Luckily we are fairly well stocked in a lot of things so it is just a few little things that we are needing to get. If we could get all the things that we still need: Rice, All Purpose Flour, Powdered Milk, Yeast, Peanut Butter possibly some more cream soups, popcorn, cookies. Also if we can get either a 2 1/2 or 5 dozen count of eggs. We have a Hutterite Colony that provides them to some stores in my area in that size along with an 18 and 12 count. We normally buy the 2 1/2 unless we are doing a lot of baking and need the eggs for that in addition to our regular eating in which case we get the 5 dozen. DH said that those were both all out when he was in the store today. (Sadly my laundry basket that I got when my youngest was born is just about dead so since we were in town to deliver the last of the kids fruit sale deliveries today and were literally half a block from the store we decided to use a little cash to get me a new one and since he was in the store DH decided to look for potatoes (he said the bin there was not only empty it was clean) and eggs.
Since DH works in the opposite direction that we were today in a larger town he went to work a bit early (he works the night shift) and checked another grocery store and was able to get a 10 pound bag of potatoes which will last us for a while especially if we can pick up other things like the rice. DH will work tonight and again tomorrow night getting off early in the morning so being at the stores when they first open in the morning is not really an option (I am asthmatic as is possibly our youngest (ER Doc had diagnosed asthma when she was 2-3 years old but her regular doctor at the time said no we don't want to give that diagnosis to a kid that young it's reactive airway. She catches everything that comes down the pike so we don't allow her to go to crowded stores this time of year under normal circumstances. Since our oldest is not driving that means DH is the one doing the shopping.
Hopefully we can get a list of what we need if we were stuck on our property which is fairly large so we could go outside and not be anywhere near anyone outside our household we could last 2-3 weeks without having to have a neighbor drop stuff at the edge of the property on the ground and call us as they are driving away to let us know it's there and we send them the payment via paypal.
I was taught young to stock up for the winter months though usually by this time of year we are not worried about if we can get to the store or not due to the roads being too dangerous to drive. We live right on a US highway though it is called by an acutal street name as well and there are times I have seen the road so bad that you better have a 4 wheel drive and chains to get through. We know if our road is like that the roads in town are not what we want to drive on.
We are planning on putting in a garden this year though we are looking at at least another month before we can even plant root crops like potatoes, and carrots with some of the later crops not being able to be planted until early to mid June due to the zone that we live in. Last year we had a late spring so it was later that the ground was not frozen or we were dealing with frost plus we had lower than normal tempatures and well over our normal moisture levels. Needless to say a lot of gardens did not take off between rot of the seeds and not getting the heat to mature the crops plus we had some grasshoppers and then add in that we got hit with winter early though it didn't last but it was enough not only to kill gardens but farmers in my area had both their sugar beets and corn harvests with a lot left in the ground due to the frost and the freeze. Luckily they were able to get the barley havest and the haying done.
Today (Wednesday) while DH was in Walmart he heard an announcement that a truck was in and they needed all available employees to come to help unload the truck so they are trying to keep trucks rolling to get us supplies. Then today (Thursday) when DH got home from work (he works for a warehouse that supplies food and a few other things like the canisters for the coke free style machines, and cleaning chemicals that places like resturants, hospitals, K12 schools, universities, and even the prisons use) that at least the grocery store warehouse in our area is outsourcing some of their stuff he pulled an order for both Albertsons and a grocery story in a small town in SouthEastern MT. He also was able to tell me that he has it from a very good source that the grocery store warehouse is going to 7 12s which their contract allows in an emergency for them to do for 14 day and then they have to give them one day off. (OH and welcome to the wacky world of a night warehouse family that due to scheduling their days overlap DH and I normally go to bed and wake up on the same day instead of going to bed at the night of one day and waking up on the next calendar day).
If everyone does not mind my asking this please if you would normally go out to eat and you are not having to tighten the belt too much and are still able to go out if there are places you would dine at open for delivery, takeout, or curbside pick up consider supporting those businesses because not only do you support your favorite place to dine you support their suppliers as well. Starting tomorrow due to their number of cases that are ordered by the places they serve that need to be pulled each night being drastically reduced DH is going in 1.5 hours later 4 of the 5 days he works this is a reduction of 15% of what he gets for hours normally this time of year if it's a slow week because it doesn't look like they are going to be working later plus chances are really high that the part time workers there will be laid off at least temporarily.
