thing.

I was able to pull over immediately – one advantage of living off of gravel roads! It turned out to be the autobody place. They wanted to book the truck in for the insurance claim repairs. That is now scheduled for the 26th to the 30th of September, and they have a courtesy car for me, so we can still do our stock up shopping. Yay!

Our next stop was at the gas station in town, where we picked up $40 in gas. Prices jumped 10¢/L overnight, a few days ago. Since the town nearest us is a resort town, they have the same prices as the city, at $1.449/L My CAA card gave me a whole 83¢ discount. Better than nothing, I suppose.

From there, we headed to the city and our first stop was at Walmart. The main thing we needed there was cat food.

This is what $200.23 looks like.

We did get a few other things to, of course.

For the dry kibble, we got a different brand because we could get three bags, about 21kg (a little over 40 pounds) for about the same price as two bags of our usual brand, which would have been 18kg total (a little over 36 pounds). Those were for the outside cats. We also got two 32 packs of wet cat food, one for the inside cats, one for the outside cats.

There was a really good price on some boxed cereal my daughters like, so we grabbed two of those, along with some feminine hygiene products I’ll be paid back for later. We got a 4 pack of Monster drinks for now; we’ll be getting a case at Costco (which I will be paid back for as well).

I grabbed some water flavours for my husband, and a pound of butter, as we were out this morning. We’ll stock up on butter at Costco, in a couple of days.

That’s it. That’s $200.

*sigh*

Our next stop was the Canadian Tire, with a side trip to Michaels. My older daughter needed a certain size of envelop we haven’t been able to find anywhere and really hoped we’d find them at the Michael’s! These are to fit some prints, among other things, my daughter sends to some of her higher tier Patreon supporters. They come in two sizes and we haven’t been able to find anything that fits both!

Thankfully, they did have a size that worked. We got her two packs of 50. That should last a while! They cost about $36, but I will be reimbursed for those, too.

Next, we drove across the lot to the Canadian Tire and picked up two bags of stove pellets for the litters. They weren’t in the usual place, so I asked staff. They directed me to the BBQ pellets. Which are fancy woods and really expensive. I found someone else and she tried to direct me to the same area. After looking it up on the devices all the staff carried, she finally saw what I was talking about, but had no idea where they were.

They turned out to be in the exit vestibule.

All we needed were two bags! That came out to $16.78.

Finally, we were off to the international grocery store. It shares a parking lot with a Dollarama, so we went into there, first. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but they did have more of those metal fence posts that I am currently using to fence around our corn and squash bed. I got four more, for a grand total of $21.25

Looking at the receipt, though, I see they have them listed as “flower stand”. ??? I have no idea how they would be used as a stand for flowers. I just tried looking them up and, after tweaking the search terms a bit, finally found them – being sold as fence posts. Which is what they’ll be used for!

Then we finally went into the international grocery store. It was past lunch time by then, so the first order of business was food! I got a three item dim sum meal that was so loaded, I only ate half of it, and the rest will be my supper. My daughter got some fresh sushi (they were in the process of making more while we watched) which turned out to be available for free with points, so I used them. So my meal, plus our drinks, totaled just over $16.

This place is where we get a number of things we don’t find anywhere else – at least not anywhere we go regularly. Since we have to make special trips into the city, we won’t have the luxury of hunting down specialty shops, nor harder to get to locations. I was happy that we made it today, because it was the last day for some really good deals.

This is what $248.54 looks like.

Pretty much everything in there was on sale.

The main thing I really wanted to get was the frozen sushi grade Ahi tuna. They were only $1.99/100grams. I ended up getting to two biggest frozen chunks of tuna they had left. My daughters really loved it, the last time they had a sale like this and I was able to get one. They enjoyed it both raw and as steaks, lightly seared.

The other proteins we got was some regular ground beef, applewood smoked bacon slab and regular smoked bacon slab, which was on sale. I also got a salmon for the girls that wasn’t one sale, except that it was a deal connected with my loyalty card’s special offers, so that got price reduced when we scanned it through.

This store has an excellent cheese counter. They had lactose free brie that was one a “buy two and save” sale. I also got a pesto gouda, which is something new to try. Yes, it was on sale, too.

Let’s see. What else…

There is a bag of pearl barley – something only my husband and I like in this household. It was not on sale. I can’t believe these now cost over $4 each! We got the soy sauce my husband likes and, after much searching, my daughter found some liquid smoke I remembered to pick up, for something I want to try later on.

There is a clamshell of nectarines that was on sale, and the sale for the instant milk tea was so good, I got two. The Kraft Mac and Cheese was on sale, as were the granola bars and Greek yogurt. My daughter also spotted some hair accessories on sale, so we picked those up as well.

Finally, we got things for immediate eating when we got home. A huge Lumber Jack sandwich for my husband (that’ll be at least two meals!), plus my daughter chose three different sushi for herself and her sister that was part of a multi-discount, so they came out to only $5 each. Last of all were a couple of drinks for the road.

So my total for all that was $248.54 after taxes. I got bonus points that largely made up for what I used to get my daughter’s lunch sushi for free, plus I got $54.94 taken off with loyalty card sales. It doesn’t include the savings from items on sale that are sold by weight. Including those, it was probably closer to $65-$70 off.

In the end, counting the items not pictured, gas and lunch, our total expenditure for the day came out to just over $578, some of which I will be paid back for.

There were a lot of things we would have liked to get. They were even on sale. The problem was, what is considered a sale price now for these things is what used to be a high regular price, just a year or two ago! We stayed in budget, but even if we wanted to go over budget, we would not have been willing to pay those prices, sale or no sale.

It should be interesting to see what the prices are like at Costco, when we go in a couple of days!

Tomorrow, however, I’m heading out again, this time to my doctor’s appointment. If things go as I hope, I’ll be getting X-rays on my left hip to find out what the heck is going on there of late. It has actually gotten better, in that I can put weight on my left leg to go up a step or two, but it’s still really unstable. While I am ambidextrous with most things, I’m left dominant. Which means I’m more likely to step forward with my left leg rather than my right. I made the mistake of stepping up a curb with my left leg today. I really should not have done that! It messed me up enough that, even when I was stepping up with my right leg, I needed to grip my daughter’s hand to stabilize me as I did it. I know I have bone spurs in both my hips, along with the OA. It could just be that the OA in my left hip has gotten worse.

No way to know without getting X-rays done.

I’m quite curious about what showed up in the X-rays of my left arm. They wouldn’t have called me in if everything was fine, but it can’t be too bad, or they would have had me either come in earlier, or told me to go to a hospital.

I’ll find out tomorrow!

Then it’s back to the city the day after, for the Costco shopping.

We need to focus on stocking up. I’m seeing more long range forecasts for this winter, and the general consensus seems to be a mild fall (ha!) and winter (double ha!), with lots of snow and blizzards. Which means a higher potential of getting getting snowed in.

At least this year, my brother’s equipment is all out here. Including snow blowers and a snow clearing tractor attachment. None of which we can use ourselves, though. Some need repairs, and some have “tricks” to using them, that only my brother knows! I expect they’ll be out here pretty much every weekend, once their grandson is back home. I know my brother has a lot of stuff he wants to get working on, including repairing a tractor that got damaged when they were moving their stuff out here. Plus, things need to be organized, just to be able to get at some of the equipment. When their property sold, they only had so much time to bring everything they were keeping out here, and were just shoving things wherever they could find the space! It’s not even something we can help him with, either. With their “new” mobile home/caravan they recently picked up, they will at least have a winter worthy “home” to use in the winter, though being an older model, even that has some work my brother wants to do on it to make sure it’s winterized and no rodents or wasps or anything like that can get in.

So while we can expect to have a much better winter when it comes to things like snow clearing, that can only happen while my brother is here. Which means there is still the potential to get snowed in. At least the truck is better able to get through the snow than our previous vehicle, but even that only goes so far.

There is much to be done, that’s for sure!

The Re-Farmer

Little by little…

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… it’s getting done.

I headed out this afternoon to continue working on cleaning up the main garden area. I started off by doing some weed trimming first, as I knew I wouldn’t have the energy to do it after mowing the overgrown area. I wanted to get around the log framed raised beds, as they will be getting wood chips added to their paths soon. I also trimmed around the newest food forest additions.

Our corded weed trimmer died on us earlier this year, so my brother dug his battery operated weed trimmer out of storage for me to use. Thankfully, he has many batteries! I drained two of them and was working on a third before I finished. Along with the main garden area, I made sure to trim around the east yard garden beds, as well as some stumps, rocks and roots, so that they where no longer hidden. Hitting those with a lawn mower is not fun!

The trimming done, my focus was the overgrown area, starting with opening up the higher traffic area towards the fruit trees, where I run a hose through to the old leaky rain barrel. This meant setting the mower as high as it could go for a first run.

Here is how it was yesterday afternoon, before any mowing started.

I took that one before starting to mow around where new trellis tunnel beds will be built, without trying for the overgrown area yet. I got an in progress photo last night, and then again today, when I had to stop.

In the first photo, you can see I cleared away the logs and solarization plastic. The cardboard was left for now. It will be laid over where the next trellis bed will be built and, if there is enough, over some of the paths before the wood chips are laid down.

The next photo is almost depressing. It really doesn’t look like much was done! That is partly because the remaining tall grass hides what was mowed around the sliver buffalo berry area. It really is a huge space, too.

The gas can is next to the stump that was under the pile of logs, where a diseased crab apple tree had died and was removed. There’s another off frame to the left, but it’s almost low enough to mow over.

I didn’t even need to refill the gas tank before I had to stop. It was simply too hot and humid, and I was starting to feel like I was about to pass out. Definitely time to get in out of the sun and hydrate!

Once that last section of tall grass, poplar saplings, alfalfa, clover, stink weed and various other things gets cleared with the push mower, it will need to be done again at a lower setting – but at that point, we could use the riding mower. Carefully. I don’t want to break my brother’s riding mower in there!

Over time, this area will get at least five more low raised beds that will be paired off with trellis tunnels, for a total of six, including the current one we’re already using. We might go with one more pair after that, but we may not need to. We won’t be going all the way in that direction with garden beds, though, as we will be planting more food forest items out there, and I want to have a wider lane between the two areas, in case we need to drive through with a vehicle.

In the other direction, the existing beds will be framed with logs, plus the area that used to be our squash patch, which is also overgrown and needs to be mowed, will be worked on. Instead of more 18′ beds, though, sections of it will be made into perennial gardens, like the asparagus bed we started this year. We might also make wider blocks for planting things like corn, potatoes or even wheat, instead of the long and narrow beds we’ve got going right now. The area we first grew what we thought was kulli corn but was actually Montana Morado has some really good soil, compared to everywhere else in that area, so I would really like to reclaim it again.

In the longer term, after we get rid of that killer row of elms and maples along the north side of our garden beds, we will probably make more raised beds, right on top of where the trees are now. Partly to make sure there is no chance that they will grow back, partly to reclaim more garden space. When I was a kid, where those trees are now was part of my mother’s garden, and they are taking up a LOT of square footage that used to grow food!

A lot of clean up will be required before we can build anything there. For now, we’ve been tossing a lot of the rocks we’ve been picking out of the garden beds into where the trees are. Some of them are large enough that we’ll likely use them to weigh down row covers or the like. With how many rocks we grow every spring, we could probably collect enough to make some gabion structures. Along with the rocks, there’s also lots of Virginian Creeper and Creeping Charlie, among other things, that will need to be dealt with, too.

All in good time.

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer

Ongoing

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All day, we’ve been under an ongoing thunderstorm watch.

Sort of.

These watches cover a massive area. Looking at the weather radar, none of it seems to be heading to us. Instead, all the systems seem to be splitting off to pass either the north or south of us.

I had been holding off watering the garden because of these possible thunderstorms, hoping we would at least get some rain. I finally started watering the old kitchen garden this morning, and it actually did start raining hard enough that I stopped and went inside, planning to continue later.

Then the power outage hit.

Finally, when it was time to head out and feed the outside cats, I planned to finish the watering.

I was still filling various bowls with kibble when my pocket started screaming at me.

We were getting a tornado warning to our cell phones, complete with instructions to find shelter.

I could hear some thunder in the distance, but there was nothing over us to suggest any sort of storm or rain, never mind a tornado.

My daughter was on her computer when her phone went off so she looked it up. It turns out that while we were in the service range for the warning, we weren’t in the geographical range. That was to the south of us. Nothing was headed our way.

So I finished feeding the cats, then wandered through the garden area, checking on things while deciding whether I was still going to water or not. I could hear equipment running and voices on the road, so I went closer to see what I could over the lilac hedge. The electric company was replacing the top of a power pole across the road from us.

I’m sure they would have gotten the same tornado warning we did and, if it had been for our geographical area, they would have been ordered to pack up and leave!

I started watering, including the new food forest additions. It was while I was there that a second tornado warning with instructions to take shelter came in.

This is what the sky looked like at the time.

I could hear thunder from both east and west, but that was it. Once again, our climate bubble was in action.

I was able to finish watering without interruption.

We’re still supposed to get some rain today. There is a system that is supposed to actually pass over us this evening, with the more severe portions still missing us. We might get actual rain for about an hour. For all the watering I did, any rain would still be a blessing.

However, I’d still be more than happy for the rain to miss us, if it means all those fires get the rain instead. The current count is something like 700 fires across the country, making it the worst fire season in 30 years.

While the severe weather missed us, a homesteading friend who lives south of my mother’s town posted some video she took. While I was outside, watering the garden, she was getting a massive down pour, and hail started to fall while she was recording. It was absolutely insane to watch! They were under the geographical tornado warning area which, thankfully, did not happen. We are still under an ongoing severe thunderstorm watch but, from what I’m seeing on the weather radar, the system has already passed us and moving on into the next province. For our area, we might, just maybe, get some rain. Which is supposed to be happening right now, but the system split off to pass on either side of us again!

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Power is back

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When the outage start approaching 3 hours, we had a decision do make – except it was already made for us, really. We could get the fire pit going and start cooking lunch, or go into town and get take out.

We’re still under a fire ban (plus, cooking outdoors in this heat would have been brutal), so off to town I went!

As I reached the end of the gravel road, I started seeing large vehicles on the side of the road near the highway. One of them had an empty trailer attached to it. When I got to the stop sign, I could see the equipment it was hauling. A lift on tracks was at one of the power poles, surrounded by several trucks and a crowd of people.

The electric company has been upgrading stuff all over the province for the past year or so, so seeing workers these days is not unusual. Seeing that many, with so many vehicles right in the ditch with the workers (the ditch on that side is wide and flat enough to drive in) suggested this was not part of the maintenance projects.

While driving through our little hamlet, I passed two places that have exterior signs that are lit up, and they were both on. So the power outage clearly didn’t affect things East of the highway.

This is what the WP AI image generator came up with, with only the word “electricity” as a prompt. 😄

When I got to town, I got some gas then stopped at a DQ. I ordered enough for the four of us for two meals, just in case.

On the way home, when I got to where I’d seen the workers, all the vehicles were now mustered on the gravel road side of the highway, and it looked like they were packing up. When I saw I would pass one of the guys, I stopped to ask him about it. He confirmed that they had just finished repairing the damage, and the power would soon be turned back on. I made sure to express my thanks for their work, then headed home. It was only two more miles, but the power was on again before I got there.

While I was in town, I took advantage of having a data signal and messaged with my brother while waiting for the food. When I told him I was in town and why, and he asked about using the BBQ they have us a couple of years back. I told him, the last time I checked, BBQs were also part of the fire ban.

Once home and the computer was back on, I checked the RM website. Our fire pit is not an “approved” fire pit, in that it doesn’t have a screen, but even if it did, we could only have used it between 8pm and 8am. As for the BBQ, it is a propane one, and BBQs and fire pits fueled with propane tanks were still allowed. Which is good to know, should we find ourselves in this situation again. They also just recently lifted a ban on ATVs and off road vehicles.

That explains why I was suddenly seeing so many of them on the trail cams lately!

That might also explain why we suddenly started seeing our vandal doing weird stuff in the driveway cam, too. We didn’t get a break because he was calming down. It was because his preferred method of transportation was temporarily banned.

Tomorrow, we have our planned outage from 9am to 2pm. They are upgrading the entire system so that it can handle more of a load and more people hooked into it. At the same time, they are replacing old poles, cutting away trees and branches from the power lines, and other general maintenance stuff.

I expect our power bills are going to be going up again next fiscal year. When we first got onto the equal payment plan, we were paying less than $300/month. Now, we’re creeping towards $400 a month. Without the equal payment plan, during our first winter here, the bill was over $600 for December and over $700 for January, so we really appreciated being able to get onto the equal payment plan after we lived here for a year! We’re still paying more for electricity every month than we are for our monthly truck payments. The bills have gone up even during years when our overall usage has gone down.

Anyhow.

This sort of thing is why I want to have an actual outdoor kitchen built. This is what we have planned for the structure.

The plan for the back of it is to have a brick or stone series of cooking areas, including an oven and a smoke house, that would be safe to use during dry years like this. It would also be built near the pump shack, so we would have access to the old well, and a simple extension cord from the pump shack can be set up to provide basic power, if we needed it. We originally thought to build it in a completely different area, until we realized it gets standing water during particularly wet springs.

Even if we just had the shelter built, we have old wood burning cook stoves we could set up temporarily. Between being under a roof and the fire being completely enclosed, it would not be included in any fire bans.

We’ll get there. Eventually.

For now, I’m just glad to have the power back on. It means my husband can sleep with his CPAP again.

The Re-Farmer

Power is out

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I’m hoping I have enough data signal to post this!

Yesterday, we got a notification from the electric company that there would be a planned power outage. 

Tomorrow.

They’ve been doing a lot of maintenance in the past years or so.  This outage, however, is unplanned.  I had to wander around outside to find enough signal to open their app and report our outage.  I tried looking at their outage map.  The pins loaded, but not the map itself. 

I was able to get messages from my SIL while I was outside.   They are in the middle of a storm.  She was able to send me an outage map link that actually loaded.  Our area and another just north of us are without power right now.

As I write this, our power has been out for almost 45 minutes.  Hopefully, it will be back soon.  I really don’t want to get into our alts.

The Re-Farmer

Kittens and pumpkins!

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This morning, my darling daughters took care of feeding the outside cats so that I could sleep in. Between the city shopping trips and having to get up extra early to get things done before driving out to do my mother’s morning med assists and other errands, I really needed it. I am NOT a morning person at the best of times!

Of course “sleeping in” is a relative statement. Especially with so many cats that like to use me as a bed. So it was still pretty early when I headed out to do the rest of my morning rounds.

I got to see the garage kittens.

The white and grey one was brave enough to sniff my fingers!

They have discovered my brother’s baler that’s parked beside the garage, and that’s their new playground.

The first couple of pictures are from this morning. Their mama came over and let me pet her, which gave me a chance to get closer to the kittens. There was an area they were hiding under where I could reach in from the side or the other end, so I was able to touch briefly before they moved. At one point, I just held my hand out and the white and grey one was juuuuust brave enough to touch my fingers with his/her nose and give them a sniff before backing away, several times.

While checking on the garden beds, I got some pictures of a couple of the pumpkins.

A couple of them are blooming, but only one has a female flower budding (second image above). That one is on the largest pumpkin plant. Since the beans are completely stagnated and not going to climb the trellis I prepared for them, I’m training the bigger pumpkin up the trellis netting. As the main vine gets bigger, I’m getting it to grow towards one of the vertical support posts, as well as to where a pair of vertical and horizontal netting support posts cross. Any pumpkins would get too heavy for this netting to support on its own, so I want to use the structural supports as much as possible.

Today was slightly cooler than yesterday, but I still wanted to stay out of direct sunlight while working outside. With that in mind, I decided to get back to the wattle weaving in the old kitchen garden.

Of course, things didn’t quite go as planned. Do they ever? But that will be in my next post!

See you there!

The Re-Farmer

Costco stock up: This is what $635 looks like

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I am so glad to be home.

I forgot. We’re coming up on a long weekend. Even though today is Thursday, Costco was insanely busy! When I was done, it took several minutes going further and further to the back of the store before I found the end of the line I needed. The self check out line was almost as long!

Thankfully, everything went quickly.

Before going to Costco, though, I made a stop at the mall nearby for breakfast, then made a quick run through the Dollarama. I found a few things for both kitchen and garden, totaling just over $35 – including a couple of boxes of McKenzie Seeds wildflower mix. I’m considering trying again in the same spot I tried winter sowing last year, only this time, I want to find some way to keep the cats from digging and rolling all over it, even though I never removed the leaf litter mulch. We really need more wildflowers for the pollinators. I’ve left the sections of the old garden area uncut because they were pretty much the only things blooming right now. Once they start dying back, I’ll start working on taming the jungle. I’m not seeing as many pollinators lately, though. The constant smoke from the wildflowers is causing them problems.

I also got a couple of metal pinwheels that are weather vanes, so they will turn with the direction of the wind to spin. I plan to set one beside the peas that are trying to recover, and another near the plum and apple saplings. The plastic pinwheels I have now don’t seem to catch the wind very well, but something that moves with the wind should work better to distract the deer.

I’m glad I didn’t stop to get a bit of gas on the way into the city. I normally put in just a few bucks if I’m expecting to drop below half a tank. I did stop at the gas station in my mother’s town along the way, but that’s because the truck informed me that I was low on washer fluid. The only fluid I have in the truck right now is for winter. Gas prices there were $1.349/L At Costco, it was $1.199/L!! There rest of the city was $1.339/L It cost me $67.15 to fill my tank.

When it comes to shopping at Costco, this is where we bulk buy most of our non-food items, so that took up a significant portion of the budget. This is what $636.55 looks like.

There were two things on my list I didn’t get, because Costco doesn’t carry them. Those are for the next Walmart trip. I lost count somewhere along the line, as I ended up going a bit over my budget for this shop, when I thought I was still under budget. Ah, well.

With the long receipt, I ended up taking two pictures of it.

Unfortunately WP messes one of them up, due to the different dimensions. You should be able to see it properly if you click on the image.

For the non-food stuff, we got:

  • scent free laundry detergent
  • puppy pads
  • four 9kg bags of dry kibble
  • one case of canned cat food
  • toilet paper
  • Shake ‘n’ Feed fertilizer (on sale)
  • a 2 pack of parchment paper

All of that cost $250 and change before taxes.

*sigh*

For beverages, there is a flat of Monster energy drink, which I will be paid back for, and a 3 pack of oat milk for the girls.

Then there’s the actual food:

  • spaghetti
  • Ramen noodles
  • 2 pack of Honey Nut Cheerios (on sale)
  • 2 jars of Hellman’s Mayo (the sale price made them cheaper than the Kirkland brand)
  • double flat of eggs (5 dozen)
  • 4 pounds butter
  • Old Cheddar, 1 block
  • Mozzarella, 1 block
  • pork tenderlion
  • pork sausage (on sale)
  • two packs of drumsticks (on sale)
  • two rotisserie chickens (cheaper than raw, whole chickens)
  • two 2 packs of salad mix
  • Basmati rice
  • two 2 packs of rye bread
  • two 2 packs of wraps
  • 1 bag hazelnuts

The food and drink part of the shop came to about $348 and change, before taxes.

What I didn’t get was beef. I checked out a fairly small flank steak, and it was over $88! A family pack of stew meat was over $43. They had a sale on ground beef, but they came in long chubs that all cost in the $60 range, before discount. Then there were the larger cuts of beef that were in the $200 plus, range. *choke* Even the pork is starting to creep up in price again.

We aren’t even going to be able to buy a beef share this year. Normally, we would have made payments throughout the year until they butchered in the fall. We already dropped from a quarter beef to an eighth, the last time we got a beef share, because of how tight our budget got once we had truck payments. We talked when I met to pick up the meat in January, and she said they weren’t sure what they were going to be doing, nor what price/pound they’d have to charge yet. All they knew for sure was that they were going to have to increase the price. So we didn’t start making payments at the beginning of the year, like I planned. Which, I suppose, worked out for the best, because we’ve had so many things needing to be replaced or repaired – and we’re still not done with that – that we couldn’t have made monthly payments this year, anyhow. They haven’t updated their website, nor have they announced anything on their social media pages, so I have no idea if they were even still selling beef shares.

I wonder if we can buy a steer from the farmer that rents most of this property? We have enough pasture in the outer yard to sustain 1 or 2 calves. Then butcher in the fall.

Oh, dear Lord. I just looked up the average prices for feeder steers and heifers, per hundredweight, in Canada right now.

*choke*

Never mind that idea! Yeah, we’d save money in the long run, but yikes! No wonder beef prices are so high right now!

Okay, so beef is going to be a rare treat for the next while.

😢😢

Anyhow.

That’s our Costco stock up shop for this month. It won’t last us the month, either.

*sigh*

Oh, that reminds me. Our federal overlords graciously “gave” people on CPP and CPP Disability a 2.7% raise that kicked in for July’s payment, which was a couple of days ago. My husband gets both CPP Disability, plus Disability through his private insurance with SunLife. With private insurance he was “allowed” to make a certain amount above the payments, then everything else gets deducted. The CPP Disability uses up all that “allowance”, which is why I can’t get a job. Anything I earn would be deducted from his SunLife disability payments.

He recently got a letter from SunLife telling him what his payments will be, starting at the end of July, meaning today.

Yup. While the CPP Disability payments went up by a few bucks, his SunLife payments went down by a few bucks.

They cancelled each other out.

🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

Honestly, I thank God that the company my husband worked for had such a good insurance plan. It’s keeping us afloat. I also thank God that we have the arrangement with my brother to live here and take care of the place in exchange for rent. We still have to be creative in making ends meet – like making these trips to the city to buy in bulk and stock up where we can. Especially in years like this, where we have next to nothing to harvest from the garden, never mind preserve for winter. Like my SIL said about their own garden, years ago: if we had to rely on our garden, we’d starve!

Well, it is what it is, and we do what we can with what we have.

What other choice is there?

The Re-Farmer

Stocking up: this is what $263 looks like

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Plus another $137 I don’t have a picture of.

This morning, I headed into the city to do our first stock up shopping trip. Usually, on this first trip of the month, I would visit a Canadian Tire, a Walmart and an international grocery store, which are all along one street. This time, I did the Walmart trip, but then went to a Superstore, instead.

At the Walmart, I got only cat supplies. Two 9kg size bags of dry kibble and two 32 count boxes of canned cat food. I did the “round up to the next dollar” donation option, so the total was exactly $137 for the whole thing.

It’s been a long time since I’ve gone to Superstore. It’s also been a long time since I did a shop that was just groceries. Not cat supplies or paper products or cleaners, etc. Just groceries.

Weird, right? 😂

This is what $263.49 looks like.

I got some good deals, too. It’s all packed pretty thoroughly, and you can’t see everything, so I took a picture of the receipt this time, too.

I must admit, I really like how organized their receipts are!

Under “groceries”, there’s a big bag of pasta, then some water flavours for my husband. I picked up some sunflower cooking oil, and a big bag of pretzels for my husband. The Monster energy drink was one of the things I got for the drive home.

There’s the soy sauce my husband prefers and some Basmati rice. We usually get a specific brand at Costco, but we were out, so I got a different brand today. I hope it’s good. We’ve tried other brands and not liked them at all.

In Dairy, there’s 3% milk, Old Cheddar and Mozza, plus a flat of eggs. I also got oat milk for the girls, but that’s under “Natural foods”. In Frozen, there are two bags of perogies. Odd that they only that that under “frozen” when I got frozen meats, too.

In Bulk Foods, I got more raw pumpkin seeds to supplement the cat food. Produce included a 6 count bag of avocados. I also got 8 ears of corn, cherries and blueberries. All were at much better prices than anywhere else.

Under Meats, there’s a frozen bag of chicken nuggets for quick eats, a pack of ground turkey consisting of 4 plastic chubs of meat. There’s a bag of cheese hoagie style sausages, and a pack of ground beef. The price of beef is insane, and that was the only beef I could justify picking up.

The boneless pork loin was frozen, and a very good price.

Under Seafood, I got a package of frozen Pollock fillets, a package with two fresh pink salmon, whole except for no heads, and a package with two salmon fillets.

It’s really saying something when salmon is cheaper than beef these days.

At the bakery, I was really looking forward to picking up their torpedo buns, but the bakery was mostly empty. Too early in the day, perhaps. All I was able to get there were three $1 baguettes.

Under Deli, I got a little package of fig goat cheese and a Camembert that was discounted 30%, and needs to be eaten quickly. I got an antipasto mix of meats and a dry salami. We have the makings of a charcutier! The “euro pepprini” on the list is a package of small “European Style” dry sausages I got to snack on, on the way home. I don’t know what “European Style” is supposed to mean, but they were a dry sausage with zero heat in them, so I knew I could safely eat them. They were oddly sweet, but quite tasty.

There was have it. A grocery shopping trip that is basically all just food for humans, totaling $263.49 after taxes.

On the way home, I put in $30 in gas and that was it.

There we have it. Our first, smaller, stock up shopping trip. The next one will be Costco, and that one will include more cat food and other sundries, like paper products.

That will be on the last day of the month, which means tomorrow, I get to stay home!

Yay!

The Re-Farmer

Feeling thankful

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I finally made it to the post office today. I knew there were three parcel slips waiting, but when I got there, there were two more!

Two of them were for these.

The purple bags were in one smaller box, with the two bigger ones in one big box that the inside cats are currently enjoying. 😄

Feeling so very grateful and thankful for the cat food donation. The Cat Lady sent them to us using her Amazon coupons to get a good deal. Considering how overwhelmed she is right now, and that she’s dropping out of rescue completely by the end if this summer, I so appreciate that she still thinks of us. I spoke to her on the phone today and she was telling me that she’s just had to use up their spay and neuter schedule on trapped strays that keep showing up at their place. The vet is not happy with all the ferals she’s bringing in, but they need to be done!

Also, a cat got into their house and refuses to leave. A neighbour recognized it as a cat they saw getting dumped in the area a few months ago, and she hadn’t seen it since. It first showed up on their critter cams, lounging on a catio roof. Now it’s inside, and they haven’t been able to lure it out. Some of their other cats are incredibly unhappy with the new addition! They’ve got a lot going on in their lives, so I really, really appreciate she took the time to help us out in the middle of it all, too.

The Re-Farmer