Oh, Lars, I had to smile at your post because mine are all the same way. My garage freezer has so many jars of Bone Broth that there isn't much room for anything else, and the indoor one is full of the rest. AND, I too have a large collection of Aprons... that I rarely wear.

" Balderdash! Someone with earnings under the filing threshold could have good reason to file......... "

Along the lines of "I've probably forgotten more than you've ever learned" about tax matters, my comment was mainly directed to the Canadian advice given but I probably overlooked a situation I never dealt with and so misspoke. I very thankfully stopped having any involvement with individual taxes early in my career (though with continuing responsibility for my own returns and those of my kids, of course) and was never involved with any adult who qualified for the earned income credit. I didn't (and don't) presume many readers here do. Someone at such a low level of earned income may also have had no tax withheld so there wouldn't be a reason to file a return.

But I'm glad I gave an opportunity to vent the frustrations of a person with red area political views living in a blue area.

PS - tax" knowledge" in the individual arena is a matter of knowing the law and other rules and comes from study and experience. It usually involves little or no "reasoning", the word you mentioned.

But I'm glad I gave an opportunity to vent the frustrations of a person with red area political views living in a blue area.

No frustrations here sweetie. I only post what I know. You post what you think people don't know.

Keep up with the personal jabs. At least I don't have to self medicate to get through my days .

I left elementary school a long time ago and have carried along no lingering habits that others commonly had at that time. Many can't say that. Bye.

I guess my tip is really to use up what you have stored before buying more.

It is OK for people to be different. I store approximately a year's worth of food, but I do label and date the food I can in jars so that I use the older ones first. Lars I have a beautiful polka dot apron.

I'm out of freezer space, so I am on a mission to use up what we have and not buy anything new for a while. There is a 9 pound pork roast, a leg of lamb, a tri-tip, a turkey breast, several packages of chicken, salmon fillets, halibut fillets, shrimp, scallops, ground turkey, grass fed hamburger and salmon burgers in the freezer along with some home made soup, chili, enchilada sauce and misc stuff.

Looks like next week is going to be pulled pork, soup and chicken cordon bleu.

Oh, and I don't have an apron, but I often wish I did.

Of course, Lucille, it's okay to do what makes sense for you.

May I ask - why do you store so much food? Don't you prefer fresh food?

It started with some LDS friends but after a while it just made sense especially when I learned to can and had a garden. I no longer garden but still can from time to time.

Elmer I do prefer fresh, depending what it is, there is no substitute for fresh watermelon and fruits, but for many things for example chicken salad sandwiches, my canned chicken is perfectly adequate.

I can certainly see the viewpoint of others who do things differently, but I am comfortable with my food storage.

I think storing food to supplement fresh is very wise. Those who think that in the event of some natural disaster they are just going to run out and get fresh (along with thousands of others similarly situated) are going to be going hungry. If delivery trucks can't get through and the market shelves are bare, having a full freezer and pantry will have been a wise choice.

"I think storing food to supplement fresh is very wise. Those who think that in the event of some natural disaster.........."

This hardly is a justification. Tell me how many people and how many times in, say, the last 60 years in the US has anyone been saved by having a supply of food for several months or even longer? I'll guess few or none. So for a probability that's closer to zero than not, it's unnecessary.

I have a good friend who's in the LDS church. They practice the prescribed food storage in a moderate way as observant members but he thinks it's a silly practice.

As before, choices are for everyone to make for themselves and this is a good example of one that affects only the chooser.

Sigh. If there were a disaster and Lars came to my door, my door and my pantry would be open to him. He is talented, smart, likable, and time after time he entertains and brings happiness with his perceptions and the accounts of his experiences. If there were a disaster and you, Elmer, appeared at my door, you would be fed also, but not because of the goodness in you.

my comment was mainly directed to the Canadian advice given but I probably overlooked a situation I never dealt with and so misspoke.

You were so busy trying to smack down o j that your proclamation wasn't even true.

Smackdown? Not hardly, more like a friendly tap on the shoulder to remind him who he's talking to. The guy often makes comments akin to a woman walking through a roomful of men, asking each quietly in turn to share their menopause experiences.

My question and comments as always in regard your food storage were uncolored and with no intent to communicate any personal feelings. Too bad your animosity caused you to miss that.

My Grandmothers favorite quote on housekeeping:

"For now is forever" Meaning that you should never put something down in a spot "for now", it will remain there forever. Put everything in it's proper place every time and your house remains neat.

On the subject of storing extra food, I guess I am guilty of it. I live 30 miles from a large grocery store and only go there every two weeks. We have more than 300 inches of snow each winter and snow on the ground for 9 months. Sometimes, it is not possible to get to town for days. Sometimes there are power failures and the manual can opener and gas burners are a godsend. Bottled water is always in the house. As is firewood. I do rotate the canned and boxed foods to keep everything fresh and up-to-date.

I did not do so when I lived in a major metropolitan area though. I shopped every few days.

What did people do before refrigeration? Actually that was not too long ago.

dcarch

They canned, smoked and dried it. If they had access to ice they kept it cool that way. Not far from me is an old food storage facility. It is a large hole/cave dug into the side of a hill. When it was in use 100 years ago, ice was hauled down from the mountains and put in the cave to keep the food cool.

Many people grew gardens and kept chickens for meat and eggs. People who lived out in the country raised larger animals such as cattle and sheep. They also hunted and fished to put meat on the table. I doubt that they had much in the way of leftovers after a meal because they had no way to keep leftovers cold back then.

We probably have a couple of months worth of food on hand. Like Elizabeth, it's an all day thing to go to a grocery store (unless I want to shop at my small local market, which I don't) and we get a lot of snow in the winter. It's nice to know that we will be able to eat if we are snowed in for a couple of weeks which has happened in the past.

Storing dried and canned food in case of an emergency is a good idea. If there was some sort of disaster (fire, earthquake, tornado, hurricane, flood, etc.) the power likely will be one of the first things to go out. If trees are down or roads impassable, there would be no trips to the stores. For most people, a couple of weeks to a month's worth is adequate.

Storing a ton of food in a freezer may problematic unless one has a generator. If the power goes out for more than a couple of days, that food would be lost.

Also good to have some bottled water on hand in case the water system is contaminated.

Of course, most people don't do that because they don't believe it is necessary. They are the ones who have a tough time when something does happen. But, to each his/her own; it's no skin off my nose what people decide to do or not do.

Dawn how I miss the big chest freezer I had when I had my house!! But now I have much more canned food. The National Center for Home Food Preservation has some approved recipes for soups, and I have a bunch of those, so much tastier (to me) than the commercial canned soups.

In addition to having food on hand in case of disaster, it's just a plain convenience to have good home made food. And for those people who are on a budget, there can be considerable savings if one buys when stuff is on sale and cans.

I remember my grandfather's ice box. By the time we came along and I started remembering he was starting to outfit the house he had built with electricity(and eventually indoor plumbing) but his was a real working ice box.

Yes, and while fresh food is always preferable, making and canning your own allows you to control what goes in it including things like salt, fat and other ingredients you (collective you) may not want to eat.

I don't do much canning now, but I used to can fruit, jams, apple sauce, salsa, tomato sauce and all sorts of pickles. It was really nice to have those on hand, especially in the winter months - it was like opening a jar of summer!

When I was still working, I remember being very grateful for the soups, chili and spaghetti sauce that was in the freezer on the nights I'd come home tired and drained from a long day. The last thing I'd want to do is cook and to be able to thaw something out made life so much easier.

My grandmother had a root cellar and I remember it being full of potatoes, carrots and turnips that were buried under layers of straw. She also had rows and rows of canned veggies from the very large garden she grew. Mickey, the barn cat (who thought he was above living in the barn) slept down there at night. In the morning, Grammy would let him out to do his job of patrolling the barns and keeping them free of rodents. Those are happy memories.

I have fond memories of my childhood summer vacations spent in rustic cabins with the old fashioned wooden ice boxes. This idea of "farm to table" is a new age idea. In the past people preserved as much food as they could. There was fresh food on the table but much was held back for the off seasons. We had a backyard garden growing up in the suburbs but what couldn't be eaten was either given away or used in things that could be used later. and since we did not subsist off the land some was left to rot and be hoed right back into the ground. In the fifties and sixties if one live in an area where crops were grown, canneries abounded. In the orchards apples would be pressed for cider and fruits would be set aside for jams or dried. A great deal of my generation spent summers picking crops or cutting fruit.

Saw a Identity Theft Prevention expert speaking on TV. He said 2 most important bits of information to avoid sharing with others is your birth date and city, and your mother's maiden name. Surprised me.

So many stupid tips from me. Here is another one:

Rubber cloves -

1. Have a jar of flour with a paint brush next to where you keep your gloves. Paint some flour inside the gloves. You can put on and take off the gloves much easier.

2. Use a marker and mark "L" on the glove for left hand gloves. Turn the right hand gloves inside out and write "L" on the gloves. Turn it back the right way. No need to write "R" for right hand gloves. You will not have to take time to look and pair L & R hand gloves again.

dcarch

Practice liking yourself in all circumstances even when others disparage you. It takes practice especially if people are/have been mean to you. Don't expect others to like you though. You don't have to be liked by everyone.

Eighty years ago there were small, covered wagons drawn by one horse, going down the streets of most of our cities - one with bread, one with milk and one with ice, and the horse knew just where to stop as the attendant made the house calls. The guy hauling ice chopped a chunk from the big block, grabbed it with a pair of tongs and hauled it into folks' kitchens, where he installed it in the top compartment of an insulated wooden box with three doors, an "ice box".

Seventy years ago, they started building home-sized refrigerators.

Of the ones built 50 and 60 years ago, quite a few operated for 40 years.

The ones that they build now ... last for about ten years. And many of the folks to whom I've told this story offer, "If you're lucky!".

That's mainly because the engineers that make the plans have become so much stupider over the years, do ya figger?

We farm folks had a pan of cold water in the basement to keep our perishables somewhat cool.

ole joyfuelled

A few months ago, while cleaning up the cellar, I came upon a can of soup dated something like 1989. Huh!

I have no idea how or when, because even growing up, we had an electric refrigerator; but I have a vivid memory of going with elders to one of those ice and coal houses as a child when they bought a huge block of ice, covered with sawdust. As a young child, I thought the enormous block of ice utterly fantastic. I might have even licked it.

Also, way back is the memory of the Fish Man in his wooden, horse drawn wagon. His horse was a sort of mottled gray white (“oyster” colored) and it had black blinders to either side of its face. The old fish man sold fresh fish and oysters. This was when many people had cars and was in a suburban neighborhood of a small New England city about 40 miles from the coast.

• Forget the fish! I wanted to pat that horse and ride in that wagon. I would have been happy to sit on a huge live rock crab to do it.

Interesting stories!

And following hardly any of the "tip of the day" stories tended to make one tipsy!

ole joyful

Recently become apparent: " Life is too short to drink bad wine"

This is one of those timeless threads that are perfectly OK to be brought back. Always fun to read and easy to continue for those who desire to add their tips.

An oldie thread, but a goodie. (Kind of like Marilyn Sue...and me!)

Years ago I heard about OHIO. Only Handle It Once. I put that to use with the mail and ended piles of paper on my desk. I'm trying to do the same with my Inbox.

I remembered an old one from a TV chef when I was making breakfast: "Keep it near where you use it." I've done this ever since, and it makes cooking a lot easier.

In the same vein: put what you use all the time in the front of the cupboard, and what you rarely use in the back.... or in the garage/storage.

Cowboy Logic:

Don't squat with your spurs on.

More Cowboy Logic:

Never miss a chance to shut up.

Cowboy Logic:

Don't squat with your spurs on.

you beat me to it. this was told to me by an old farrier.

"Never go to bed with someone who has more problems than you." This was told to me by my favorite aunt back when I was a teen with an eye for bad boys.

If you have a freezer full of food, check how often there's been a power outage in your area of three days or more, and consider getting a generator if there've been several.

Forty some years ago a major ice storm covered a wide area near here. I lived just outside of the area, and when a radio announcer there told how many were fearing losing a freezer full of food, I borrowed a small generator and went down to that area. People in a village on the edge were rejoicing because the power had just come back on.

I plugged freezers into the line from my generator and often fridges, too. People wanted to hook up the furnace, but most have a direct line from the main power supply box and I feared maybe sending power back out into a feeder line that was supposedly dead. Maybe arrange to be able to disconnect your furnace from the main supply box.

When I said it was a gift from the church where I was clergyperson, some insisted on paying something, some of which I used to buy gas and when I offered some to the owner of the generator, he said to give it to his (different) church, and I gave the rest to my church.

It was a surprising experience to drive into a rural area after dark and see not one light anywhere.

Maybe have three or four friends get a somewhat larger generator together, with one having a place to store it: four families sharing would provide each with almost six hours of power per day, serving some more than basic needs.

ole joyful

Portable generators aren’t very expensive, few people share them.

OJ, that sounds like a wonderful experience and generous act.

Sharing generators is fairly common in my community. Our area is highly forested so lots and lots of trees come down in storms, so lots of outages - some long term, many much shorter. I just had one on Monday with only 45 homes affected, but it was out for 10 hours, so I had to break out the generator, I've shared with neighbors, and also shared it with our water association to run the water pump a few hours at a time so we all can replenish our water stores, flush, etc. Mine is small and easily transported. Several neighbors used it one extended outage to run their refrigerators long enough to keep things cool, I don't use it for anything but the fridge and freezer, but I now have Starlink, so am anxious to see if I can keep my internet during an outage with it. Some good friends of mine who have a close knit little neighborhood share a generator and also lawn and garden tools, chain saws, lawn mowers, etc.. No sense in everyone owning their own seldom used equipment.

Another cowboy tip:

Be sure to taste your words before you spit them out.

Just because someone throws a ball doesn't mean you have to catch it.

Stay hydrated.

@ roxsol - that cowboy tip reminds of this one:

Keep your words soft and sweet, you never know when you may have to eat them. 😉

" Sharing generators is fairly common in my community. "

This comment is likely motivated by a desire to be argumentative.

In places where power loss is more common than not, the suggested way to deal with a generator is to install a generator sub-panel. With this, connections are made to key circuits and a master switch off is provided to help prevent uploading of power into the dead grid connection. The generator is connected directly to the subpanel and it then controls which circuits are energized.

In many homes, appliances are built-in and their power cords can't be easily reached. Such is the case in my house, as an example, with a built-in fridge and a separate built in freezer. Same with washer and dryer. Additionally, hvac equipment is often hard-wired and cannot be connected via a cord - this is also true in my house.

For these reasons, people have generator sub-panels installed, the cost of which far exceeds the cost of a generator used to power it. Such generators are not shared.

A wise woman once said: “Just because someone throws a ball doesn't mean you have to catch it.” Thanks for reminding me, Lucille!

The wise woman is Elizabeth, reminding me in this thread, and I need to thank her again. https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5944621/wisdom-from-the-kt#n=44

Thanks, then, Elizabeth!And to Lucille for remembering to pass it along.

In the same vein: Never wrestle with a pig. You just get dirty and the pig enjoys it.

Another is - people with irrational biases will always deflect comments that challenge them, even when they're wrong.

Don't allow energy vampires to take up space in your head.

Now that I think about it, I realize that Ole Joyful is one of the most contentious, argumentative members here - always picking fights with everybody 😃

"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference." Mark Twain .

This sure is an old thread.

Sue