Prepping for biological disaster

[Melensdad]

 

[Melensdad]

This guy does a good job of simply illustrating how to deal with bringing food into the house during an infectious pandemic.

Trying to imbed the video but it doesn't seem to be working... click the link.

LINK => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjDuwc9KBps

 

[tiredretired]

We've been doing all that and then some. Good to see we are on the right track.

The thing for me is while I am out at the supermarket or post office, basically the only two places we go lately, I need to be constantly reminding myself on all the protocols. All it takes in one lapse of memory. One nose scratch or eye rub.

Like President Trump said, I miss not touching my face. :th_lmao:

 

[m1west]

There are 19 in our area now, within 15 miles. I am probably done going up town for a while

 

[m1west]

Power went out a couple hours ago and now running off of the generator, glad I picked up the diesel for storage

 

[Melensdad]

Went into town today. Stopped and filled the gas tank at a self serve pump.

Pulled into the supermarket parking lot. Hit the "I'm Here" button on the supermarket smartphone "app" and waited for about 5 minutes. 2 guys wheeling 4 shopping carts showed up at my car, loaded everything into the car and I drove off.

Got home, unloaded everything into our 'sanitation area' inside our garage and sprayed down each can, package and box before moving them into their respective food storage area. Canned and bottled items go onto shelves. Items in pouches, packages and boxes go into sealed storage bins.

Even with the Lysol spray and wipe down, none of the foods I bought home today will be used for at least another 24 hours. Because of rotation of goods, most may not be touched again for weeks or longer. Any virus cells the Lysol wipe down missed should be die over time.

As per our protocol, my shoes and jacket stayed outside. I walked in and straight to the laundry room to strip down. Then straight into the shower. That pair of shoes and jacket are the only ones worn when interacting with the outside world. There is only 1 car that goes off the property and into town. Maybe that is overkill? I don't know. But we think we are all healthy and with Melen having diabetes our goal is to continue to stay healthy.

Both freezers are full. Both refrigerators are full. Pantry is full. On the storage shelves we have enough pasta and various sauces to satisfy a small town in Italy. Plenty of Oreos. Cases of Tomatoes, Kidney/Pinto/etc Beans, Corn, Green Beans, Mushrooms, Stir Fry Veggies, Soups of many flavors, even some guilty pleasure foods like cans of Spaghetti-Os, Beefaroni and Mini-Ravioli. A few dozen boxes of various bread mixes, pizza crust mix and a few dozen boxes of various types of skillet potatoes. Case of canned chicken, 2 cases of large cans of canned ground beef, case of canned pulled pork, case of canned stew meat. A few dozen various pre-mix dried rice dishes from RedBeans & Rice to Spanish Rice to Cajun style Dirty Rice and everything in between. 4 dozen Low Carb cauliflower based meal "cups" of various flavors. Oils, vinegars, flavoring sauces, spices. Even got Kool-aid and real juice too. We also have a large rubbermaid bin full of freeze-dried veggies. Lots of butter is in the freezer but we also have jars of Ghee (shelf stable clarified butter) to supplement the various types of cooking oils. Paper products, cleaning supplies, medicines. Dog food and dog treats too. Some loaded guns and plenty of ammo too.

FWIW, instead of buying bulk rice, beans, etc we opted to buy packaged products that we normally enjoy. So Zatarain's Dirty Rice, Vigo Red Beans & Rice, Knorr Noodles Alfredo, etc. We already eat those things so we know how to cook them, how to modify them with various meats or veggies, etc. I have some friends with 50# bags of rice & beans in storage, good for them if that is what they want but I'd look at that giant 50# bag of rice and then decide to just grab anything else. But with the pre-packaged stuff I can pick a flavor and make it. I just don't want to do the scratch cooking stuff all the time. Our supplies of Freeze-Dried foods are also very modest. I'd rather have a can of condensed tomato soup than a bag of tomato powder, but that is just my preference others are welcome to disagree. I do have things like dried milk powder and freeze dried eggs.

I think we are pretty well set for a long sit.

I'm not going to say I won't go back into town. Very likely I will be going back, but probably only to refill the gas and diesel storage cans and that can be done without interacting with any human and minimal contact with anything else. 2 years ago I got rid of my 500-gallon diesel tank. Kind of wish I still had that.

The local grocery chain's on-line ordering system is a 3rd party software system that is running at full capacity. It crashed several times today. I expect that will happen all around the world for grocery stores as more and more people begin to switch from in-store shopping to drive up service. Saw an article were less than 5% of all groceries were bought though on-line services last year, it is expected to top 20% in the next month. That type of growth will cause a lot of problems for shoppers and stores.

 

[tiredretired]

Yeah, we are doing well here as well. On our walk today we were discussing how little food we are actually consuming. I may have to revise my estimates on long our stash will last.

We won't need to do the supermarket thing for at least a few weeks now. The local General Store is now doing curb side service. Just call in your order and they will call when it is ready and go pick it up. No app things, which is fine with me.

Gas has dropped here almost 50 cents a gallon since I bought it last. These are sure some weird times.

 

[tiredretired]

Mary Kitchen Corned Beef Hash

In a normal year I might eat 3 or 4 cans of corned beef hash. If we go out to breakfast 6 or 8 times a year, I'd probably eat corned beef hash on half of those occasions. So figure I eat some sort of corned beef hash 1 day every 6 or 7 weeks.

There are a dozen cans sitting in my food storage and I'm in a panic that I will run out of hash! I don't know why but my body is craving this stuff. Comfort food? Some irrational desire? In the past week I've eaten it twice and I literally wake up craving it.

I need more hash

Are you craving any particular food yet?

I just placed an order for a case of 8 on Amazon. Comes with a tote bag.

 

[mla2ofus]

Well, TR, at least this hash doesn't screw up your brain, LOL!!
Mike

 

[tiredretired]

Well, TR, at least this hash doesn't screw up your brain, LOL!!
Mike

Yeah, true story, but it prolly doesn't do wonders for my cholesterol levels. :th_lmao:

 

[Melensdad]

Damn, I don't have a tote bag!

 

[m1west]

With Amazon and grocery workers walking of jobs due to safety there are some city dwellers that are gong to be in a world of hurt if the supply chain brakes down. Also Lots of law enforcement been getting sick and calling off. Those 2 things added together = if this trend gets some air under it wings. I also been hearing about truckers that don't want to go to the hot spots.

 

[Melensdad]

And this could get really ugly, especially for the city folk who have limited mobility.

I'll admit I don't really know this source.

Interesting how many people eat at restaurants and/or do carry out. Logical to assume that as restaurant demand diminishes the burden on supermarkets will increase. However the foodservice products are packed differently and the not readily useable for small households, even if they could be purchased.

For your consideration: http://endoftheamericandream.com/ar...nwide-as-food-distribution-systems-break-down

Supplies Are Starting To Get Really Tight Nationwide As Food Distribution Systems Break Down
March 30, 2020 by Michael Snyder

All across America, store shelves are emptying and people are becoming increasingly frustrated because they can’t get their hands on needed supplies. Most Americans are blaming “hoarders” for the current mess, but it is actually much more complicated than that. Normally, Americans get a lot of their food from restaurants. In fact, during normal times 36 percent of all Americans eat at a fast food restaurant on any given day. But now that approximately 75 percent of the U.S. is under some sort of a “shelter-in-place” order and most of our restaurants have shut down, things have completely changed. Suddenly our grocery stores are being flooded with unexpected traffic, and many people are buying far more than usual in anticipation of a long pandemic. Unfortunately, our food distribution systems were not designed to handle this sort of a surge, and things are really starting to get crazy out there.

I would like to share with you an excerpt from an email that I was sent recently. It describes the chaos that grocery stores in Utah and Idaho have been experiencing…

When this virus became a problem that we as a nation could see as an imminent threat, Utah, because of its culture of food storage and preparing for disaster events seemed to “get the memo” first. The week of March 8th grocery sales more than doubled in Utah, up 218%. Many states stayed the same with increases in some. Idaho seemed to “get the memo” about four days later. We were out of water and TP four days after Utah. Then we were out of food staples about four days later. Next was produce following a pattern set by Utah four days earlier.

The problem for us in Idaho was this. The stores in Utah were emptied out then refilled twice by the warehouses before it hit Idaho. Many of these Utah stores have trucks delivering daily. So when it did hit Idaho the warehouses had been severely taxed. We had a hard time filling our store back up even one time. We missed three scheduled trucks that week alone. Then orders finally came they were first 50% of the order and have dropped to 20%. In normal circumstances we receive 98% of our orders and no canceled trucks. Now three weeks later, the warehouses in the Western United States have all been taxed. In turn, those warehouses have been taxing the food manufacturers. These food companies have emptied their facilities to fill the warehouses of the Western United States. The East Coast hasn’t seemed to “get the memo” yet. When they do what food will be left to fill their warehouses and grocery stores?

Food distribution and resources for the Eastern United States will be at great peril even if no hoarding there takes place. But of course it will.

Additionally the food culture of the East Coast and other urban areas is such that people keep very little food on hand. They often shop several times weekly for items if they cook at home. They don’t have big freezers full of meat, home canned vegetables in their storage rooms, gardens, or beans, wheat, and rice in buckets in the their basements.​

With most of the country locked down, normal economic activity has come to a standstill, and it is going to become increasingly difficult for our warehouses to meet the demand that grocery stores are putting on them.

Meanwhile, our farmers are facing severe problems of their own. The following comes from CNBC…

The U.S.-China trade war sent scores of farmers out of business. Record flooding inundated farmland and destroyed harvests. And a blistering heat wave stunted crop growth in the Midwest.

Now, the coronavirus pandemic has dealt another blow to a vulnerable farm economy, sending crop and livestock prices tumbling and raising concerns about sudden labor shortages.
​

The chaos in the financial markets is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, and it is going to remain difficult for farm laborers to move around as long as “shelter-in-place” orders remain in effect on the state level.

Iowa farmer Robb Ewoldt told reporter Emma Newburger that “we’ve stopped saying it can’t get worse”, and he says that this coronavirus pandemic looks like it could be “the straw that broke the camel’s back”…

“We were already under extreme financial pressure. With the virus sending the prices down — it’s getting to be the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Iowa farmer Robb Ewoldt.

“We were hoping for something good this year, but this virus has stopped all our markets,” he said.​

Of course this comes at a time when millions of Americans are losing their jobs and unemployment is shooting up to unthinkable levels. Without any money coming in, many people are already turning to alternative sources of help in order to feed themselves and their families.

....

Go to the link for the rest of the story

 

[m1west]

And this could get really ugly, especially for the city folk who have limited mobility.

I'll admit I don't really know this source.

Interesting how many people eat at restaurants and/or do carry out. Logical to assume that as restaurant demand diminishes the burden on supermarkets will increase. However the foodservice products are packed differently and the not readily useable for small households, even if they could be purchased.

For your consideration: http://endoftheamericandream.com/ar...nwide-as-food-distribution-systems-break-down

​

Go to the link for the rest of the story

No one wants be a scare monger but as it un folds the situation for the US and World I believe is going to get worse, a lot worse especially in cities. I think it will start in the poor neighborhoods first. The hotspots will overwhelm much like what is happening in NewYork. NewYork is now begging for supplies and healthcare workers. People are going to get sick/scared and will stop going to work, the whole situation will snowball. The longer it goes on the worse the financial damage will be. Looking back at the 1929 crash the cause is different but the outcome could be the same. There are estimates that 30% of small businesses will not make it through this. Small business is the largest employer of Americans so when it over the largest employer could be gone too. First there is a glut of product but no-one is buying, that causes depreciation, then when the product is eventually bought up most manufacturing has been halted and there are no new supplies or jobs the currency will depreciate causing hyper inflation on life staples like food. Money and borrowing will also be tight so trying to restart your failed business may not be so easy. The hope that we have is it goes away with the warm weather and allows enough time to regroup and come-with a cure. As we go into summer regions like Africa, South America etc, will be going into there winter which will cause those 3rd world countries to explode. I hope I am 100% wrong but its not looking good and here in the US were only into it a month.

 

[tiredretired]

There are some really good deals on Amazon right now and some real rip off ones. My wife has spent hours perusing that site with her iPad and ordering stuff that are good deals and reasonably priced.

I have lost total control of the budget and trying to reconcile monies spent to the spreadsheet I use to maintain the budget cash flow. :th_lmao: About an hour ago I just leaned back in the chair and decided to just let everything come and when the smoke clears try to reconcile the books then. :th_lmao:

On the plus side, we have a ton of stuff coming in that will guarantee us supplies for much longer than 90 days now.

If things turn out to be not as bad as predicted, we shouldn't have to go grocery shopping again for the rest of the year. :th_lmao:

.....and I should get my Bay Area Market tote bag any day now!!!!! LOL.

 

[Melensdad]

Cities will likely get hit first with any sort of strife, should it happen. And very likely the lower income areas as desperate people start taking desperate actions. Hopefully the supply chain does not crash. Hopefully. But when this virus hit China there was an entire world still producing food and other things. If the world is infected and 'locked down' when who will be able to jump in and provide supply? I realize that in any realistic scenario there will eventually be a vaccine and also a treatment. So it should have an end date, or it should convert to seasonal. But until that happens it is not unreasonable to presume that a whole lot of shit could go down.


Our spending has pretty much stopped except for "survival" oriented items which would include food. But then again my daughter just spent $1100 (on my credit card ) to pay for the upcoming Bar Exam. But our discretionary spending has crashed as we are just not going anywhere, buying anything other than the afore mentioned food type items.

I did order a handful of the neoprene masks with replaceable N95 filters. Plan to switch to those after the current batch of standard masks is depleted. But really our spending has plummeted. Its not like we were lacking before this mess started. I have tools and toys aplenty and actually started to cull some of the unused and excess guns. I'm looking to get rid of a vehicle or two.

.....and I should get my Bay Area Market tote bag any day now!!!!! LOL.

Damn you

 

[m1west]

There are some really good deals on Amazon right now and some real rip off ones. My wife has spent hours perusing that site with her iPad and ordering stuff that are good deals and reasonably priced.

I have lost total control of the budget and trying to reconcile monies spent to the spreadsheet I use to maintain the budget cash flow. :th_lmao: About an hour ago I just leaned back in the chair and decided to just let everything come and when the smoke clears try to reconcile the books then. :th_lmao:

On the plus side, we have a ton of stuff coming in that will guarantee us supplies for much longer than 90 days now.

If things turn out to be not as bad as predicted, we shouldn't have to go grocery shopping again for the rest of the year. :th_lmao:

.....and I should get my Bay Area Market tote bag any day now!!!!! LOL.

Those things you just got at a bargain could cost a lot more or be impossible to find in the future. If you have the resources buy buy buy.

 

[tiredretired]

Cities will likely get hit first with any sort of strife, should it happen. And very likely the lower income areas as desperate people start taking desperate actions. Hopefully the supply chain does not crash. Hopefully. But when this virus hit China there was an entire world still producing food and other things. If the world is infected and 'locked down' when who will be able to jump in and provide supply? I realize that in any realistic scenario there will eventually be a vaccine and also a treatment. So it should have an end date, or it should convert to seasonal. But until that happens it is not unreasonable to presume that a whole lot of shit could go down.


Our spending has pretty much stopped except for "survival" oriented items which would include food. But then again my daughter just spent $1100 (on my credit card ) to pay for the upcoming Bar Exam. But our discretionary spending has crashed as we are just not going anywhere, buying anything other than the afore mentioned food type items.

I did order a handful of the neoprene masks with replaceable N95 filters. Plan to switch to those after the current batch of standard masks is depleted. But really our spending has plummeted. Its not like we were lacking before this mess started. I have tools and toys aplenty and actually started to cull some of the unused and excess guns.





Damn you

I'll post of picture when it comes in. :th_lmao:

 

[tiredretired]

Those things you just got at a bargain could cost a lot more or be impossible to find in the future. If you have the resources buy buy buy.

Some stuff was a rip off like 10 bucks for 1 can of Chef-boy-R-Dee and other stuff crazy cheap like a 24 can case of Campbell Pork & Beans for 21 bucks including shipping. Sometimes the dollar stores have prices like this, but the expiration dates are usually tight. For me, those porks and beans are one of those foods I can readily eat cold right out of the can while camping so we figured this was a must to have. Don't try that with Dinty Moore Stew with all that solidified fat clinging to the potatoes and meat. :th_lmao:

 

[m1west]

Some stuff was a rip off like 10 bucks for 1 can of Chef-boy-R-Dee and other stuff crazy cheap like a 24 can case of Campbell Pork & Beans for 21 bucks including shipping. Sometimes the dollar stores have prices like this, but the expiration dates are usually tight.

Being in food processing ( canned food ) you can go passed the date for most things a couple of years but not the meat. One way to tell if a can of anything is bad is to put a straight edge across the seam, the lid should be flat or down in the middle with pretty much an even spacing all the way across. If you see the lid up in the middle it is bad throw it out.

 

[EastTexFrank]

We've been self quarantined for just over 3 weeks now and it hasn't been much of a hardship. I was thinking that this might go on for another month and we'd still be okay but Dallas County just issued a "stay at home" until the 30th May. Now by that time my stores will need to be replenished and where am I going to get the "stuff" to do that in two months?

I may have to get my wife, who does all the grocery shopping now, to start a continuous topping up process instead of waiting until our stores are depleted.

How are you guys going to handle it if it goes beyond 3 months?

 

[Melensdad]

We've been self quarantined for just over 3 weeks now and it hasn't been much of a hardship.
...

How are you guys going to handle it if it goes beyond 3 months?

I think we can go for a solid 2 months. But we decided to use the grocery on-line ordering system with curbside pick up to supplement things. After a couple weeks of eating our supplies I am trying to buy enough to refill everything we already have eaten. I have an order in the on-line grocery ordering system for pickup on Monday morning.

Originally it was just supposed to be fresh fruits & veggies. Looking to bring apples to dehydrate, a half dozen heads of cauliflower and broccoli, again to dry, bananas to make into chip... Even ordered toilet paper that I don't need but is in stock and will extend our isolation ability. This may be our last grocery run?

My county is getting hit pretty hard with Covid19 now. I looked at one of those maps and it shows my county has 313 cases with 5 deaths. It's been growing fast and the hospitals still have rooms so not yet overwhelmed, yet. Most of the cases are in the north, but my area has transitioned from an agricultural town to a commuter town with most residents working north and returning to town. Clearly Covid will make it down to our isolated town. Also ALL of our hospital beds are to the north of me. There is 1 hospital in the county seat, the remainder of the hospitals in the county are in the northern 1/3 of the county.

Our goal is to ride out the summer with minimal contact with the outside world.


----


Now that said about staying INSIDE and ON THE PROPERTY we are planning a 2 day driving trip to Bloomington, IN to pack-up Melen's apartment and get the rest of her belongings (except the furniture). Her lease expires June 15.

Our trip may be later this week, the weather forecast looks good

Her car is in a garage in Bloomington. Her clothes, dishes, towels, bedding, and lots of decor are all still right were we left all of it. When we brought her home we filled the truck bed, but its a compact pick up, and the cover was on the bed because it was raining. If the weather forecast holds we will go down Thursday and return home Friday. Her car with come home, packed with her belonging. The truck cab will be packed. The truck bed will be filled with boxes with the cap removed so we will fill the "air space" above the truck bed. The goal is to get everything but the furniture. The furniture will require a van and I may just hire a moving company to go get that and put it into storage.

But we can make the trip without any human contact other than 1 stop at a gas station to refill the truck for the return trip.

 

[EastTexFrank]

Our goal is to ride out the summer with minimal contact with the outside world.

Did you ever, in your wildest dreams, believe that we would be thinking along those lines.

It is one thing to be semi-prepped for such a thing as we are experiencing but it is another thing to actually live through it.

Stay safe Bob.

 

[m1west]

Did you ever, in your wildest dreams, believe that we would be thinking along those lines.

It is one thing to be semi-prepped for such a thing as we are experiencing but it is another thing to actually live through it.

Stay safe Bob.

We are still eating out of the refrigerator and good there of a couple more weeks, canned food will last 3 months if its to scary to go get groceries. Right now there are 3 active cases in our county of 40,000 about 3 weeks ago there were 19 reported. There are MRE for another 6 months if it were to come to that. Spirits are OK as there are plenty to do around here. What I am concerned about is what the world is going to be like if we are locked down that long. We all knew something like this could happen. Thats why we peeped for it. For the first few weeks it has been surreal but now the real is setting in. I am watching Como in NY right now. They are getting there ass kicked and you can see on his face and hear in his voice very real concern and fear. I am blessed to live in a rural area.

 

[Melensdad]

We have no MRE or pre-made freeze dried dinners (like you'd find at a backpacking store or in those 'survival meal' buckets)

So what we have are 2 freezers and 2 refrigerators, plus lots of canned and boxed good, plus some bulk dried goods.

My strategy is to MINIMIZE outside contact. If we lock ourselves up on the property today we probably could hold out for 3 full months. But I'm hoping it does not come to a total lockdown.


We made up our own family rules, maybe we are overly cautious:

• I will NOT go INSIDE stores.
  
• I will on-line shop and do CURBSIDE Pick Up of GROCERIES if that remains safe and reasonable.
  We have been in our self-imposed lockdown for about a month and I've actually increased our food storage, at the same time we are eating very well. But I did run out of ice-cream. Not replacing that as the space can be used for something more nutritious, meat, pierogi, etc. ​
• I will go a DRIVE THRU bank and pharmacy only as required.
  
• I will NOT go to a DRIVE THRU fast food joint, curbside restaurant pick-up, etc. We can cook our own food at zero risk.
  
• I will go to OUTDOOR farm and garden stands.
  
• I will go to the GAS STATION for self-serve fuel.
  
• I will order via ON-LINE sources and have the goods DELIVERED to my porch.

Ordered some supplies from Home Depot this morning. Normally I'd just go to the store. They have a "pick up in the store" option for on-line shoppers but that violates my first rule, and requires I actually go INSIDE the store.

Now all that said, I'm going to have to break my INSIDE rule on Monday. I am running low on Water Softener Salt. Planning to pick up 8-10 bags of it Monday. It sits outside the building but the cash register is 5 steps inside the door. I have a 30 days supply and 10 bags will last me a 3 additional months.

When it comes to going INSIDE a store, I guess I'd rather go SOONER than LATER. The virus spreads every day. It seems to DOUBLE every 3 days. The longer I delay the greater the risk. If the risk is high Monday, it will be TWICE as high on Thursday. So the "now or never" strategy seems to apply to going into stores because I consider going into a store a "high risk" adventure but I consider using a self-service gas pump to be a very low risk task ... assuming you use some hand sanitizer or a disposable glove while operating the fuel pump.

 

[m1west]

We have no MRE or pre-made freeze dried dinners (like you'd find at a backpacking store or in those 'survival meal' buckets)

So what we have are 2 freezers and 2 refrigerators, plus lots of canned and boxed good, plus some bulk dried goods.

My strategy is to MINIMIZE outside contact. If we lock ourselves up on the property today we probably could hold out for 3 full months. But I'm hoping it does not come to a total lockdown.


We made up our own family rules, maybe we are overly cautious:

• I will NOT go INSIDE stores.
  
• I will on-line shop and do CURBSIDE Pick Up of GROCERIES if that remains safe and reasonable.
  We have been in our self-imposed lockdown for about a month and I've actually increased our food storage, at the same time we are eating very well. But I did run out of ice-cream. Not replacing that as the space can be used for something more nutritious, meat, pierogi, etc. ​
• I will go a DRIVE THRU bank and pharmacy only as required.
  
• I will NOT go to a DRIVE THRU fast food joint, curbside restaurant pick-up, etc. We can cook our own food at zero risk.
  
• I will go to OUTDOOR farm and garden stands.
  
• I will go to the GAS STATION for self-serve fuel.
  
• I will order via ON-LINE sources and have the goods DELIVERED to my porch.

Ordered some supplies from Home Depot this morning. Normally I'd just go to the store. They have a "pick up in the store" option for on-line shoppers but that violates my first rule, and requires I actually go INSIDE the store.

Now all that said, I'm going to have to break my INSIDE rule on Monday. I am running low on Water Softener Salt. Planning to pick up 8-10 bags of it Monday. It sits outside the building but the cash register is 5 steps inside the door. I have a 30 days supply and 10 bags will last me a 3 additional months.

When it comes to going INSIDE a store, I guess I'd rather go SOONER than LATER. The virus spreads every day. It seems to DOUBLE every 3 days. The longer I delay the greater the risk. If the risk is high Monday, it will be TWICE as high on Thursday. So the "now or never" strategy seems to apply to going into stores because I consider going into a store a "high risk" adventure but I consider using a self-service gas pump to be a very low risk task ... assuming you use some hand sanitizer or a disposable glove while operating the fuel pump.

Basically doing the same, except over Easter holiday I have to do shutdown at international paper. No one other than the plant rep will be there but still the virus is invisible and could be on anything. We will wear gloves and masks washing hands often. No going out for lunch we will bring our own and eat outside. Last time I went to the grocery store last week I went early and wore the masks and gloves, put the groceries in the bed of the truck then took off mask and gloves before sanitizing my hands and entering my truck. At home took groceries to garage sanitizing anything that had to go to the fridge or freezer then de bagged the rest and left it in the garage for a week. Same with the mail. Also have go out shoes that stay outside.

 

[bczoom]

We don't have curbside pickup. Mrs. Zoom used Amazon/Whole foods and got us some perishables yesterday. Damn expensive but we don't have to go to the store.

I've stayed home for the last 3 weeks sans 1 trip to the beer store. May have to go again soon. Mask and gloves will be worn.

 

[Melensdad]

...Also have go out shoes that stay outside.

We do that too.

And a jacket that hangs in the garage and is only used when venturing out into the real world too.

I've stayed home for the last 3 weeks sans 1 trip to the beer store. May have to go again soon. Mask and gloves will be worn.

I'm out of all the cheap bourbon. But I have a couple dozen rare bourbons in the $50 to $150 price range. Normally bottles like that can last me for several years, drinking an ounce or two per year out of each bottle. Under quarantine the rules change. They have become my after dinner sipping drinks. Guess its better to enjoy them while I can.

 

[EastTexFrank]

I'm out of all the cheap bourbon. But I have a couple dozen rare bourbons in the $50 to $150 price range. Normally bottles like that can last me for several years, drinking an ounce or two per year out of each bottle. Under quarantine the rules change. They have become my after dinner sipping drinks. Guess its better to enjoy them while I can.

That's the decision that I made too. I have perhaps a dozen bottles of Scotch in the 18 to 25 year old range. I suddenly asked myself, "What the heck am I saving them for". So, I opened a 18-year old Glenlivet and about every 3rd evening I have a couple of glasses. In between I drink the "cheaper" stuff and I still have quite a few of those. Has any one else's alcohol consumption gone up during this quarantine? I used to be a one toddy a night guy, very seldom two. The other night I caught myself pouring a third one. I can't be that bored.

Basically we take the same precautions as the rest of you but we very seldom leave the property. About every 10 days my wife goes to the store for fresh produce and a few other things and they are all sensibly handled when she gets home. End of story. I am starting to worry about replenishing my stash though. My wife is one of those responsible, respectful shoppers. If she needs something she'll get one and leave the rest for other people. Me? I used to be, "If I need one I better get two. Ah hell, get three and not have to worry about it". I'm working on her that if the store policy says only two cans, get two cans not one. We'll see.

 

[Jim_S]

I'm out of all the cheap bourbon. But I have a couple dozen rare bourbons in the $50 to $150 price range. Normally bottles like that can last me for several years, drinking an ounce or two per year out of each bottle. Under quarantine the rules change. They have become my after dinner sipping drinks. Guess its better to enjoy them while I can.

That's the decision that I made too. I have perhaps a dozen bottles of Scotch in the 18 to 25 year old range. I suddenly asked myself, "What the heck am I saving them for". So, I opened a 18-year old Glenlivet and about every 3rd evening I have a couple of glasses. In between I drink the "cheaper" stuff and I still have quite a few of those. Has any one else's alcohol consumption gone up during this quarantine? I used to be a one toddy a night guy, very seldom two. The other night I caught myself pouring a third one. I can't be that bored.

FYI -