monthly shopping

Stock up shopping: this is $300

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I finally made my second trip to the city to do another stock up shop. After going over our list, I decided it was just a Walmart trip.

Then I got a message from my brother, we chatted a bit, and ended up arranging for me to visit! It’s been ages since I’ve been to their place. My brother has come here a few times, but I haven’t seen my SIL since the beginning of summer. She’s allergic to cats, so she can’t really come here. 😔

We had an excellent visit. Gosh, I love those two so much! 💖

Then I headed to the Walmart to get what I needed.

Well. Most of it.

This came out to just over $300. Almost half of that is cat related. I got four 10kg bags – the largest they had – of dry kibble. We now have enough to last us the month. I also finally picked up a covered litter box. Nosencrantz and Butterscotch still refuse to leave my office, but Nosencrantz has litter issues. She will go to the litter box to scratch away at the litter, the sides, the bottom, and the removable top part that is supposed to keep the litter inside the pan. She still manages to get the litter out. There have been times she’s almost ripped the top part off completely, and every now and then, she tips the whole thing onto its side!

What she isn’t necessarily doing is using the litter box. In fact, there are times when she’ll go to the litter several times, scratching away, then go into my closest and take a dump. Then, after I’ve chased her out and cleaned up her mess, she’ll go right back to the litter box and start scratching again.

So I now have a covered litter box, with a filter, in my closet, right where she keeps trying to do her business.

I did have another extra purchase that isn’t normally part of our budget. I picked up some artificial flowers. My younger daughter and I will be going to my MIL’s grave to tidy it up and leave some flowers, then take pictures to send to my FIL. He’s not physically able to get out there anymore. I’ve actually never been to the cemetery. My husband flew out for the funeral, with our daughter as his mobility assistant. The problem is, she was feeling quite ill during the funeral, and doesn’t have a clear memory of any of it. Still, I know where the cemetery is, though I’ve never been there, and hopefully she’ll remember enough that we won’t have to search too long to find the grave.

One other unusual purchase was a request from my husband: nacho fixings. Actually, only the chips are an unusual purchase. The cheese is something we regularly pick up; there’s just more of it this time. I got more Old cheddar, havarti, gouda and mozzarella.

We like cheese.

While I don’t pick up a large jar of olives every month, it’s still something we get fairly regularly. My husband loves green olives, just as a snack. As for the chips, I got 4 big bags, and hopefully we’ll get one batch of nachos out of them. They tend to be pretty broken up. When we make nachos, it’s in my big roasting pan. Enough for the four of us, and usually some left over for the next day. 😁

I remembered to get hot dog buns. I also picked up some rye bread, and some garlic naan. It’s cheap turkey season, but I only got one turkey. Looking at the other meats, none of them appealed to me, so that was it for meat. I wasn’t too impressed with the fruits and vegetables, but the cabbage looked good, so I got a head of cabbage. The Stove Top Stuffing was on sale for only 88 cents a box, so I got two. Thanksgiving is next weekend, and we’ve got a good start on what we’ll have for dinner. I also got a couple of 18 count cartons of eggs, and a couple of bottles of coffee creamer – pumpkin spice and maple flavours – for my daughters. I remembered to look for alcohol swabs for our first aid kit, but couldn’t find them. I asked a staff member and found out they now sell them from behind the counter! I even had to pay for it there. When I mentioned this to my daughters, my younger daughter, who was working at a pharmacy when the “15 days to flatten the curve” started, told me that they had to do that, too. People went nuts, and didn’t stop to read directions, so things like alcohol swabs, sanitizing gel, etc. all had to be hidden away to keep people from stealing them, or snagging them all for themselves. I know the other stuff is out and easy to get at, so I do wonder why the alcohol swabs would still be a behind the counter.

I feel like I’m forgetting something, but I think that’s all that I got today. Oh! I remember now. I got a 4L of milk, too. Usually we get 2L cartons, but we’ll be doing more baking over the next while. I also picked up a case of chicken flavoured ramen noodles for the stash.

What I didn’t get:

Butter. We still have some in the freezer, but with more baking on the horizon, I wanted to get a few more, but even their cheaper house brand is now more expensive than I could justify. Not when we still have a few pounds in the freezer, and a big bucket of ghee on hand.

The wood screws I needed. Not only did they not have the kind I wanted, but the small boxes of screws were insanely expensive.

I also did not get a new door knob. The knob on my door is probably about 45 years old, is missing a screw, starting to get stuck and generally becoming a problem. Worse, though, is that I’m starting to have problems opening my door – and we have to keep it closed, because when Fenrir and Turmeric come in, they both immediately start hunting down and attacking Nosencrantz and Butterscotch! Cheddar comes in and out, and now Leyendecker is accepted by the ladies.

Yes, Layendecker is doing all right! In fact, he seems fully recovered. Tonight, he gets his last dose of medication. We need to book him for follow up blood tests with the vet, but they are closed until they complete their move to a new, larger, location. They’ll even have their own parking lot now! So we will call to book the appointment on Monday (the day after tomorrow), when they are open again.

Cheddar and Leyendecker go in and out rather frequently, which means having to get up and open the door for them when they start scratching at the mat we have under the door to keep them from scratching the carpet. The problem is, my hands are hurting so much, I’m starting to have trouble turning the knob. There have been times when I couldn’t grasp the knob with my right hand at all because of the pain. Even today, while shopping, I’d reach to pick up a jar or something with my right hand, and would get shooting pains in my phalanges and simply couldn’t grip it.

Because of this, rather than trying to fix my door knob, I want to replace it with a lever style door handle. Something I can open even if my hands hurt.

The only ones they had were the heavier duty ones for exterior doors, complete with a deadbolt. Which, of course, is more expensive. There were no simple, cheap, lever handles for interior doors.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to find some at the hardware store when I pick up the screws I need.

Which I could have done today, but completely forgot when I had the chance. When I was done at the Walmart, I decided to check out a nearby Canadian Tire to see if they had any seed garlic (the only garlic at Walmart was imported soft neck garlic, which might be treated with something to keep them from growing).

It took a while, but I did find the display!

There were only two bulbs per bag, so I got two bags of two different types. The Nootka Rose (long storing variety) is a new one for us. The other is Music. The garlic we’ve already planted from our own harvest are Porcelain Music. Previously, we ordered our garlic from Veseys, which were packaged by weight, so it felt strange to be paying $6.99 for only two heads of garlic.

We will plant these tomorrow, in the same bed as the ones we’ve already planted.

And there we have it. We’re stocked up for most of the month, with a few extras added. The few things we didn’t get today, we should be able to get locally later on.

It feels especially good to have so much kibble on hand. If I can pick up extra later on, I will. When winter hits, the outside cats are going to be eating a lot more to keep their winter fat, and there are going to be more outside cats than before, too!

Hopefully, it will be mild winter, but we’re not going to be counting on that!

The Re-Farmer

Stocking up trip: this is $700

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Or, to be exact, $700.04

I was planning to go into the city tomorrow, but I was able to change plans and do it today. That means I’ll be available to help my mother tomorrow, when she has to be away from her apartment while it’s being sprayed for bed bugs again.

I did a Costco and a Canadian Tire trip today. We will have to go another trip soon, but I was able to get most of what we need, I think. This is what I got at Costco.

I can’t remember if I mentioned it earlier or not, but we had an unexpected financial hit last month. My husband had a bi-weekly subscription order with Amazon for some sugar free drink mixes. One flavour had been back ordered. Well, it suddenly was available, and they shipped ALL of the back order at once. It worked out to be 10 cases of 16 bottles of mix in total. We only found out about it when almost $500 disappeared from our account on Sept. 13. I thought it was a fraudulent purchase on my husband’s debit Visa, at first! He found out what it was and tried to cancel the order, but they said the deadline for cancellation was Aug. 27. So we were going to let it arrive, then start the return process – only to find out that it wasn’t available for return, because it’s considered a “food item”. There are supposed to be ways to still get refunded, but my husband couldn’t find it. His searches had him going in circles. So we are now trying to sell them through our local store, and hopefully get at least some of our money back!

The hit did a number on our budget, but thanks to having already stocked up as much as we did, plus my daughter covering a couple of automatic payments, we managed all right. It means my focus is largely on replacing what we used, as well as continuing to build up our stash for the winter.

After seeing the prices for me, I’m really glad we’ve got a quarter beef coming in December, that’s for sure! I got a family pack size of lean ground beef, and it cost over $30 – almost twice what the same weight pack cost a couple of years ago.

Along with the ground beef, we got some pork loin, pork chops, a three pack of all beef wieners (but no buns; I’ll get those later. I’m hoping we can do a cook out soon). I also got three rotisserie chickens. Normally, I don’t even look at those, but I’d caught a new shopping video from Our Half Acre Homestead last night, and she mentioned that the cooked chicken was cheaper than the whole chicken. So I made a point of comparing. Sure enough, the bags with three whole chickens in them were all in the $30 range, while the rotisserie chicken was $7.99. On top of the fresh meat, I also picked up a 6 pack of canned chicken.

Normally, I would have picked up 10 pounds of butter for the month, but we still have some in the freezer. I’d picked up a jar of ghee and we still have a bit left. It’s worked out quite well, so instead of getting more butter or oil (which we also still have), I got a big bucket of ghee. At $39.99, it cost less than getting our usual 10 pounds of butter, and it’s shelf stable.

I ended up getting a LOT of pasta this trip. I found boxes with 9 – 500g variety packs of pasta for $9.99, so I got two. Then I found a plastic bag with a different variety mix of pasta, same quantity and weight, for the same price, so I got one of those, too. Plus, I got a case of Kraft Dinner. The girls like KD.

I also got a case of frozen perogies, a couple of containers of sour cream, a multi-pack of Kirkland cream cheese (I forget how many were the package), a 2 pk of goat cheese, a large pack of Old cheddar cheese, a 2 pk of butter chicken sauce, a big jar of peanut butter, a big jar of mayonnaise, a bag of Basmati rice, two packages of flour tortillas, a container of ice tea mix, as well as a 3 pk of Q tips and some extra strength ibuprofen for the girls, as they are running low. I also got a case of Coke Zero for a treat. Plus, I got a large package of facial tissue, the Kirkland brand toilet paper, some all purpose cleaner, a case of Friskies wet cat food, and four 11.6 kg bags of dry kibble.

Oh, the sticker shock on just about everything reminded me of another one I got. I was at half a tank when I left home, so I stopped along the way to put in a bit of gas, with the intention of filling at Costco, at their lower price. Pretty routine. I put in $30 of gas at 165.9 cents/litre. After I finished at Costco and was heading out, I walked past the sign with their gas price – 174.9 cents/litre!!! It took another $60 to fill my tank. On the way home, the gas station I’d stopped at in the morning was at 186.9 cents/litre

Ouch.

Now that this trip is done, we’ll go over what we’ve got and what I didn’t pick up this trip, and make a new list for the missing stuff. Hopefully, I’ll be able to make a second trip in a couple of days.

I had stopped at the Canadian Tire first, since it was all non-perishables. We needed more stove pellets for the litter boxes. The hardwood pellets have gone up from $6.99 for a 40 pound bag to $7.29, but they also have softwood pellets that are still at $6.99 I got one of each, so we can compare and see which work better. I also picked up furnace filters. For some reason, the 20″ x 20″ size of the type we need is harder to find. I’m only finding them at Canadian Tire, and they aren’t always in stock. They’re not expensive, so I grabbed two 3pks.

Which reminds me. It’s almost time to replace the filter on our furnace. 😊

I also got a gallon of exterior paint for the water bowl house. I picked a yellow close to what the kibble house is. Considering what it’s for, I asked for their cheapest exterior paint. It turns out they only had two options, and one of them had a base coat in it, so really there was just one choice. A gallon of paint cost $52.99 While she was mixing the colour for me, I spotted a display of Flex Seal and picked up a can of clear. That’ll come in handy for some patch jobs we need to do. I remembered to look for a new handle grip to replace the one that broke off our garden fork. I ended up having to ask an employee for help. We both looked around for a while, then she went to the customer service to look it up on the computer and see if it was in stock. There was plenty of inventory in stock, and it was apparently right next to where she was working when I asked her for help! We went back and looked again and finally found it, right in front of our faces. We both looked right over them, several times, without seeing them! I was looking for the same bright blue as the handle that broke off, but the replacements were black.

Along with that, I remembered to pick up some toilet tank pucks. There is so much iron accumulating in our toilet tank, it’s starting to affect how well the toilet flushes. I found two septic safe brands, in 2 packs, specifically to help remove iron and got one of each. We’ve tried one brand before, so when the girls unloaded and put everything away, my daughter popped one of from the new brand in, so we can compare. And finally, I picked up a roll of self adhesive felt padding. It’s for the corner of my bed frame, where we all keep very painfully barking our shins!

Total damage at Canadian Tire was $148.75

Add in the $700 at Costco and $90 total for gas, it was a pretty expensive day!

I called my mother a little while ago, and made arrangements for tomorrow. Hopefully, the guy will remember that she needs to be away for 12 hours and will do her place first. The earliest the letter she got says they will be there is 9am. It would actually be feasible for her to still stay away for 12 hours and not have to spend the night at a motel. She doesn’t want to stay at my sisters, because where she would be sleeping means having to take several steps up and down, just to get to the bathroom. She can’t even stay here because, with my husband set up with his hospital bed in the bedroom closest to the bathroom, she would not only still have steps to take, but a much longer walk. Staying at a motel month after month is a ridiculous expense, but it’s really the best option. Close to home, private, no stairs, and even a bath tub, if she wants to us it – her apartment has only a shower, and she does miss her baths! But if the guy doesn’t come early enough, she may not have a choice. While I can help her for most of the day, at some point, she’s going to end up hanging out in the lobby of her building, like her neighbours do. They can go back into their apartments after only 6 hours, though. My mother had been thinking she could go in early and open windows, but the more stress and anxiety she feels, the more breathing issues she has – and she’s already had stress issues just today. Along with a meeting for tenants today, they had someone in to give everyone shots. My mother thinks it was a Covid booster shot, but she wasn’t sure. Which irritates the heck out of me. People like her and her neighours just line up to get injections that don’t actually work, and causing so many injuries. It’s like playing Russian Roulette, every time. No one is telling them anything to get informed consent, either. Most of the people living there couldn’t understand it, anyhow.

Argh. Venting.

Anyhow.

I will see her tomorrow, and we’ll figure out what to do as the day goes!

Meanwhile, I’m just really, really glad I was able to do a substantial part of our monthly shop today.

The Re-Farmer

Finally did the Costco shop

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Today, I finally made it into the city to do our Costco shopping for the month. Normally, we would have done it more than a week ago. Thankfully, we did get to do our stocking up at other stores, so we weren’t running out of things. I just prefer to get it over with, earlier.

I didn’t want to do it on the weekend, though. I had stuff to do that require a lot of time, so I did my morning rounds quickly and headed out as soon as I could.

This is $481 worth of stuff looks like, including the Pizza Pops for my daughter that she sent me funds to cover. I didn’t get everything I would have gotten, because that already put me over the grocery budget for this trip.

Just to be clear, our “grocery” budget covers food, household cleaners, paper products and cat food, and other miscellaneous items.

Everything has gone up in price.

There are two 11.6kg bags of dry cat food, which now costs $34.99 each, and two 9kg bags of their house brand cat food at $28.49 each. The case of wet cat food now costs $33.99

I meant to get our usual 10 pounds of butter for the month, even though we still have a couple of pounds in the freezer from last month, thanks to also picking up some ghee. I accidentally grabbed 11, and when they counted and found an extra, I just kept it. House brand butter at Costco is now $4.99 each. There’s a package of AA batteries in there, mostly for the trail cams, as well as a 60 pack of eggs, toilet paper, all purpose cleaner, a 2 pack of lemon juice, peanut butter, a couple of jars of mayonnaise, a 2pk of baking powder, a 3 pack of hot dogs, their big package of Old Cheddar cheese, 6 pack of pasta, and a can of pink lemonade powdered mix to try. One thing in there we don’t normally get is a 3 pk of cream cheese, for a recipe we want to try. Some of this is for the pantry, stocking up on the assumption we’ll be stuck for at least 2 months in the winter, but not much.

It’s a ridiculously small Costco shop for the money, but that was what the budget allowed for. I did make a quick stop at a nearby Superstore to pick up a couple of bags their $5 buns, and a non-Costco size of paper towels, a specific snack my husband requested, and a sandwich and drink for me to ingest on the trip home. With that one, I at least had enough loyalty points accumulated that I was able to get what would have been $38 for $8, instead.

The biggest item on the list is always the cat food. We really need to reduce the number of cats we’re feeding!

That done, my afternoon was spent working on making crab apple sauce. It took 2 hours to remove the stems and flower ends, as well as any damage, from the apples remaining in the one bin from the other day. We still have one more bin to do something with, as well as the bucket of apples I’d set aside for my mother. I called her about it, hoping to arrange a time to come over with them, but she declined them. Aside from the apples she picked here, apples had been left in the lobby of her building for the residents. She is all done with apples now. I was hoping she’d enjoy having apples from here that were fully ripe. Ah, well.

The apples took a long time to prep, but they sure cooked down fast! I’ll do a separate post about it later, as it’s not done yet. I’ve asked the girls to give it a taste and add as much sugar as they like, then cook the sauce down, and tomorrow morning I’ll can them while they’re still hot. I don’t actually like apple sauce all that much, but the girls requested it, so it’s on them to get it to their taste. 😊

I don’t know that I want to make more apple sauce with the rest. We shall see.

Unfortunately, my hands are now knackered again. My finger joints are really hurting. As least they’re not so stiff I can’t type, but … ouch.

Arthritis sucks.

Even my elbows and shoulders are giving me a hard time. I did go out and do some work around the yard this evening, but not enough to warrant that kind of pain.

Ah, well. I suppose I should just pain killer up and deal. 😕

The Re-Farmer

One last shop and… ouch

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I saw one good thing when heading into town with the cats this morning. The gas prices dropped 10 cents per litre, overnight. At 169.9 cents per liter, it’s still higher than it should be, but every little bit helps.

I was going to fill the jerry can after dropping off the cats, but the cats didn’t get dropped off. On deciding to head into the city, that will just have to wait again.

Before hitting the Costco, I went to a Canadian Tire to pick up a couple of bags of stove pellets for cat litter. I also picked up some ant traps. I would prefer not to kill off ant hills, since ants are also pollinators, but there are a couple of hills that are large enough to damage some garden plants, plus we’re seeing more of them in the house.

We’ve hardly used the van this month at all, and the gas tank was almost full when I left home. Costco gas prices were 159.9 cents per liter for regular. A considerable difference! So I topped up the tank, anyhow.

I had expected doing a Costco shop in the middle of the week would be quite, but nope. It was insanely busy! At least I wasn’t fighting a flat cart around crowds of people. With the other stock up shopping done already, I didn’t need to get more dry cat food. I was able to just just a regular cart for a change!

In the end, I didn’t get much at all.

With reason.

This is what Cdn$350 looks like. Plus change.

Under the cart is a package of Kirkland brand toilet paper, a package of 60 eggs, and a case of the cheaper canned cat food. 48 cans in that size.

I also got 10 pounds of butter (at $5 a pound, that’s at least a dollar cheaper than other no-name or house brand butters, but higher for Costco prices), a package with 3 whole chickens, a triple pack of all-beef wieners, and a pork tenderloin. There’s a 6 pack of canned chicken, mayonnaise, peanut butter, cooking oil, AAA batteries, 2 packages of tortilla wraps, and a 2 pack of hot dog buns. Oh, plus a package of white button mushrooms and a big block of marble cheese.

That’s it.

This is one of the smallest Costco shopping trips I’ve done, but it still came out to pennies over $350

That’s just painful! There aren’t even any fruits or vegetables in there, either.

I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad if our own garden was producing, but it just barely is. Most things are, if not a complete loss, at least a month behind in growth and development.

Ouch.

The Re-Farmer

Setting a little more aside

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This morning, my plan was to head out early to do my morning rounds, then go to my mother’s to help her shut down her sleep test, get it all together, then bring it to the city.

Of course, that meant I got almost no sleep at all.

Since I was going to my mothers, I was actually wearing normal people clothes while doing my rounds, instead of my usual grubbies. I didn’t want to be stinking of bug spray while at my mother’s, since she does have respiratory issues, so I didn’t use any when I headed out.

I have never been attacked by such swarms of mosquitoes before – and being eaten alive by the buggers is par for the course these days!

Where are all the dragonflies? They usually show up in droves to eat the mosquitoes, but I’ve only seen one so far, this year! I suspect they, too, were negatively affected by our horrible spring.

I practically ran through my rounds, and it wasn’t until I was in the safety of my mother’s car and on the road that I realized I was leaving more then half an hour earlier than planned.

No matter. It gave me time to top up her gas tank and pick up one of those 5 Hour Energy thingies. I was going to need it. I was still early, but my mother was more than happy to be unhooked.

We finished off the questionnaire that came with the tester. These were questions on how easy or not it was to use the machine, how comfortable or not it was to sleep with, and so one. Once she was set up last night, my mother was quite fine with it, though the pulse oximeter did come off her finger, even with the tape, once during the night.

Getting the tape off was not easy. In hindsight, when I put it on, I should have deliberately folded under a corner to have something to grab onto. The tape is very light and flexible, the adhesive works quite well, and my mother’s skin is very loose and stretchy!

That done, I encouraged my mother to go back to bed after I left, then headed for the city. Once I got to the place, it was just a quick drop off with the most cheerful and friendly employee I’ve seen in ages. 😁

Since driving over an hour to take less than a minute to drop off the kit would have been quite the waste of gas, I took advantage of the situation. I am rarely in this area of the city, so I headed to a liquidation centre that was on my way back out.

Photo by Julia M Cameron on Pexels.com

With this place, there is no way of knowing what will be available at any given time. On this trip, if I’d had the budget – or counter space – for it, I could have gotten a great deal on all kinds of Cuisinart kitchen appliances. I didn’t even bother looking at the clothing section. I did go through a section where they have things like household linens, tools, paint supplies, hunting and fishing gear, etc. I was very tempted by some heavy duty interlocking floor mats to put over our horrible kitchen floor, but it just wasn’t something I could justify picking up this time around.

I didn’t get a lot while I was there, but what I did get was mostly for our “stockpile.” I got a couple of big boxes of granola type bars. I used to get them fairly regularly at Costco, where they used to cost about $15 a box. The prices have gone up, but I haven’t look at them in ages. Here, they were at $9 a box, so I got two. I didn’t bring any ice packs along, so I wasn’t going to get a lot of refrigerated stuff, though there wasn’t a lot to choose from this time, but I did pick up some farmer’s sausages and the like. The AC works in my mother’s car. 😉 Some extra toothpaste made it into the cart, as well as a nice big box of English Breakfast tea. 😊

The big savings on this trip was on two items. The first was canned beans. The same brand name I have been getting at Costco in 9 packs, where they used to be just under a dollar a can, but the prices have gone up even at Costco. I haven’t been there this month yet, so I don’t know by how much, but at the local grocery stores, they are at just over $2 a can now. Even at Walmart, they’re at just under $2 a can. I found them at 89 cents a can. The cases were open, but they held 18 cans. I filled a case with two different flavours, though there was a third flavour available, too.

Then I found a display of bouillon cubes. In the local grocery stores, they are about $1.30 for a box, which isn’t a bad price at all. I like to keep a selection of them handy in the cupboard; chicken, beef, vegetable and mushroom. They had all but the mushroom, and at a very good price, but the vegetable cubes were on a limited time “4-for-” deal that worked out to 49 cents a package.

I picked up eight.

Once done there, my next stop was a Walmart, where I got mostly cat food. We should now have enough dry cat food for the month (for the amount we get, stocking up for longer than a month is very difficult), but I still want to pick up one more Costco sized case of wet cat food. For the pantry, I picked up a couple of big cans of iced tea mix. They’re cheaper at Walmart than Costco, and in the summer, my husband and I go through them pretty fast. Our daughters prefer iced coffee. 😄

They also had good supply of the large bottles of hydrogen peroxide, which we use to shock our hot water tank, so I got a couple more of those, as well as adding to our supply of painkillers.

All in all, a productive trip. After this, we’ll need to go over our supplies and make a final Costco shopping list. I should finally be able to use the van, so I’ll be able to stop at Canadian Tire and get more stove pellets for the litter boxes. Those bags last a long time! I likely won’t be able to make the trip until next week, though.

Tonight, we have three cats to put on fasts. Potato Beetle, Tissue and Big Rig have their date with the vet tomorrow morning. Potato Beetle is still in the sun room, so he’s easy enough to take care of, but we’ll have to keep Tissue and Big Rig with me overnight, as I have a door to close. Unfortunately, Tissue in particular has been aggressive towards Nosencrantz and Butterscotch – both of whom still refuse to leave the room.

I don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep tonight.

Ah, well.

In other things, on seeing predictions for rain on the horizon, my daughters moved the bench I built under the market tent for me. There isn’t much room under there with the picnic bench, but it should at least stay dry enough that we can finally paint it. Which I was hoping to do this afternoon, except now we’re under a tornado watch. 😮 I don’t think it applies to our specific area – the watches are very general – but we do have high winds right now. Perhaps tomorrow, after dropping the cats off at the vet, we’ll be able to finally start painting that bench!

Funny how much of what we can or can’t do depends on the weather.

Anyhow. I’m just glad I got the trip to the city done, and was able to add a bit more to our supplies!

The Re-Farmer

Monthly shop, changed plans, and soooo tired

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It’s just past 5pm as I start this post, and I could go to bed right now! What a day it has turned out to be.

One of my husband’s disability payments came in today, so it would be our normal day to go into the city and to at least half of our monthly stocking up shopping in the city.

Except, I got a call from my Mom last night.

Her apartment is being sprayed for bed bugs again, today. She needs to be away from the spray for at least 12 hours. Last time, she stayed at my sisters, but she did not want to do that. There is a motel right next to her building, so she was going to book a room there. They did not have any vacancies, however.

After talking to her about it, I ended up calling another motel in town and booking a room for her, and arranging to be at my mother’s place before the exterminators showed up.

Which meant doing my morning rounds (and finishing off the outside kibble bin!) earlier than usual.

I had a sad find.

One of our highbush cranberry saplings had been chomped! It was doing so well, too. 😥 I doubt it can recover from this. I figure it was a deer. Nothing else seemed to be damaged, at least. Not that I stuck around to check too closely. Since I was going to be leaving soon, I didn’t use any bug spray. I got eaten alive! How aggressive and voracious they are this year!

A short version of my rounds done, I headed out with my mother’s car, since I was expecting to drive her to her motel room. Since the road closed sign was removed earlier this week, I drove up our road, through were it was washed out this spring.

What an excellent job done on the repairs! I can’t remember the road ever looking so good. 😁 They built it up a bit, too. Hopefully, that will prevent it from getting washed out again.

The motel I booked my mom at is with the gas station I usually go to. I had to fill her tank anyhow, so I went ahead and got her registered, got her key, and even went ahead and paid for it, so she wouldn’t have to bother. Not having a credit card threw them for a bit, as they don’t really have any alternative. They took my driver’s license number, instead. Then, just in case, I made sure to leave my contact information along with her information, in case of emergency.

Then it was off to my mother’s. Last time, they showed up right at 9 and they did her apartment first, so I was sort of expecting the same. I was about half an hour early, which gave us time to bag up her bedding, and I cleared her storage closet floor that she forgot about. She didn’t back up anywhere near as much as last time. She’s just so tired and frustrated. She kept saying she only saw two bed bugs this morning and she killed them, so it should be fine. She simply refuses to accept that there would be more of them that she can see, and that she would not be able to see the eggs at all. No amount of cleaning or running her fingers along the edging of her mattress to squish things will get rid of them. Not only does she refuse to believe me (or my siblings; we’ve all been trying to explain it to her), but she’s starting to get angry at being told this. She isn’t getting it, and not because she can’t understand our explanations. She simply refuses to accept it. This is only the second time her apartment is being spray. One of her neighbours was getting sprayed for the 6th time!

The exterminators, however, didn’t arrive at nine. By 10, we were wondering what was going on. I ended up phoning the provincial department that owns her building. It turned out they didn’t start with this town this time. They started in another town, about a half hour’s drive away. There was no way to know when they would arrive at my mother’s building.

In the end, I just had to leave. I needed to get to the city. My mother had a neighbour that would be able to drive her to her motel (I’m so glad I got the key already!), so I promised I would check on her on the way home, then went on to the city.

Since I was using my mother’s little car, a Costco trip was out of the question. There’s no way her car could fit our usual Costco trips. Instead of the usual 3 or 4 places I usually hit on these trips, I only did two. The first was a Walmart, where getting more cat food was a priority. I got only four 9 kg bags this time. Usually, I get six 7kg bags of their house brand, but the cats don’t like it as much, and I decided the bigger bags was worth it.

It’s a good thing those bags have waterproof linings on the inside, because while I was loading the back of my mother’s car, I got hit with a deluge of rain! At one point, I thought it might actually turn to hail.

Hatchbacks provide zero shelter! With our van, I could at least have had partial shelter under the lift gate, but a hatchback does nothing!

I spent just under $300 at the Walmart, and half of that was cat food, including a case of wet cat food. And that’s only about a third of what we need for the month.

Next, I went to the international grocery store we like, where I could also pick up some dim sum for breakfast… er… lunch! 😂 This is the store where we can get things like a big slab of uncut bacon, and a particular band of energy drinks no one else seems to carry anymore.

One thing I did NOT get here was butter.

Those brand name butters used to be just over $6 a pound. Now their regular price is almost $10! We’ve never bought these butters, and would just get the house brand. Those are almost $6 a pound, now. Not that long ago, they were in the $3.50 range.

I just checked out an exchange rate converter. As of today:

Cdn$9.79 = US$7.47

Cdn$9.99 + US$7.62

Sale price $8.49 = US$6.49

Cdn$5.99 = US$4.57

The last time we were at Costco, their house brand butter was just under $5/US$3.81 a pound. I hope they haven’t gone up much, since! We typically buy 10 pounds of butter for 1 month.

I didn’t buy butter, but I did end up buying some ghee. The sale price for the jar was almost $23/US$17.54 It’s shelf stable, though, and has a higher smoke point, to it may be worth it. We’ve never used ghee before. If we like it, we’ll learn how to make our own ghee.

The shopping done, I headed home, making sure to stop to see how my mother was doing along the way. I even remembered to pick up a little something for her to snack on along with her complimentary coffee. Only it turned out there was no en suite coffee set up. The complimentary coffee was at the gas station. This is the gas station that has the excellent fried chicken and wedges my mother likes so much, so when I got her her complimentary coffee, I also picked up enough chicken and wedges for a couple of meals. With the exterminators taking so long, I figured my mother hadn’t had lunch at all, and I think I was right. She was quite ready to have her “supper”, even though it was not even 3pm yet! 😁

Since I had stuff in the car that needed to be refrigerated, I couldn’t stay too long. She was well set up, though. My sister will be taking my mother home tomorrow, and helping her wash her bedding. I’ll be back again with the equipment for my mother’s sleep test, the day after. The equipment needs to be returned to the city on Tuesday, so that will be a good time to do the rest of our stock up shopping.

Once at home, Potato Beetle had to be put into a carrier in the sun room before the car could be unloaded. After everything was unloaded and I’d topped up the kibble trays outside, as well as his in the sun room, I made sure to give him some of the kitty treats I also picked up. I think he forgave me the indignity of being put into the carrier for that!

Exactly a week from now, he’ll be at the vet getting snipped, then it’s another 4 days in the sun room before we can let him out again.

As for me, I am practically falling asleep in my chair as I type this! These trips drain me at the best of times, but all the extra stuff with my mother just sucked the energy out of me.

I wonder how badly I’ll screw myself up if I got to bed at only 6pm? 😄

Oh, crud. I just remembered. My mother’s car is still in the front yard. I forgot to put it in the garage!

Guess I’d better put some pants on and take care of that.

🤣

The Re-Farmer

I blinked, and the day went by!

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My goodness, where did the day go? I just realized it’s past 6pm, but it feels like it should be 2pm. This, even though I ended up doing the rest of our monthly stock-up shopping today.

The mamas were out in full force when I came out to do my rounds this morning – and so was Sad Face! I just had to try for a picture of him on the shrine. I couldn’t get any closer, as he runs off. Which I’m good with, because he has been beating up Potato Beetle and The Distinguished Guest a lot!

He is, however, waiting his turn for the food, letting Rosencrantz eat her fill, first!

It’s entirely possible she’s pregnant with his kittens.

Before coming in from my rounds, I paused to get eaten alive by mosquitoes while picking the rest of the garlic scapes in the main garden. There are only a couple that weren’t ready to pick. Looking forward to using them!

With the other garlic so far behind, we should have more scapes to harvest in about a month or so. A bonus to that garlic coming up so late!

While I was putting food out for the cats and the birds, Potato Beetle appeared in the sun room, enjoying his very own private breakfast. When I was leaving to do the shopping, I found him like this.

Awwww… So cute!

He’s still really skinny again, so I hope he stays around long enough to put some meat back on those bones. And with both Sad Face and The Distinguished Guest prowling around, I’m much more comfortable with him safe in the sun room!

The last of our stock-up shopping for the month was a Walmart trip this time. Partly because I finally wore out my last pair of jeans and needed to get new ones.

Very little of what I needed to get was food times. I got four 7kg bags of kibble; hopefully, we now have enough to last the month. With the skunks and the racoons also eating the kibble, I’ve taken to setting out less kibble, more often. Hopefully, the cats will get more of it that way, and the kibble will last longer.

We needed to stock up more on paper products, in non-Costco sizes. We’re slowly building up an inventory of non-perishable products, with a goal of having at least a 3 month supply by winter. That way, if we get snowed in, or vehicles break down – or if we get another spring of flooding and washed out roads – we will be set. We need to be doing that with cat kibble, too, but with how many big bags we need just for 1 month, stocking up extra is much more difficult!

The brand of bug spray I bought last time didn’t seem to work well at all. During the cookout, we all used it liberally, but the mosquitoes were practically mainlining the stuff instead of being repelled by it. I was able to find the brand that we find works best and bought a couple of cans – along with more AfterBite!

Finding a new pair of jeans was annoying. I tried on a couple of pairs and found ones that fit – on the upper body. Unfortunately, it seems the popular style is skinny leg jeans. The only reason I could get them on my calves at all was because the fabric was part Spandex. Went through rack after rack before finally finding one style that were regular cut on the legs. Thankfully, they had some in my size, too.

It shouldn’t be this hard to find clothes that fit! Honestly, I think the next time I need to get a pair of pants, I should just go to the men’s department. At least if they’re too long, I can get my daughter to hem them for me or something.

I did have a small splurge today. Nosencrantz and Butterscotch still refuse to leave my office. I have a scratch board for them that they completely ignore. Nozencrantz has been using my office chair as a scratch post. Usually, we get the scratch pads made out of corrugated cardboard, and I was originally going to get two of them, but I found a cheap little cat tower that I got instead of a second scratch pad. Hopefully, they will figure out how to use that, instead of my constantly having to stop them from clawing either my chair, or the carpet!

Well, that didn’t take long! As soon as there was a space while unpacking the shopping, Tissue jumped right in!

I gave the cardboard scratch pad to the other cats, but kept aside the cat nip that came with it. After assembling the new little cat tower, I put cat nip all over it, and on the other scratch board they’ve been ignoring, then gave the last of the cat nip to the other cats. Which is always hilarious.

Butterscotch and Nosencrantz seemed happy enough with the cat nip, and mildly curious about the little scratch tower. Then Cheddar wanted in and discovered the tower. It’s barely taller than he is! It has a curved portion with a “comb” under it for cats to rub up against, and I’m not sure he can even fit through it, but he was certainly enjoying the hanging toy and bell, while going into a cat-nip fueled frenzy over the thing. Nosencrantz just sat on a nearby foot stool, looking at Cheddar like he was crazy!

Well. He was a bit high on catnip, so I guess in a way, he was!

They’re all sleeping it off on my bed right now.

I still don’t know if they’ve figured out they can scratch at that thing, yet.

When I next went into the dining room, I found cats splayed all over the place, in a stupor, with Susan all curled up on the cardboard scratch pad (which got its own catnip application), taking a nap!

Aside from the regular monthly shopping, my husband asked if I could get some prices for dimensional lumber, so I stopped at a hardware store on my way home. It’s in the town my mother lives in, and I know they deliver. After getting the prices, I remembered to pick up some new clothes line to replace what broke this spring. I hope 100 feet will be enough. I also got proper clothesline spreader. Two of them, actually. There’s a lot of distance between the poles! I’d been using S hooks, and they don’t slide very well.

When I headed into the city, I drove into a deluge of rain, and by the time I got home, the rain had reached our place. Enough that we have water all over, again. I’m not complaining, though. It means the garden doesn’t need to be watered, and it’s not so much that things are drowning again.

One of the things I was able to get done yesterday was finally prune away some large branches from the ornamental apple trees in the old kitchen garden. Where we have the bunching onions planted is not doing well, and drying out faster, because of the thick mat of interlocking branches above. There was one large branch from each tree that I wanted to take out but, once those were down, it uncovered a whole lot of dead branches. By the time I got that all cut away and cleared out, it was looking much more open and bright at the end of the garden. Which means the retaining wall blocks and the bed along them all got today’s rain better, too!

Oh, my goodness! I am so happy!

Just moments ago, I had to stop Nosencrantz from scratching at my chair again. She left – and then I heard her using the new scratch post directly behind me! She’s figured it out!!! Yay!

Okay, time for me to get my butt back outside and do my evening rounds.

Because even though it still feels like it should be the afternoon, it is well into the evening right now!

Where did the day go?

The Re-Farmer

While I’m waiting…

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Yesterday, I finished up a garden tour video I made, using my recently acquired software. I’m getting the hand of using it, and quite liking it. It has been a while since I fired it up, though, and there was an update waiting. I have no idea if that’s related or not, but when it came time to export and upload the video (which is does in succession), it saved the export file, but failed the upload. Which is fine. I could just do that manually.

It was incredibly slow to upload. So slow, I thought something must be wrong, and restarted it. When that didn’t work, and it still took forever, I finally had to shut down for the night.

Today, I made a trip into the city for our first monthly stock up shop. When I was finally able to settle in on the computer, I started uploading the file again.

It was just as bad. It shouldn’t take almost 2 hours to reach only 14%.

I ended up re-saving the video at a lower resolution. It’s almost half the file size now, but it’s still slow as every to upload. I’m at 51% right now, and it’s telling me it’ll take just under 3 hours to finish uploading.

I’ve uploaded large files before, without having this much trouble before. I’ll just have to leave it alone and let it do it’s thing. I meant to post the video today, but it’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

While I’m waiting for that to upload, here’s how the day went. :-)

I was able to do almost all of our stock up shopping today. There are just a few things left to pick up later. I wasn’t able to get the spare sump pump I intended to. They were out of stock.

It was another day of sticker shock, too. Yikes! Some things may need to be dropped from the list this month. About the only “good” price I saw was when I got gas at Costco, where it was at 196.9 cents per litre, instead of the 208.9 cents per litre locally. The city was mostly 207.9 cents per litre.

I was able to get more of the 6′ bamboo stakes, in packs of six, for the garden at a better price than the last ones I go, so my splurge of the day was to get 4 packs instead of 2. I also found one package of trellis net of the same type we are using from last year. The problem is, I need 2 of them to finish both trellises, and there were no more to be found. Hopefully, I’ll find another one when we do our second city trip and go to different stores. If I can’t find any, I’ll just have to use twine.

We have a beef order made, which will tentatively be ready for pick up in a couple of days; I’m just waiting for confirmation on that, as they put the pack together. It’s their largest freezer pack on their regular orders, and they choose what’s in it. Since we’re going into summer, they like to put in more cuts suitable for grilling. I find I quite like not knowing what’s in the pack ahead of time. It’s like Christmas. :-D

On another note, while I was in the city, I got a message from my sister assuring me that my mother’s apartment was locked up after getting treated, so I didn’t need to check it on the way home. Which I’m extra glad for, because on the way home, I drove through my mother’s town and completely forgot about it. I do wonder how much of my mother’s stuff they had to put into the hallway before they could access where they needed to spray. Hopefully, the smell will have dissipated before my mother gets home tomorrow. She has become extremely sensitive to chemical smells.

On yet another note, we are thankfully staying dry enough that I should finally be able to finish mowing. We have extra reason to get the area by the fire pit done. We’re actually going to have company this weekend! We still haven’t worked out exactly when, but my husband’s brother and his family will be coming out. With my husband hardly getting out of the house at all anymore, they have seen each other only a couple of times in the 4 1/2 years we’ve been living here. We used to be able to get together regularly, but with my husband’s pain levels, he just can’t make the trip to the city for any length of time anymore, and their work schedules keep them from coming out here. It’s Canada Day weekend, though, so they have some extra time, for a change. :-)

Ugh. In the time it took for me to write this, the upload has only increased to 58%, and it says there’s still another 2 1/2 hours before it’s done.

I’m going to leave it and go to bed. I’m sure I’ll be awakened by something during the night, and can check on it then!

I will have it posted as soon as I can. I hope you enjoy it!

The Re-Farmer

Yesterday’s monthly shop

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I’m glad I was able to do the city trip yesterday. It rained all night, so today, the gravel roads are all muddy again – especially that one really bad spot near our place – and the yard is completely saturated. Yesterday, I was able to back up to the house to unload. The vehicle gate was still muddy, but I could at least drive through with minimal spinning of tires. Today, that area of the driveway is all water again. So are a number of areas in the yards.

I’d left a bit earlier than usual, making my regular stop to get a bit of gas at the town my mother lives in. Too early for their fried chicken to be available, so “breakfast” was a protein bar, instead. :-D I also paid the “idiot tax” and bought a lotto ticket, as well as a couple of on-sale energy drinks for the cooler in the van. Grand total was just over $45.

This trip is our usual series of three stores, finishing at Costco. The first was Canadian Tire, where I picked up a couple more 40 pound bags of the stove pellets we use as cat litter. We still had plenty, but I’m starting to use it as mulch in the garden again – it works really well for the finer seedlings – so I wanted to get more. I also got an extra spool of line for the weed trimmer, as it’s going to get a major workout in the old garden area, soon, and a package of short bamboo stakes that I thought might work for some hoops for the garden (more on that in another post). The PVC pipe I got to use as hoops last year is a bit too stiff and kept breaking the doweling I used last year. Metal stakes would be better, but finding any small enough to fit into the pipe is more difficult, and more expensive, so I’ll try the bamboo for now. I also picked up a roll of half inch PEX pipe. It is more flexible, and we can cut it to the lengths we need. Plus, it’ll be easier to find metal stakes to hold it in place.

I also finally picked up something I’ve been eyeballing for a while, now.

White Carolina strawberries! We have 4 transplants of red strawberries, which will be planted with the purple asparagus. There are 10 roots in this package, and I’m not really sure where we’ll plant them – several options come to mind – but we’ll figure it out. More perennial food plants is worth it. Altogether, this stop was just over $100.

After that, it was off to the international grocery store, though I did make one extra side trip, first. They share a parking lot with a Dollar Tree, and I wanted to see what gardening supplies then had. I ended up getting a selection of plant supports. I got 4 tomato cages, though they will probably be used for the eggplants or peppers. Then I got 4 supports that are a narrow metal spike with a spiral at the top to wind a stem through. I’m not sure what we’ll use those with, yet. Then I got 4 each of plastic coated metal stakes in two sizes. These came with adjustable ties for the plants. The heavier duty ones look like they would do very well for vertical growing summer squash. That worked out okay last year, except we had a hard time getting the lengths of poplar we’d cleared from part of the spruce grove to stay upright. The narrower ones might do well for that, too. After testing the 4 different types of supports, we’ll know which ones to get more of – if any at all. I also picked up a couple of fabric “raised beds” to test out. We already have a couple of grow bags that I was planning to grow the sweet potato slips in, once they arrive. We’ve got 5 sweet potato slips, 10 Jerusalem Artichokes and 2 highbush cranberry that will be shipped when it’s time for planting in our zone, which is pretty soon. With so many transplants, so many things to direst so, and so few beds to plant in, I thought it was worth trying out. I also picked up some S hooks and ground staples. The ground staples will work better than the tent pegs we are currently using for the protective netting we’re putting over the beds. Altogether, this part of the shop was just under $50.

Once those were all put away in the van, I headed into the grocery store and finally had “breakfast”. One of the bonuses for making these trips is being able to have dim sum!

This store is where we find some favourite frozen dumplings, international condiments and less common types of cheese. They also have a section of locally produced slabs of smoked bacon. Sometimes, they only have small pieces of unsliced bacon, but this time, they had some of the big ones in stock. It’s also where we get things in non-Costco sized quantities. ;-) Prices for some things have gone up quite a bit, and this stop ended up being just under $200. Plus the dim sum (which also went up in price) and drink I bought, it was about $215 in total.

Then it was Costco time.

*sigh*

Gas was 6 cents per litre cheaper, so I filled the tank first. That still came out to a little over $50. Then there was inside the store.

Ugh. There was a fair bit of sticker shock for some of the food items. I got more canned chicken for our stock, and that had gone up in price again. Six cans now cost about $20. Last month, they’d gone up to about $15. Basics like butter, eggs, rice, even toilet paper, have all gone up in price. The only other meat I got was the all-beef wieners and buns for a planned cookout. It’s a good thing we stocked up on meats previously, and we still have plenty. All the meats and fish have gone up in price substantially. Oddly, dry cat food hasn’t gone up in price as much as people food. I would have liked to get more than the 4 bags I got, but our van doesn’t like heaving loads, and I already had 80 pounds of stove pellets in there. The canned cat food has gone up in price more than the dry has. The popcorn we get (in the excellent, heavy duty, food-safe plastic containers that we are keeping for dry-storing other foods) hasn’t gone up, nor has mayo, but mixed nuts (to keep in the van) has gone up more, as has the Basmati rice. Even their flats of water (for the cooler in the van) has gone up.

The frustrating thing is that I was looking to pick up non-food things for our stash, like more of those heavy duty tarps, and some non-scented, “flushable” wet wipes for washing up should we lose our water for some reason, as well as some work gloves that are stronger than the gardening gloves we have right now. I had to put them all back. The grand total for this trip was just under $550, which isn’t unusual for how much we spend at Costco, except that we got way less actual food this trip.

More incentive to keep increasing what we grow in the garden, and to get a coop and brooder set up, so we can finally have chickens.

Altogether, I spent over a thousand dollars, but our fridge is only half full. Granted, the pantry and freezer are still good for now, but the stash is not growing as well as I’d like.

Ah, well.

Next week, we have the rest of our monthly stocking up to do. I’m planning on going to the Wholesale Warehouse again, now that I’ve got a better idea of what we can get there.

It was a very hot day, and I’m glad I remembered to grab the ice packs from the big freezer this trip. We do have insulated bags, but even with saving those purchases for last, the van doesn’t have air conditioning, and those bags can only protect so much.

While I was gone, the girls were taking care of things on the home front, including frequently checking on the transplants to make sure they weren’t being baked, misting them as needed. They were still better off outside than in the sun room; it hit 30C/86F in there.

One of the things a daughter had tried to do while I was gone, was vacuum the living room. She’d done about half when the new vacuum cleaner basically lost all suction. We still don’t know all the quirks of this machine, so we left it until I got back.

We then spend probably 2 hours in total, fighting with that thing. What we eventually found was that the main hose was clogged, but it took figuring out how to dismantle the vacuum cleaner part way. The hose itself runs through a part of the vacuum cleaner that holds it in place, but doesn’t come off, so all the fighting we did with the hose included pulling it back and forth through the back of the machine. It ended up taking one of the metal plant supports I got at Dollar Tree to finally punch a hole through the clog, but we still couldn’t get it out. My daughter remembered a computer tool kit we have, which has a screw grabbing tool that was long enough and narrow enough to reach the clog, and the grabber could pull it out, little bits at a time.

The clog turned out to be mostly fibres of sisal rope from the cats’ scratch post. That stuff is nasty on the vacuum cleaner!

Plus cat hair, of course. Everything has cat hair.

One of the downsides of doing this is, we were in the living room, which has no air circulation. I was dripping with sweat, and by the time we were done, we were covered in dust, cat hair and little bits of sisal fibres.

Well, at least she was able to finish vacuuming the carpet. It was my turn to do the bathroom, which was done by LED flashlight, because the breaker was being kept off until the burnt outlet could be repaired. Not much air circulation in there, either, even with the window to the sun room open.

We were all pretty exhausted by the end of the day. I hate housework even more than I hate shopping. That’s why I’m usually the one doing the outside stuff, while the girls take care of the inside stuff. :-D

Still, I’m glad I got the Costco shopping done, at least, and I won’t have to do that again for another month!

The Re-Farmer

Second stock up trip

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To follow up on the post I did with our large shopping trip, to stock up for the month, I’ll go into detail on what was picked up today.

Normally, we would have done the big trip, going to three different major stores on one day, then done a smaller trip to fill in the gaps a few days later. This time, however, we had to wait until the water receded and roads were clear.

Yesterday I happened to see one of the gravel trucks making a return trip past our driveway, and could hear heavy equipment, so I think the washout to the south of us was repaired. This morning, though, the flood warning sign was still at the intersection. The “road closed/local traffic” only sign was gone this morning, though, so the repairs to the west of us are done.

While taking the main road towards the highway, I found they hadn’t tried to do anything with the washout to the east of us. It isn’t as major as some other ones, and can be driven through without too much issue. I stopped at the post office first and asked about the highway conditions. The highway is still closed to the north, but it’s open to the south. I wouldn’t have to go to the next highway to go to the city. In fact, while driving towards the town my mother lives in, I couldn’t even tell that the highway had been washed over, the water levels have gone down so much in this area.

I stopped to fill the tank and got an unpleasant surprise.

The gas prices went up 11 cents, yesterday.

At 180.9 per litre, that’s Cdn$6.84 per US gallon. At the current exchange rate, that works out to US$5.31/gallon, for regular gas.

It cost me about $40 for an eighth of a tank of gas. That means it would cost Cdn$320 to fill my tank from empty right now.

When we last lived in this province, just before moving to the city we came back from, I worked night shift at a gas station. The only time I saw people paying that much on gas was when the drag races were on, and people would fill the tanks in the backs of their pick up trucks to fuel their race cars. The most I ever saw was in the $400 range. Not even the fishermen were spending that much, buying fuel for their boats. This would have been in 2004, when gas prices increased to an astronomical 67 cents per litre.

Those were the days… :-/

Anyhow.

Today, I decided to go someplace I hadn’t been to in 4 years. The Wholesale Club. This is the Canadian Superstore warehouse chain. Their prices aren’t all that different from their regular retail stores, but they do carry more varieties than Costco, and have bulk sizes of things I don’t see anywhere else. They also cater to the restaurant supply market, so a significant portion of the building is filled with take out supplies and commercial kitchen items.

I love going through that section.

Before moving here, we used to go to The Wholesale Club fairly regularly, but the one time I went to this location after we moved, I did not want to go back. It was a real mess and, when looking at their fresh meat section, I was seeing a lot of meat that looked like it had gone off completely.

I wasn’t planning to get fresh meat, though, so I decided to give them another try.

I’m happy to say, things have improved!

I completely forgot to get a picture of the flat cart when I was done, though.

This is what I got today; I had a $300 budget, and stayed under budget.

Cat kibble; three 8kg bags: I had intended to get more, but this was their last three in that size. They also had their no-name kibble, but not even the outside cats want to eat that stuff.
Popcorn: a couple of bags. I prefer to buy that at Costco, because we keep the containers they come in, but we were running low.
1 small bag each of pinto beans, navy beans and pearl barley. I want to try making our own baked beans and, if we like them, start making more to pressure can. As for the barley, we don’t often get it, since my daughters can’t stand barley, but every now and then, I have a craving for it. :-)
1 bottle Maple syrup; we don’t often splurge on maple syrup, but it’s a nice treat. Plus, I chose a brand that came in a swing top bottle. It will be kept for future reuse.
1 large pkg toilet paper – it was actually hard to find non-commercial toilet paper rolls!
1 case tomato soup
1 case Coke Zero
1 giant bag Fusilli pasta
1 bag medium couscous – personally, I prefer large couscous, but they didn’t have any.
1 large block each of old cheddar and mozzarella cheese
1L whipping cream
1 large bag frozen potato and cheddar pierogi
1 large bag frozen potato and bacon pierogi
1 box Medjool dates – and no, I didn’t accidentally buy Two Bite Brownies instead of dates this time! :-D
1 bulk pack of wieners
1 pack hoagies
2 bags of 12 hot dog buns – when things dry up a bit more, we’re having a wiener roast!
2 loaves rye bread; rye bread is one of the things we don’t usually bake ourselves
1 pkg flour tortillas

The grand total, after tax, was $273.55

There were a couple of things on my list that we didn’t get. One was plain vegetable oil. They only had it in restaurant sized buckets, which isn’t much use to us. I also couldn’t find corn meal, but that’s something we can buy locally. There were a few things I did get that were not on my list, like the popcorn, Coke, maple syrup, dates and pierogi.

With this place having so much in giant, restaurant sized packages, it will be a good place to go to specifically for adding to our stash. They also have more varieties; where Costco might have something available by the case in one flavour, Wholesale Club has the same number of varieties that would be in their regular retail stores.

While I wasn’t looking for fresh meat, I did check out that section, as that’s what had turned me off last time. I can happily say that all their meats really did look fresh. The big change, though, was that there is now a wall of fridges, mostly with really huge cuts of beef, that is now behind a locked cage. You need to get a staff member to open it up if you want anything in it.

A sad sign of the times.

So that is our smaller stock up trip, to fill in the gaps from our big trip. Anything else we need will be bought locally. About the only thing we might make another trip for is the dry at kibble, but as the weather warms, the outside cats are out hunting, and aren’t eating it as much, so we won’t be going through it quite as fast. I do still make sure to put out a bit extra at the end of the day, for the mamas.

Because I’m a suck that way. ;-)

The Re-Farmer