Coffee Chat

 

November 3, 2023

It's difficult to know where to start this chat. I would love to ramble on about the upcoming holidays, and I will eventually. Yesterday, was another eye opener for me, another one, and I need to work through it. My day started with another great group of veterans at a local Veterans Coffee. I look forward to those monthly meetings. That group has welcomed my daughter and I into their mix, and it helps my heart. Each month, the group gives donations to the local food pantry to help restock paper and nonfood products. After the meeting, I had a laundry list of errands to run. I tend to let errands pile up until there is a real need to actually get things done. A part for the truck, sheep feed, goat feed, chicken, and then a trip to the grocery store. The grocery store left me shaking my head. I'll get into that in a minute. I was exhausted after the errands and meeting, from all the energies. That part is harder to explain. Then, this morning, catching up on news stories from a few days...had me asking more questions. Learning to function without a cell phone has been a challenge. You do not realize how much those damned devices have become required to do even the simplest of tasks....until you don't have one. This doesn't even touch on the fact that making or receiving calls becomes very complicated, and zero access to texting - which seems to be most peoples preferred form of communication now. It's nuts! Ok, so let's dive into all of this.

I want to start with the grocery store. We all know food prices are out-of-control. So many people I have heard talking are scaling back on everything, especially food. I saw this happening each time I have gone to the store over the past year. Yesterday, I was floored by the shopping carts, food prices and check out totals. I was only in the store to get a few things, mainly the sale items I had seen on their ad. I did end up with a few other things that I knew we were running low on. Anyway, I visited with an older man, probably in his 80's, that was talking about some of precooked foods that were available - soups that were frozen, taco meat frozen, and some beef fully cooked beef roast. He said it was easier for him to have these items as he only cooked for himself, he could take these items home, thaw them out, and separate them into portions for himself and it was cheaper for his budget. He explained to me that a woman who lived just down the street from him, another older person, was struggling until her new Medicare program kicked in because the cost has wiped out her savings because of all the hype on tv about the plans. Anyway, his plan was to divide out the items he was buying and share them with her. We talked for only a few a minutes, but we agreed that these types of items would be great to have set aside for helping someone in need get through a tough time. Mind you, the frozen soups are less than $4 for about a gallon of soup. The taco meat was $6 for 5 lbs of premade/precooked meat. Now, I am not a fan of precooked meats, but I did buy some of each yesterday. Whether we eat them for a quick meal, or I just keep them in the event someone is in need of food...that gentleman touched my heart with his story. I wish everyone shared in those same principals. Anyway, I decided to start getting a price list for the upcoming holiday meals. Wow, was that unbelievable. I honestly was shocked by some of the prices, and surprised by others. A couple weeks ago, I had gone into the store and they had 3 turkeys. Those turkeys were priced at $1.79 lbs. Yesterday, there was not a single turkey. Fortunately, my son found turkeys when he was out for 98 cents a lbs, and bought 2. Pricing the items I needed for the upcoming meals added up quickly, and there were several items that store didn't have. I'm going to be putting together a price list, for our traditional meal, at this year's prices and compare notes to last year's cost. I'm sure that will shocker. Simple things, in the sale ads I have seen just this week, like soda...OMG! I'm sure glad I don't drink that stuff!!! $7 for a 12 pack of Pepsi products...good grief!! I remember complaining 3 years ago when they were $3.95 a 12 pack. The cost of pasta has gotten outrageous too! I know a few things have come down in price...but not many. As I was standing in line to check out, there were several at the registers that had 2-3 shopping carts full! I have shopped that way, but that is typically 2-3 months of food for my household. As each of the shoppers were visiting with the cashiers, all but one was shopping for THIS MONTH alone. There were 2 that I could personally hear and see. The first was a woman with 2 heaping carts, and the undercarriage full too. That was her groceries for TWO WEEKS. OMG! Her total was well over $800. While I have my own opinion on these 2 women, I know my jaw hit the floor. The second one, had a baby, but also had a cart full and the undercarriage full, and her total was just over $600. I will be the first to admit that I am pretty judgmental. I rarely buy name brand anything, and will cut every corner possible. When the last one was emptying her cart with all name brands, the large chunks of uncut steaks, snack foods galore, soda, the highest priced coffee in the store; I knew exactly who was paying for those groceries...and I was right. 

For a week now, I have been kinda flying blind, without a cell phone. Let me tell you, you do not realize how much you depend on one until you no longer have one! So much of our lives now revolve around them. They are not only phones, but used for text messaging, cameras, calendars, notes, paying bills, and GPS. Just to name a few. I don't live on my phone, as much as most, so I didn't believe that it would be a big deal to be without for a few weeks. Of course, mine would quit when one of my friends had a bad accident and I had no way to check in. At the end of month, when I had started putting everything into my calendar with reminders so maybe I'd quit forgetting so much. When I need to finalize the financials and year end paperwork for our veteran hunt and have a conversation with our partners and committee. And it naturally died, before I could remove or write down pictures, documents or even contacts. So, now I am going to have to figure out how to get all of that. The stupid phone will turn on, but the touch screen doesn't work at all. So frustrating! I refuse to spend a ton of money on these stupid phones that are outdated in a week. Not to mention, our area has limited service and paying a pricey phone plan will also not happen. So, needless to say, I have some pretty hard and fast guidelines to work with. We did manage to find some phones and a plan that were acceptable, it's just a matter of getting them and trying to recover our numbers to a new phone and plan. Such a pain!!

I have talked before about the pricing of animal feed. Living on a farm is a serious gamble from year to year. Sure, it has a ton of benefits, but there are also a ton of expenses. The past 3 years, the expense have increased at record rates and even though some prices have begun to decrease...it's at very slow rates. As a small farm, our farm depends on the livestock production, the hay production and the feed cost ends up decreasing the profits substantially. My feed run yesterday showed our sheep feed has remained the same, the goat and chicken feed have decreased by only a few cents. Because we had such a severe drought this year, our hay was also seriously short. That means we had to purchase hay too. The cost in our area had shot up, at one point to over $200 per bale. We were able to get some for a lot less, but still - having to purchase it will lessen the profits even more. When Covid hit, everyone and their brother jumped into raising chickens. All that stimulous money ended up burning a hole in people's pockets. Rather than paying off debts, they went on spending sprees. So now, selling eggs is ridiculous. Not to mention, when you can buy the mass produced white eggs for $1 or so again, people think us lowly small farms should sell ours for that too. It's crazy that more people don't understand where there food comes from or how it's raised.

I personally am affected by other people's energy. You could put on a good show, act nicely, and have a silver tongue...but I have a built in bullshit detector. Whether you call this energy, vibe, or gut...there isn't much that gets past me. I observe, a lot! I tend to keep my distance from people until I have an understanding of their energy. When I am in stores, there is so many different energies, and sometimes it becomes overwhelming for me. When there is a bunch of rude people, that ends up ratcheting up my anxiety to a level that I have to physically leave the store. That was my experience at each of the places I was at yesterday. Especially the grocery store. It's difficult to explain, but once I get overwhelmed...I am done with whatever I am doing.

 

On to the holidays. I am honestly struggling with this, this year. I can't seem to find the same spirit I've gotten in prior years to even get excited. I am hoping this changes soon. We always plan for traditional meals on the holidays, our open house and even our New Years Eve gathering. This has always been my favorite time of year. The planning, the gatherings, the cooking, the baking, basically all of it. I love the beautiful decorations, and the kindness that is more defined usually during this time of year. Gifts to me are not as big of a deal. I like them, but my most favorite gifts are the times I get to spend and share with those I love. Having a younger child still at home, I want to help teach her these traditions so they can be passed down to future generations, without the drama/bias of the holidays being only about gifts. That has become more difficult through the years. It also is more difficult with others that no longer do these old-fashioned traditions. This year, I hope to be able to include my new daughter-in-laws, and my daughter. My husband has said it is time for me to start decorating...even though I had pretty much decided I wasn't decorating until December. I guess maybe he is hopeful it bring out some of my normal spirit. Maybe it will. 

 

Anyway, I have a list to get knocked out. Hopefully, the coming days will help redirect my mood, and allow me to find what I am looking for. Stay safe, warm and be kind.