Where To Start?

37°f/2.8°C, clear. Expecting a high of 70°f today.

I am so behind, friends, both on posting and reading other blogs. I am trying to catch up with everyone, though. And I will try to backtrack over our past few days, which have been very full.

But first, this sad news, which is heavy on my mind right now: I have been very worried about Bruce, who had not posted on his blog, Oddball Observations, since March 13. I have been checking in, hoping for a new post, and even emailed him, so I was so sad to see this morning that dear Bruce passed away. How we will miss his humor, his cooking, and his fascinating life stories. Rest well, friend, with your sweet Judy. (Wiping tears now).

Well, I needed to write that.  Our blog friends become like an eclectic family, don't they? At least to me, each of you holds a special place in my heart, and I feel like I know you well. As we get older, I think these close connections, even if just online, are an important part of our lives. We learn from each other, see places we would never see otherwise, and enjoy watching children and grandchildren grow up. Some of you, like Quinn, have been readers here almost since I started blogging in 2007. That's almost 20 years, a long time for friendships to deepen. 

Most of my real-world friends live a distance away, so online is where we keep in touch. And yesterday, I was so glad to see many of them in person at the No Kings Rally in Charleston,  WV, at the State Capitol. We had a glorious day for it, and, as is usual at these rallies, this was a happy, positive crowd. 

My friend Trinny, a stand up comic and child psychologist.

My friend Ron Sowell, playing protest songs we all knew.

With my friend Lynne, gardener extraordinaire.

We saw so many people we knew, even though this was an hour from our home: musicians Paul, Pam, Doug, Bill, and Becky, writers Debby and Colleen, fellow Jackson counties Roy, Blue, Linda, Detra, Sherree, and of course there were other friends there that we missed in the crowd. It felt so good to reconnect and to feel that solidarity and strength in being together.

After the rally, we drove to tiny Clendenin, WV, home of the first library I managed, for lunch in the tiny brewery located inside an old bank building.

The main reason for going to Clendenin, though, was to take a walk on the Elk River Rail Trail. While at the brewery we met this man named Rodney who is a veritable walking West Virginia flora and fauna expert of the self-taught kind. He offered to take me on a walk on the trail to see what plants might be popping up. Of course I eagerly agreed!

So off we went. Larry moved at a slower pace and Ridney and I soon left him behind. I later asked Larry if he was worried about me wandering off into the woods with a complete stranger, but of course he wasn't! It was clear that Rodney was 100% focused on the plants, and besides, he was very well thought of by the people at the brewery who knew him well.

We had a great wander, about a mile, and then back again. Rodney taught me to use iNaturalist, an app for identification. 

American rosette lichen, up close 

Bloodroot

Carolina Spring Beauty

Coltsfoot

The beautiful Elk River

Yellow cordalis, a new flower for me.

Red elf cups fungus

I learned new plants, and even found out that even the smallest lichen on trees have names, and are pretty astounding when viewed up close. I hope to go back and find Rodney again, because silly me forgot to get his contact information. 

By this time, it was after 5 and we went back to Charleston to yet another brewery for a salad supper and music by a bluegrass band. 

We listened a while, but as the place got crowded, we decided to meander homeward, stopping at Shari's to meet up with a few friends and listen to a young local singer, Gracie Mae, who was very good.

And finally home just as it was getting dark, to be greeted by happy dogs and a hungry cat!

A Memory About Food Budgets

46°f/7.8°C, clear and sunny. A great day to work outside!

Following up on my last post, I was reminded of a time early in my first marriage when my husband changed jobs and his new job really made us tight financially. We had just bought a house, our third baby was on the way, and we needed to replace our VW bug with something bigger. 

Back in the day! I was 22 in this photo, my first husband was 23. The baby,  Aaron, was 2 months, Derek in the chair beside me was 19 months, Jon on the left front was just over 3, and our oldest George was 4 1/2. We were still in Virginia then, in our first house, but moved to West Virginia less than a year later. I still have that chair, as well as the old crock jug and the coffee grinder on the mantle. 

My husband was bringing home about $100 a week. Our house payment was $150 a month, LP gas was $50, electric thankfully was cheap, usually $15, and the payment on our (brand new) van was $77. He had a company car but had to pay for the gas and be reimbursed at the end of the month, and as a copier repairman he did a lot of driving so that gas bill was hard on us. I had a food budget of $10 a week.

I had to come up with creative ways to feed us all. We found a place selling pullet eggs for $1.00 for 3 dozen. We got milk from a local dairy farmer for $1.00 a gallon, and I made butter from the cream. Then we had earlier met an organic orchardist who had made a large amount of cider that didn’t come out as he wanted it, so he sold it to us for 75 cents a gallon (we thought it was delicious). We made a monthly trip to the orchard and to a beekeeper in that area to pick up cider and honey for our local natural food store, so we picked up our honey too, and got paid a bit as well. Another orchard sold their culled apples for $2 a bushel, so we bought those too.

All of those things, plus tuna and fish, made up the bulk of our diet. We didn't eat beef, chicken, or pork at the time because of the additives being used back then, but we did eat dairy and fish. It was a challenge, but I think we managed well, and my boys grew up strong and healthy. After a year, my husband was making a much better salary, and was using our van as a work car and getting reimbursed for mileage, so our situation was much easier.

I was curious about the comparison of my $10 in 1972 to today, and found that it was equal to about $78. And now I wonder, what would $78 buy today? I think that it might actually be easier. For some families,  $312 a month would seem like riches. Some foods are actually cheaper now than they were back then, although meat is outrageously high.

Memories, memories. Despite the lack of money, we were happy, and those were good days.

Anyway, getting back to today: we worked outside all day, spreading 20 bags of mulch, cleaning up the patio, etc. I tilled a bit of the garden while Larry continued cleaning the garage. I didn't plant anything because we are expecting more rain and very low temps and I don't want my seeds to rot like they did last year. We ended the day with firepit time, a reward for our hard work.

 

And to end this rather eclectic post: a friend sent me this link of a Japanese storyteller who credited me with inspiring her to write a beautiful ballad! Here's the YouTube link, if you're interested. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

$5.00 Menus?

30°f/-1°C, clear all day but only warmed to 54°.

Another night of troublesome sleep so here I am in the wee hours writing my blog. I might as well make use of being awake! 

Today was a town day for us. Larry had a load of junk metal to take to the scrap yard (and got a whopping $9.25 for it!), and I wanted to get our first load of mulch, so we took the truck. I was surprised to see a long, deep scratch down its side, and a new dent in the front bumper. Larry says he has no idea how either happened, but I cannot imagine he didn't hear that scratch being made. Poor old truck.

Anyway, I straightened up our Ripley booth while he got rid of his load of junk. Last weekend was the Spring open house at this mall, so I knew it would be untidy. Then it was lunch with friends, Walmart for mulch, feed store, and grocery store. 

At the grocery store I got to thinking about a question someone asked in a cooking group on Facebook: if you had only $5 to spend for all your food for a day, what would you buy? Five dollars doesn't buy much these days, does it? Here's what I came up with, if I shopped at Kroger :

• A box of 8 packets of instant, sweetened and flavored oatmeal: $1.67
• A half dozen eggs: $1.15
• A bag of frozen chopped broccoli: $1.29
• One Roma tomato: $.25
• 2 bananas: .60
• Total: $4.94

So, oats for breakfast and snacks, mix a packet with a couple eggs and a mashed banana to make pancakes for lunch (no syrup but the sweetened oats would add enough sugar), and omelet with the rest of the eggs, tomatoes and broccoli for dinner.

My goal was a fairly healthy menu, so could I do the same at Dollar Tree?

If I shopped at Dollar Tree, I could buy:

• A bag of brown rice: $1.25
• A bag of black beans $1.25
• A bag of frozen veggies $1.25
• A box of instant oatmeal packets $1.25
• Total: $5.00 (there is no tax on food in WV)

This would allow oats for breakfast and snacks, and beans and rice with the veggies for lunch and dinner. Nothing fresh but not too bad.

Public domain photo

Both of my options assumed that the only other food items I had on hand were water, salt and pepper. The Dollar Tree menu would provide more food, since the beans and rice would make quite a lot. 

Of course, most of us have lots of flexibility when cooking, using food, spices, etc that we already had on hand. There are many days that I doubt what I cook actually costs even $5, because I may use only a part of something.

If you had to do this, what would you buy? The exercise made me feel grateful that I do not have to buy all my food, and that if I did, I could afford more choices. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.