SQUIRRELS ARE TELLING US SOMETHING

Most of us agree this has been a weird year, weather wise. A long, hot summer extending into November, and lots of rain. All of which has produced a bumper crop of acorns and walnuts falling from our neighbors’ trees and cluttering up our walkways. The squirrels have been busy, reaping the benefits. For weeks now, they’ve been scampering across our fences and lawn with cheeks bulging. They’re storing up food all over the place, and from the looks of it, they’ll have enough to last the winter. When you consider what’s going on in this covid-19 pandemic world, it seems the squirrels are telling us something : Stock up on food now, because it’s going to be scarce.

Many supermarket shelves have empty spaces, and what products are available go up in price every week. I’ve recently noticed my shopping cart is much fuller than it used to be. I’m not consciously emulating the squirrels, but I seem to be buying a lot more of everything. Instead of one can of vegetables or beans, I’m coming home with three or four. Probably have enough toilet paper to last until spring. It’s not actually hoarding, because that would mean I’m getting stuff I will never have a chance to use.

For example, during world war II sugar was rationed. My mother’s best friend was childless, and apparently had more disposable income than we did. She and her husband began hoarding sugar in huge tin storage cans up in their attic. Lift the lid on their piano bench and you could see it was packed to the brim with hard candy. They didn’t eat the candy, and the woman seldom baked. As I remember, she never offered to share as much as a cup of her sugar. .

When the war was over, she invited me up to her attic to see all the sugar she had stored for the duration. It was hard and lumpy, and I think it was drawing ants, so she threw it all away. The candy had melted together during the summer months with no air conditioning, and so it, too, went into the trash pit.

Squirrels are telling us something. Time to stock up for the winter. — Squirrels are telling us something. Now is the time to store food for the winter.

In comparison, my overbuying isn’t really what you would call hoarding. I’m just filling my cupboards to the brim. Nothing will go to waste. But I’m bracing myself for a long hard winter of shortages and higher prices on everything we buy. The squirrels are telling us something.

Food shortages are coming.

November 23, 2020November 23, 2020

IS STOCKPILING SELFISH OR SMART?

Hoarding is definitely a bad word nowadays. It conjures up images of deranged people living amongst piles of things they’ve accumulated for years, unable to part with a even single rubber band. But there’s another type of hoarder who is now in the spotlight. It’s the person who has a closet full of toilet paper, or a trunk full of bottled picante sauce. Yes, I’ve witnessed this type of hoarding during this pandemic. But there’s a euphemism for the term, “hoarding,” and its called stockpiling. You might even think of it as saving, or stocking up for the uncertainty ahead. Is stockpiling selfish or smart?

Stockpiling is generally frowned upon by the media. We’re told that it’s a selfish act, depriving others of access to much needed goods. But to my mind, it’s kind of a natural act of self preservation. Everyone has their own wants and needs. For my husband, it’s canned soup. Being a diabetic, he is careful to avoid high carbohydrate foods. Most soup is nutritious without being high in calories. Beside that, it warms the tummy on cold wintry days. It’s also one of the first things that started disappearing from the grocery store shelves in March..

And so, starting last spring, we would buy a few extra cans of his favorite soups whenever we shopped. No, we didn’t walk out with a cartful of soup, but we did buy more than we could use in a week. Consequently, we have two pantry shelves full of canned soup. It’s at least a month’s supply. I don’t see this as a stupid expense or a selfish act. The money isn’t wasted. Canned foods are good for years. And we really didn’t deprive anyone else of a can of soup in the long run. And at our age, there could be weeks when the weather is so bad we can’t leave the house. Or one of us could get sick.

Is stockpiling selfish or smart. Stockpiling canned goods is a good idea when facing uncertainty — Is stockpiling selfish or smart? Everyone stockpiled canned goods in the olden days.

When I was a child, everyone stockpiled food . Women canned. We had a basement full of canned peaches, pears, tomatoes and green beans. My husband lived on a farm, and they even canned the meat which they had raised. Was that selfish or stupid? No, it was called planning for the long winter months ahead.

This is a time of uncertainty. A change in government, a new president of the United States. A Covid-19 epidemic predicted to spiral out of control. Many economists are predicting a worldwide stagflation. So Is stockpiling stupid, selfish, or smart? I’ll vote for smart.

July 17, 2020July 17, 2020

WHO’S HOARDING BLACK PEPPER?

Scary times bring out the hoarding instinct. Anyone who lived through World War II remembers the hoarders. My mothers best friend hoarded sugar, even though she seldom baked, and both she and her husband were thin. At the end of the war, she still had metal canisters of the stuff in her attic. Some of it had hardened into lumps. I’ve always wondered if she kept it forever, or if not, how she disposed of it. Now, people are doing it again. Notice the empty shelves for certain items? Odd stuff, you would never dream of. Yesterday, I tried to buy some pepper, but the shelves were totally cleaned out. It’s a puzzle. Who’s hoarding black pepper?

Panic buyers are stockpiling food during the pandemic — Who’s hoarding black pepper. Panic buying has caused scarcity in some unlikely products.

Back in March, when the pandemic first began., I saw a man at CVS with over twenty bottles of Picante sauce in his cart. The manager asked if he would leave a few bottles on the shelf. Picante sauce? Does this guy eat it on his eggs at breakfast, his grilled cheese at lunch, and on his beef tacos at night? Or is he afraid they’re going to run out? It’s hard to believe anyone would hoard Picante sauce.

Canned soup is another scarcity. About all that’s readily available on the shelves is Cream of Mushroom and Chicken Noodle. A lot of people don’t like mushrooms, so that’s easy to understand. And Chicken Noodle isn’t filling enough to make a meal. The other day, I opened our pull out cupboard shelves, and noticed they were full of canned soup. My husband has secretly been stocking up every time he goes to the store and finds one of his favorites, like Nacho Cheese. Last week, they had Tomato Bisque, which is another favorite. So he brought home more cans of it. Since I don’t have soup for lunch, I’m thinking there’s enough soup in the cupboard to get him through the fall.

Technically, these people aren’t hoarders, they’re panic buyers. Hoarding is a mental disorder where someone acquires a lot of things they don’t need, and can’t throw them away. Panic buying started when everyone was told they need to stock up for two weeks worth of groceries. People weren’t sure how much they might need, so they began over buying. With panic buying, people fear scarcity. They want to stay in control of the situation.

Meanwhile, the grocery business is exploding. Before the pandemic, you seldom saw people buying over $100 worth of groceries at a time. Now, it’s quite common. If and when the pandemic ends, I’m wondering what people are going to do with all that black pepper.

May 18, 2020May 18, 2020

BEWARE OF LOADED FREEZERS & BROKEN TOES

Is your freezer stuffed to the gunnels? I never thought it would happen when we bought a side by side freezer/refrigerator. We are a two person household. Up to this time, we used it at less than half capacity. But the covid-19 pandemic has drastically changed our shopping habits. We live within city limits, with access to several supermarkets within a 2 mile radius. Typically, I’d run into the store after participating in all the various activities that are part of normal life. But now, I venture out once a week , masked and gloved. No, I haven’t exactly been hoarding. I ‘ve just been buying “a little bit ahead.” Which means enough frozen meat to last a month. But there’s a downside to all of this. Beware of loaded freezers & broken toes.

Have you ever broken your toe? If you’ve lived as long as I have, you probably have. Mine was the result of fumbling in a dark kitchen for a heavy glass tumbler. I missed my guess, and the tumbler hit my toe like a sledge hammer. Yikes, apart from the initial pain, was the aftermath. A broken toe is like a broken rib. You can tape them up, but they have to heal slowly, on their own. And they hurt like the devil when you walk. This goes on for what seems like forever.

Warning: If a heavy package fall from the freezer onto your toe, it could break your toe. — Warning: hoarding meat can be hazardous. Beware of loaded freezers & broken toes.

Back to loaded freezers. Modern packaging does not lend itself well to freezer storage. If you’re into fruit smoothies, you probably have several bags of frozen fruits jumbled up on one of the shelves. Ditto for bags of frozen fish and seafood. About the only frozen foods that are consistently stackable are Lean Cuisines. Poultry is the worst. Rock hard chicken breasts and drumsticks pile up in a precarious jumble. As you dig through the mess with freezing fingers, it’s all too common for a lumpy package to slide off and onto your toes. Hopefully, you’ll just get a bruise. But if the package is large enough, and headed in exactly the right direction, it could be a toe buster.

The media has gotten us worried about meat and poultry shortages. So far, I’ve been able to find everything I need, and then some. Yes, you’re only able to buy two packages at a time, but that’s plenty for my husband and me. Now, I’m just hoping to get through this pandemic without a broken toe.

Beware of loaded freezers and broken toes.

October 27, 2018November 10, 2018

DECLUTTERING DIARY; DAY 93

When I posted DeCluttering Diary: Day One, last July on my first blog, EightyGo, I had no idea that it would go viral, or that our decluttering project would continue for so long. I thought we had gotten rid of most of the junk in our house. Oh, how foolish I was! Yes, I had cleaned out drawers and closets, upstairs and down, in our two story house, but I hadn’t begun to think about the basement.

Declutterng is hard if you've lived in a house for 50 years. — Everything gets hauled away in a truck

Cleaning out the basement of a house that has been lived in by the same person for 50 years is an overwhelming project. My husband had two separate careers during that time, and there were boxes of newsletters awards, pictures, reports from all those years. But the majority of the shelves full of boxes were there before I arrived 30 years ago.

In yellowed, rotting cardboard boxes—unopened once they were sealed with masking tape a half century ago, were baby clothes, toys, scrapbooks, notebooks accumulated by my husband’s three children who are now in their fifties and sixties. His first wife had carefully boxed up invitations, wrappings and bows from wedding and baby showers through the years. We found boxes of tablecloths, ceramics, trip brochures, towels. Numerous fans, half empty paint cans, electrical cords—the list could go on forever. You wonder why anyone would have kept all that stuff. But, I, too came with some baggage—old yearbooks, awards, memorabilia from the 26 years I served as Director of Food Service at an acute care hospital. And of course, pictures of my three children from babyhood to parenthood.

You can see the truckload that emerged from our basement today. That’s in addition to another truckload last month. But we aren’t done yet. There are still odds and ends that we have to think about. Like the two oxcarts we purchased in Costa Rica 20 years ago. Maybe we can sell some of these things on E Bay. This winter, we’ll bring up the boxes of pictures and decide which ones to keep.

We thought we would be finished with all of this purging by Thanksgiving, but it looks like it will go on until spring.

Read DeCluttering Diary: Day One https://eightygo.blogspot.com/2018/07/decluttering-dairy-day-one.htmln EightyGo