Hibernation Time

For many years I’ve tried to do all the real shopping for everything we need by October 1 and not have to go shopping from October through December, and hopefully through January. I know that Vince will be going to the store many times between now and February 1 and I’m pretty sure I’ll end up going with him a few times just because we’re stopping at the store on our way to or from somewhere else but I do not intend to go into a store with a grocery list and buy lots of groceries. It helps that I can order online from Walmart and Sams and have things either shipped or delivered. Vince will be happy to buy milk; I’ll get produce at the farmers’ market but I think most of my shopping/grocery buying is done til well after the first of the year.

Wednesday we went to Sam’s Club and yesterday we had the Azure pickup. Today was the day to get it all put away. Most of what we bought went into 5 gallon buckets with Gamma Seal lids. Last week, Vince added more shelves for the buckets so today we tried to get everything organized. Some of the buckets I need to get into every few days; some I get into every couple of weeks and some I get into once a month so we tried to organize the buckets so the ones I use the most are the easiest to get to. We buy Jinx dog food at Sam’s (23 pound bag), one bag pretty much fills up a 5 gallon bucket. I figured three bags would get us through January but I bought a fourth just in case. We filled four buckets and the bucket I have been using is close to being empty so we stack the four buckets of dog food on top of each other (with a piece of plywood in between). Vince can grab the top bucket and put it down on the floor so I can use that to feed the dogs. As long as I can see what’s in each bucket and like things are together, it’s easy to keep up with when I’m getting low on something.

It was pretty much an all day job to get the buckets filled and re-organized after a year of using the stuff in them and them not always getting put back in the right spot.

Then there were things like laundry detergent, toilet paper, deodorant, soap, shampoo that do not go into buckets and that all had to be put in the right spots.

All of the buckets stay in the basement. I have a shelf unit in the breakfast room and keep grains, rice, beans, etc. in half gallon jars so as we were organizing in the basement, I was re-filling the jars for upstairs.

The half gallon jar of yellow corn was filled twice! I ground some into fine cornmeal, regular cornmeal and coarse grits (which we will have for breakfast tomorrow). Most all of the grains I use except the corn, I grind right before I’m going to use them. Grinding the corn is so loud that I wear hearing protection so I grind enough for a while when I’m grinding it.

Cornbread made with fresh ground corn and wheat – it has a nutty flavor with way more texture than your average cornbread. This is the cornbread recipe I use. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of sugar but I use about 1 tablespoon of sugar. We don’t like our cornbread too sweet.

That was dinner! I was too tired to even grab a package of ham out of the freezer. The beans were cooked in ham broth so they had plenty of ham flavor. It was delicious – one of our favorite meals.

It’s nice to have the shopping done, and everything put away and ready for winter. Of course, if we NEED something, and we will, we’ll go to the store and get it but my goal is not to have to do that often.