Living In / With a Pandemic

 

 

                                 Old  Keeper                                 New
1. Holiday Gatherings
2. Appliance availability.
3. Nutrition -- Vitamins
4. Canning Shortages
5. Seed Shortages
6. Eggs
7.Cooking
8.Recipes
9. Freezing Zucchini

    Is hard to do and it **** STINKS **** big time!
With fear of so many things from the actual catching something that can make you sick to worrying about bills and income IT IS JUST HARD!

1. Here it is in the middle of October! We are just weeks away from Thanksgiving and Christmas. Other than the recipes I need to get figured out and trying to stay ahead of this pandemic issue the holidays will be in front of us soon. I don't know how we are going to do that yet with this virus thing. Daughter in ark is a teaching professor and exposed to it daily. Her husband is working on equipment so not around many people if any. Her youngest son is doing school at home and is a home body so no exposure there. Her middle son is collage age and working so there is that one to worry about. Her Oldest works on a ranch and I believe goes to school but probably wouldn't come any way. I know I will be invited to a couple of gatherings but I think I will just make a dessert and drop it off with a mask on for those.
    As we go along we figure out a few things. I am going to write this assuming that your funds are in decent shape and money may not be rolling in hand over fist but it is there.
2.   My daughter in Arkansas has been telling me appliances are hard to get. You order something and it either doesn't come in or it takes months and months if your lucky. Some of this is due to the factories either closing down or not working as much. Some may be the whole thing is coming from a foreign country like China. (I'm mad at them and I would rather not buy anything from there if I can help it) I talked to the local hardware man and he said he is having a terrible time getting appliance in. My oven went out on me and my repair man said he has been really busy since January (isn't that when all this lock down started?) He said some parts he can get and some are back ordered. I was lucky and he could get the heating coil in the back of my oven for my convection oven. My daughter said isn't that a pretty new oven when we were talking on the phone. My husband yelled so she could hear on the speaker..... " It still goes out when you use the hell out of it!" The woes of a addicted baker ! LOL I am for sure addicted. I was not a happy camper for a few days. $150.00 for the bill on that. No we are not the fix it type on this kind of thing. Besides that we would have a hard time crawling around on the floor to fix the thing. Ouch that would hurt with arthritis!
    All of our appliances are about 25 years old. Next thing we know we have 2 freezers in the garage. One started making a odd noise. Husband panics and we start looking online to see about prices and availability. I do uprights. It takes up less room and I can get to things so much easier. I know people say the chest freezer is cheaper and you get more in it but picture this. I have had chest freezers. I am about 5'5" tall and probably just as wide LOL Anyway I swear there were times I am digging around trying to get something and I needed to call for help to pull me out. Can you imagine walking in to the room and seeing someones kester and legs in the air and someone yelling for a wrecker to haul them out? That would be me. No thank you. I wanted a commercial freezer on wheels. Lots more money and not easy to get on a normal day out here to the country. Hubby was in a big hurry thinking this one is going to go out any minute and we can't find any. I found one at the local hardware store that is 21 CF upright that just came in. Cost was $1084.80 ? They delivered for free. So we had a old freezer to move over and clean out under and behind. Don't you just love that when a appliance has to be moved? Always nasty dirty but this had a extra layer of nasty because out in the garage you get the occasional mouse. We moved the good freezer over to have room for the new one. I had a dust dirty wall to wipe down and hubby had a nasty floor to clean. While we could get to it we also vacuumed behind the drier and whatever else we could get to. ( I swear the drier was a fire hazard) We moved the new freezer into the nice clean spot. I transferred everything from the freezer next to the new one. Now this freezer is a beautiful freezer! Even has a light in it. Shelving looks like a fancy fridge. That is the problem ! This freezer is harder to stuff things into it without the little ridge on the shelf edge of my older freezers. Oh well, I have a new one that should last a long while now. I still swear I will not have another appliance without wheels you can't clean easier and see under it so critters and dirt can't hide. I told hubby expect a big bill on the refrigerator! It will be a commercial one if I have anything to do with it! The other old freezer we were replacing we moved out and once again went through the cleaning up yuck stuff. We moved the freezer we were keeping into place after I went over it from head to toe on the outside cleaning it. It looks like new again. We emptied the freezer we were giving away into the keeper freezer. I am going to try and keep the expensive meats in the new freezer and the older freezer will hold my baking stuff like 50# bags of flour and cornmeal and containers of oatmeal and frozen fruits etc.
    It is amazing what a production it can be buying new stuff and rearranging things can be! I had a bright idea.... I put all the new freezer info and warranty stuff including expiration dates in a huge envelope on the back of the freezer and marked on the outside what was in it and the serial numbers and all that. Seems like you can never find that when you need it. We were sore a few days with older muscles saying we were crazy pulling and tugging and lifting all that stuff around. LOL We are such wimps anymore I swear! We gave the older 18cf Upright to Nikki's husband to use down in the shop. He is the fix it type of person so if it goes out maybe he can repair it.
      Next will be dishwasher. This one I have been worried about because it has some rust in the bottom from years of use on a well system. Then the refrigerator. That is going to be a major issue. The fridge hole ( I will never have one of those holes again!) is made for a 18 cf side by side. The fridge is too small for me now days and they don't really make many if any that fit in the hole. So I am going to have to rearrange the kitchen once again and figure out what to do with that hole. Commercial fridge we have a spot waiting for you in my kitchen... Somewhere I hope.
    I am going to have to look at our funds and just see where and if it is all available to be able to do all this hubby wants done.
3.    Like everyone else that is able to I like to have things available in house instead of having to go shopping.I am trying to keep the nutrition in hand. As we age it is even more important. Our bodies just don't supply the things we need as much or at all. So I am trying to keep up with vitamins and supplements in general for us. I would like to keep a year supply of things but it's really expensive on some stuff. But as this pandemic goes on things are either going to be not available or just cost more money. That's the way it works. Just the basic vitamin C, vitamin D, Zinc recommendations are not terribly expensive but if your buying for 2 or more people for even 6 months it's a wowser. Being older folks now days taking doctor meds we have other nutritional needs to keep up with. You just can't get everything from the food we eat. For one I have a picky hubby and me.... well I am extremely challenged with the alpha gal (anything from a mammal ) allergy. Some of our meds deplete some major nutrients we have to replace from somewhere also. I will try and post a basic list of things to take care of soon.
4.   I have also found that canning jars and lids are in short supply. People all over are canning and preserving more food trying to keep their food stores stocked up. If you can find jars with lids they are at stupid prices or even several weeks out to get shipped in. You may be able to find commercial one piece lids that fit your jars. They are never cheap in small quantities. You may want to learn how to dehydrate some foods you can use any commercial jar then to store these in most don't worry about keeping air out for temporary use under 1 year. Otherwise you need to use oxygen absorbers.
5.   I had heard that some seeds were in short supply in the spring. If you are a gardener or planning on learning. Please try to purchase non hybrid heritage seeds. These seeds you can save at the end of the season for next year. You will need to learn how to store and in some cases like tomatoes learn how to actually harvest the seeds to get ready to store.
6. Eggs.... are good protein we all need. If you have or wanting to have chickens that is a good thing. Chickens have their own set of rules and challenges. So you better get with it now. I am sure baby chickens are hard to find also during the season. You may want to find someone locally selling chickens. Just be sure to check them out if you go to their place. Know what a healthy chicken looks like and observe the sanitation at their place to try to increase your odds of healthy stock.  The next best thing is to try to find really good recipes that do not use eggs. I have had a difficult time finding baking recipes that turn out like I like them using alternative egg sources. I'm still trying though!
7. Cooking..... many are eating at home now. I bet your learning all kind of new tricks! LOL Now that your eating at home your seeing how much food you actually go through as a individual or family. WOW ! It is amazing isn't it! I better your finding your kitchen is also too small. Time to perfect those recipes! All that stuff your bringing in to eat. Boxes, bottles, cans and mixes. You really need to start reading the ingredient label to help keep your immune system in the best shape. Not only do you need some really good nutrition ABC's you need to avoid a lot of the preservatives if you can. I will try to post about that another day. Those HFCS and MSG's and a few other things can make a person feel bad and you not know what is doing it.
8.    If you are a person that keeps your recipes online or count on Ree Drummond or Paula Deen or whoever to go look it up online when you need it you need to think about this. What would you do it you can't afford internet access or the world goes upside down and the internet isn't available? WRITE THEM DOWN !  Copy and print is easy enough if you have that at home. If not start your own recipe file or note books. I will try to post about that also soon.

    Every now and then I will try to post something useful. I can't believe how busy I am. It doesn't help when I am moving slower either. I need to get into the kitchen and clean up my perpetual mess. I made chocolate zucchini bread and Lemon Blueberry zucchini bread recipes to try out. I still have a Chai Tea zucchini recipe for bread I want to try. Both of the ones I tried were really nice. Of course hubby said don't bake any for him after he tried the lemon. I knew better to try the chocolate. Soft crumb almost cake like. The Chocolate was REALLY CHOCOLATE! can't imagine what chai tea will taste like. I need to learn how to bake in the small foil loaf pans for sharing.
 9.   Freezing Zucchini --- I read on the net you can freeze zucchini shredded. I am putting 1 cup in a plastic baggie and freezing it. I hope when I get ready to do it again it is as good as these fresh baked ones are in the breads. I have 2 more huge zucchini's to shred and freeze.

Ok back to the kitchen and fixing some lunch.

Love
Ranchmama 

P.S. I have to wonder what it would be like to use the attached garage as the new kitchen? Not like we actually put a car in there now days. Crew cab trucks don't fit into the garage in this era of house in 1972? it just isn't long enough.