More peaches and no spending

Oldest daughter and I put up over 50 jars of sliced peaches, 8 jars of peach jam, 6 jars of peach juice, and 7 jars of brandied peaches.  She also took home a five gallon pail of fresh peaches.  We have two bowls of fresh peaches on the dining room table and there’s a few left on the tree.  The peaches in the bowl are in all stages of ripeness so I expect them to last a week or two, if they don’t get eaten up in the next day or so.

When Army Daughter and son-in-law walked in their eyes popped out.  Son-in-law asked, “Why would you do this? How long will it last?”  I told him that I like knowing what is in my food and in this case, other than the brandy it’s just peaches, water, a little lemon juice, and sugar.  I told him he should read the ingredients on any jar of peach jam that he can find in the store and see what those ingredients are.  I told him that if this was just for us then it would last two years, as long as the rest of the trees produced well, otherwise it would last one year.  On the other hand, since oldest daughter is going to take some it will probably only last us a year.  Trying to put a monetary angle on it I said these 75 jars of food would cost $150-200 at the store so for $7.50 in lids and $2.50 for the sugar for a grand total of ten dollars, we just saved between $140-190 for an afternoon’s worth of work.  Army daughter took exception to my time spent since I also spent time trimming the trees, watering and weeding, and picking the fruit - no the grandkids picked the fruit! 

Army daughter said that there is no need to waste time canning.  She’d rather go to the store and buy what we need.  She’s glad that we live in a society that we don’t have to do those old fashioned things anymore.  She said that if society ever collapsed then she’d can.  I told her that would be a little too late to learn and she wouldn’t have any supplies.  I still have hundreds of jars, lids, and this year I even bought some new rings.  The rings I had prior were from 1980, so I figured I could retire most of the 31 year old rings and get some new ones.  They were half price, $2.99 for a dozen lids and rings.  You didn’t think I’d buy new rings at full price, did you?

Girl said that it was really neat that I did this old stuff.  Kind of like Almonzo’s family (she’s still reading Farmer Boy).  Did they have stores to buy jam when I was young or did I always have to make jam?  I’m NOT that old. 

Not spending any money today, day four.  Didn’t eat the tacos they brought home yesterday for dinner.  I asked if they used the coupon and they said no, but it was only ninety nine cents for the two, plus they added extra cheese and extra lettuce at ten cents for each extra item on each taco, so two cost $1.39.  Thanks but I ate the night before’s leftovers and was pretty full from stuffing peaches in my mouth all day. 

I am planning on spending money either Tuesday or Wednesday.  My friend’s son is in town for a few more weeks and he’s bored just visiting his family.  He’s a house painter by trade.  He offered to paint my fascia boards on the house just for something to do.  I have to provide the tools and paint.  I have all the tools.  I just have to provide (buy) the paint.  It’s something that I was planning on doing this summer, so the timing is bad for my don’t spend money event.  If the rain continues, we got ½ inch in less than an hour last night, then it will be too wet to paint.  I won’t buy the paint if he isn’t going to be able to paint.  Perhaps I won’t mess up my spending game.

They don't want to play the no spending game

Army daughter and son-in-law went out house hunting again today.  They brought their baby and girl so she could play with the baby.  They left right before lunch.  I'm making lunch, don't you want to eat here before you leave?  No, they'll pick something up when they are out.  But it's quarter to twelve.  So they left.  They are picking up dinner tonight.  Why?  There's leftovers that they made for lunch yesterday.  There's leftovers that I made for dinner last night.  I can make something if you don't want to cook tonight.  No, they'll pick up tacos.  Then let me look in my coupon book.  Here's a coupon for two free tacos.  You can get that for me.  Don't I want four?  No, I want to free ones.  OK, that's sort of cheating on the no spending for 10 days but I'm counting it anyway.  They don't want to play the game.  Boy and I are eating chicken/pasta/pea casserole leftovers from last night.

Today I'm canning peaches.  Oldest daughter is coming over to help.  She knows if she wants jam or juice or brandied peaches then she has to help.  Army daughter wants to know why I'm wasting time since she can just go to the store and buy it there.  After all, she says it's better when it's store bought. (This one sure didn't pick up the make it yourself attitude that I tried to instill, did she?)

We have one tree that is so loaded with peaches that the branches want to break.  I tied the branches up last year and also propped the branches with wooden boards and am having to do the same this year.  It's really surprising to get bumper crops of peaches from these trees.  Usually it's an overbearing year followed by a small bearing year.  That's good though because last year I hardly got any canning done at all and oldest daughter and granddaugher picked peaches and sold them in front of their house in town so they wouldn't go to waste.  This summer is starting out very slow for work so I'm planning on getting lots of canning done.  I bet I can get a good three years worth of peaches canned and also have plenty to eat. 

The local nursery has a chart which shows the different varieties they sell and they are all charted by ripening schedule.  I have planted a good variety so we do have fruit ripening year round.  Citrus can stay ripe on the tree for months.  The peaches are Flordaking peaches which should have ripened May 1-25.  Last weekend, which was after May 25 was the first that they started ripening. The Pix Zee Mini (it cost $2.50 on a closeout, otherwise I would never have bought a miniature fruit tree) ripens in June and those peaches are still hard as green rocks with no coloring in site.  One apricot tree only gave us enough apricots to eat this year and the two other apricot trees haven't ripened yet although they should have ripened the last week of May.  It's just the crazy weather that has slowed everything. 

Well, back to the kitchen.  Day three, still spent zero and my two tacos are going to be free.  Yes, I know it's sort of bending the rules... 

The car

Army daughter and her husband went house shopping today.  They called me this afternoon and asked for me to come take a look at a couple of the houses.  I packed up the grandkids and into the city we went.  I drove their car because I was watching their baby plus the two other grandkids.  I was pretty sure I locked the house but we didn’t close the gate when we left. 

Of the three houses I saw, there was one that I really liked.  Of course, I’m not moving into it, and if I was moving I certainly wouldn’t move to a city of half a million people.  It’s closer to her husband’s work, it had a pool, and it was in a good neighborhood.  The house was about 30 years old, maybe 40.  It’s their first house purchase so they have lots of discussion ahead of them and I don’t know if they’ll make an offer or not.  If they don’t get this one, then another will come along. 

We were away for two hours. When we got home I noticed a car parked in the driveway.  It was a car I’d never seen before and I didn’t recognize the license.  The grandkids raced into the house to see who could get to the bathroom first.  I quickly went in and called them back outside all the while thinking to myself that it was really stupid of me to even let them out of the vehicle.  I told them to go sit in the orchard.  No I didn’t care that it was drizzling out.  I pulled my gun out of my holster.  I called back into the house, “is anyone home?”  I didn’t get a response.   

I asked Army daughter if she recognized the car parked in the driveway.  “What car?” she asked.  Let’s see.  You rode with the realtor.  Your two cars are parked on the driveway and the realtor’s car is too.  Do you see that red station wagon?  It’s not ours…

I walked around the outside of the house.  No windows were ajar, the doors were closed.  I went back into the house through the back door and there was son-in-law and daughter, combing the house together looking for the intruder.  Son-in-law was holding the baby.  Both of them were military…what were they thinking???  Daughter reported that she checked the closet where the safe was and nobody was there.  What if someone was there and had a weapon? 

I told her to go out of the house.  Son-in-law followed her out.  I started going through the house room by room: I know the hiding places.  Then son-in-law called out to me.  There’s a note on the back patio.  The bug-out place renters bought a car for their daughter as a graduation present.  They have to get it registered on Monday and didn’t want to spend the extra gas driving it home and back so they left it here while we were gone.  Mystery solved. 

We sure did things wrong and were lucky that it was just a car that had been dropped off by a friend.  If there had been an intruder one of the grandkids could have really gotten hurt.  We had a group discussion over dinner about safety and all the mistakes that were made.  Several mistakes included: 1) not keeping the grandkids in the car, 2) not parking the car in a safer location, 3) having an adult daughter and son-in-law with no common sense, who would search the house for an intruder while holding an infant, 4) not closing the gate, 5) not seeing the note on my walk around of the house, 6) should have had the cell phone set to dial 911 and had someone outside the house holding it (the phone was in my pocket as I was searching the house).  7) should have just stayed home and relaxed on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

Didn't spend any money today.  Two days.  Zero spent.

10 days, no spending test for survivalists

A few days ago Yahoo had a posting: 10 days, no spending.  I think it’s a good exercise but the article itself was extremely flawed.  The article pretends that everything you buy is wasted money.

The bills that were supposed to come due during the 10 day period were paid ahead of time.  I’m not sure where the savings is there. The writer also said she had enough gas in her gas tank.  She had ½ a tank.  Am I to assume that if she had a full tank she would have driven around town more often just to use the gas?  I do suppose that if you only had ½ a tank that you may combine a couple of trips together and not run to the store as often, but with the price of gas as it is, I don’t think people are doing much pleasure driving anyway.  She said she worked at home so her gas was for running around doing other things. I guess if you needed more than one tank of gas in a week then you'd have to miss work.

 You are supposed to go through your cabinets and make sure you have enough food and supplies for 10 days.  If you don’t have enough stuff then run to the store and get your 10 days plus worth of stuff.  Then during the 10 days you use this stuff up.  After the time is up you do have to replace your food so there isn’t any savings unless you end up eating food that you would have thrown away. 

She said that removed all money sources from her purse: debit card, credit cards, and checkbook. She actually locked them up in a safe for the 10 days so she wouldn’t be tempted to spend.  She said at the end of her experiment she had so much more money in her bank account since she is normally an over-spender.  She wants to repeat this each money to increase her savings. 

Doing what she did, and actually saving money, can only be done if you do one thing.  Stop going to the store.  Don’t make shopping a sport or a hobby.  Don’t buy what you don’t need.  Don’t buy convenience.  She would save lots of money by making her own food rather than going out to eat, but this wasn’t brought up in the article at all.  I thought the article was stupid. 

But, and there’s always a but in my world, what if you looked at this as an exercise in survivalism or preparations?  Then this would make sense.  Try it to see if you are prepared for 10 days.  Don’t do like the author suggested of checking your preps to make sure you have everything in advance.  Just start tomorrow and try to see how long you can make it without shopping.  Or maybe tomorrow isn’t a good day to start since it’s a weekend and you probably have some fun plans to do something which will cost you money.

My first downfall would be fuel.  Not my personal vehicle.  It is full of gas and now that religious school is over for the summer for the grandkids I should only be filling up the tank once a month plus any out of town trips we take.  My work truck needs fuel.  Yesterday I almost went through a full tank.  On the other hand, I’m not the one paying for that fuel (yes I am, I pay taxes too!) so perhaps the work truck shouldn’t count in the experiment. 

I’m starting this today.  I may lose next week anyway.  My sister wants us all to go to Disneyland.  We already bought tickets so that wouldn’t be present money being spent.  I could convince the grandkids that we should bring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and go out to the car to eat.  They’ll go for that.  They won’t go for not buying cotton candy.  I don’t think I would either!  If during the next ten days all I spend money on is three bags of cotton candy I think it will be a successful experiment.  Are you game?

The blogging followers

My blog followers have disappeared.  I know there were 26 or 27, and I'm very grateful for all.  I don't know what happened to the little icons which shows everyone.  Is it just my computer or did they really disappear?  If they did, I will try to get them back.  If they are gone, I didn't do it on purpose!

Closing down the prison

I pulled boy out of school today and we took a drive up to Ione to witness the closing of Preston Youth Correctional Facility.  No, I never was there either as an employee or a ward!  Work asked me to accompany one of our contractors to the closing so I was ordered to go.  It was a bit of history worth witnessing, they were giving tours, free lunch, and I got paid to be there. 

Boy wasn't happy about being pulled out of school the second to last day of school.  But then again he's 8 and loves his teacher.  Girl, who's being home schooled, is going to get to write a report about our day.

I've taken them to the Preston Castle cemetery before to show them the graves of the boys who didn't survive, mainly due to illness but some to accidents and one was shot in an escape attempt.  We've never been in the castle http://www.prestoncastle.com/history.html and there were tours of that as well.  It was the first youth prison in the state.  They initially sent wayward boys to San Quentin and Folsom prisons and in the 1890 started construction on a place of their own.  It opened in 1894 and was used until new, modern buildings were put into place in the 60s. 

When we got there we were served lunch, then we had to sign up for the tour.  I thought to myself that concealed weapons would not be allowed since there were still inmates present.  I talked to someone in uniform who was checking IDs and told him I had a permit and was carrying a weapon and wanted to know what to do about it.  He ushered me into the building to get a locker.  I walked into a 5X10 hallway that you had to be buzzed in to open the door at either end.  On one side of the hall was some lockers and the other side was a counter with bullet proof glass.  The officer yelled "weapon in the hole!"  So much for keeping it concealed.  I was handed a key and put the gun into the locker.  I was told not to lose the key or I wouldn't get the gun back!  Not a problem. 

The tour included the new (50 year old) brick buildings, including the chapel, auditorium, medical building, library, kitchen, and dorm.  All in all it was interesting.  There were still 13 wards (inmates) left at Preston.  The rest had already been moved but this group was kept back so they could demonstrate how they would be used on a fire line.  They got out of their crew vehicle and got a tool or a backpack water pump and started attacking a mock roadside fire.  It was a nice demonstration for those who've never seen a crew at work. 

After this tour we walked up to the castle and got to roam through the basement, first, and second floors.  The third and fourth floors were closed due to needing repairs.  They do offer tours on weekends that cost a little money and would have been more informative for me.  The kids had a great time exploring and were better off without the tour. 

It was a good day.  I didn't even take a new way home because I had the grandkids with me.  I did run into a situation with the weapon, which worked out fine.  At least there was a place to lock the gun up before going in.  I don't have a gun locker in my truck.  I do have one at home sitting in a closet collecting dust.  A friend of mine gave it to me when he retired and they took the gun locker out of his work vehicle.  Perhaps I should put one in mine.  I guess I did do something to prep today.  I realized that I need the gun locker in the truck. 

What good are backups if they don't fit?

Where we live there aren’t any kinds of disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, winter blizzards, tornadoes, or anything major.  Sure we have fog during the winter and heat during the summer but neither of those will cause our supplies to disappear in the blink of an eye.  The one exception I can think of is a fire. 

If the house caught fire and burned to the ground, my mini-Walmart of a garage, the closets, and everywhere else that we have provisions will be gone.  My truck and tractor will also be destroyed.  (Yes, I keep the tractor in the garage.  It’s a four car garage and I have my work truck, the family truck, and the tractor – so no need to keep it in the barn.) I do have important paperwork, money, and weapons in the safe so that will survive a fire.  Sure it’s all insured but life will still be turned upside-down for a long time.

For some unknown reason, today while planting for vegetables in the garden I thought about the clothes in the trailer.    Our travel trailer is set up with food, clothes, sleeping gear, and all the supplies we need to bug-out if need be, or to go camping on the spur of the moment, or to be a back up in case something happens to the house.  It’s my backup if the house burns down.  The grandkids just keep growing and growing.  I think it's the clean air and farm chores. 

Granddaughter started the school year off wearing a size 10 and ended the school year wearing a 12.  Grandson stayed his size 8 the entire year and is just starting to outgrow them.  Lucky me.  Several pairs of shoes but not too many pairs of pants.  Our rule is you change your pants after school if you are going to go outside to play.  The other rule is if you go through the knees in your pants I will patch them.  I don’t care if you have an entire closet full of patched pants.  You get a certain amount each school year and if you ruin them then you get them patched.  And then you just hope you grow so you can get new stuff.

Anyway, the last time I went through the clothes in the trailer was last fall.  If we lost everything in the house there would be nothing in the trailer that would fit the girl.  Maybe underwear and socks.  The boy would be better off except most of the clothes were winter clothes.  That wouldn’t do if our disaster happened now.  I do need to have a supply of winter clothing but a few short sleeve t-shirts are a necessity.

The closet in the trailer was originally set up with a two foot rod going across the top to hang clothes.  There are many cabinets throughout the trailer and during our very first trip I tried hanging things up and also used lots of cabinets for the clothes.  That worked very poorly.  While we were in El Paso we went to a Target and I bought plastic drawers.  They fit perfectly into the closet.  I have five large drawers stacked on each other plus two small drawers set side by side on top of the five stacked drawers.  Each drawer can hold a weeks worth of clothes for each of us.  The two extra large drawers hold generic items such as t-shirts in small, med, and large for children and small and medium in adult sizes, extra socks, elastic waist shorts, and some sweats.  By putting the clothing into the drawers in the closet it’s opened up a lot of space to now be used for food and other supplies. 

Since the kids have outgrown their clothes, I pulled out most of what was in there and put it into storage in the garage.  I went through bins and found some clothing that the kids will be able to fit into.  Unfortunately for me they are in sizes that I don’t have hand-me-downs.  I’m going to have to make a trip to the store to buy pants if I can’t pick some up on Freecycle.  Fortunately, they like home made clothes and I can make them some items or at least customize the store bought stuff. 

Shoes are another issue.  Their feet keep growing so that needs to be updated in the trailer too.  One of the things we do have in the garage and in the trailer is a set of rubber farm boots of all sizes.  They are easy to wear, clean up with a hose, and can be hung upside down in the space between the bed of the pickup and the rear window. 

If you’ve got kids or if you’ve changed sizes…don’t give excuses or pretend that you will lose that five or ten pounds and fit into those pants, make sure your clothing that you’ve got stored will actually fit.  Right now, the grandkids don’t have backup clothing if a disaster hit our home.