Thursday

Is it really Thursday already? Yayyyy!
Tomorrow will be a long day - a GOOD long day I might add - in that I should be busy all day long at work until it's time to go home. West Phoenix; Downtown Phoenix; Williams Gateway Airport in the easy valley; Casa Grande for some pipe; back to the yard; possibly back downtown; and then finish putting together and order that "HAS" to be there, at the jobsite, at 6:30am on Monday morning, plus another order that "had" to be there - later than 6:30 am, obviously :-|

The grocery store circulars that were supposed to come yesterday came today. I'm quite amazed at the amount of competition that is going on between all of them. Even Safeway has some real bargains. The real deal - though - is the 47 cent per pound chicken. 10 pound bags. I want 3 of them. I am going to feed that stuff to the dogs. I have been trying to fatten all 3 of the big dogs up for some time now. Only Duke has succumbed to my otherwise futile attempts to get Coco and Prince to see some meat on their bodies instead of a bunch of bones sticking out. I don't want to make them obese, per se, but they definitely need to fatten up some. Duke is hardly overweight. I'm guessing he's about 135 pounds now, whereas Prince is probably around 120. Prince could use at least another 15 pounds, Coco could use at least another 5. Duke is good where he's at - he looks good, not too much and not too little.

Look, that cheap chicken? I've bought it before. If you're a starving human, sure, you'll eat it. Otherwise, forget it. The stuff smells - bad - cooking it and I don't even try eating it after smelling it. The dogs absolutely love the stuff - and they don't get sick or diarehea off of it, so it's all good. Usually I'll mix that chicken with some freshly cooked rice - but darn if the price of rice right now isn't a weeeeee bit high.

Well, I still have some scouring of the ads to go - but - Fry's is still right at the top. Only fresh & easy is doing a bit better because on top of their ad, they also sent me a $6 off on any combined purchase over $30.

Anyway, if I do receive that $50 gift card from Fry's - thanks to Chad - I will be spending the entire amount on canned goods for my food storage. That should beef that stockpile up quite a bit. I want to buy at least 30 cans of tuna fish and then whatever else. My food storage is going well - I'm approaching a 2 month supply of food stocked up - canned and boxed. If you count the refrigerator, it goes way over that - but I don't count it because if something REALLY bad happened, then one could also assume the power is off and then that food goes bad and is worthless. I'm also lacking on the cooking facilities if power did "go away". That would be a camp stove that uses the small cans of propane. I do have the BBQ grill, but it's hardly efficient. It uses quite a lot of propane to cook - being because there are 3 burners on that thing and even at low, I have gone through a 5-gallon thing of in about a month and a half. 5 gallons of that on a camp stove would last FAR longer than that.

I am not an alarmist, I don't necessarily think the world is ending (but if you read the Bible, it will definitely end someday) - but there's too much garbage going on right now to "trust the system". And anyway, it's definitely a good thing to have at least some kind of food stock saved up. If the s*** hits the fan, people literally flock to grocery stores and it's all gone in a very short period of time. Chaos ensues. Does that happen? DARN STRAIGHT it does. Just look at hurricane victims. Heck, just about any natural disaster. My mother also has quite a huge stock of food piled up 'just in case'. The plan would be to move to her property up in the mountains if some disaster struck. The plan is there whether we are able to communicate with each other or not.

So - the only thing I'm really hurting on is that I let my dog food supply dwindle. I did that on purpose, though, because the food I was buying them really wasn't very good. Too much garbage in it for preservatives and such that simply isn't good for them. I'll get that back up within a month's time with some other food I found that has better ingredients and is still reasonably priced. I want 500 pounds on hand to be happy with it.

It's funny, something that happened today that somewhat coincides with all of this. I went back to the place that is selling out all of their shade screen for windows and such - the deal is too good to pass up. The first time I went, the gate was locked and no-one was around. Today, the gate was opened and still no-one was around. I got the number from this guy after the first time, so I called him. Turns out he was in one of the shipping containers he has in his yard, working on something. He is selling everything he has and is "returning" to Asia. Apparently, when the Vietnam war was over, he didn't come home. He moved to Cambodia or some such thing and lived there for a long time - and decided to return because his parents are here.

His desire to leave, he states, is the chaos that is "coming". The dollar is basically going to become worthless against foreign currencies- and a lot of other stuff. Well, to each his own. His advice? "Guns; garden; food" and something else I can't remember. Now, admittedly this guy was a bit eccentric, but he isn't that far off. What is going to happen to the dollar when all this trillion plus dollar budget is passed?

I dunno. I'm just preparing myself for whatever may come. I'm short on things I want - but I'll get there eventually.

Anyway, I bought today another project for this weekend. Or not. Karen - the former tenant - called yesterday and said she has a pine tree sitting in the middle of her yard that she wants gone, do I want it? Umm, I'm thinking a giant thing that I have no way of getting out of the ground. Hey, I COULD get it here - just borrow the semi - it has a 48 foot flatbed trailer on it. I intoned such. NO, she says, it's about 7 feet tall, in great health. Still - I envision a lot of work, but to buy a 7 or 8 foot tall tree? Not cheap. I agreed to come get the thing this weekend with the caveat that she start watering it NOW. Water, water, water.

Oh, well the project I bought today is the shade screen. But I"m not done putting up trellises yet - heck I haven't even bought all of them. The shade screen will go on the backs of the trellises to screen out the southern sun from hitting the house. It will stay that way until the vines - of which I have yet to get since I haven't even got all the trellises in yet - grow and cover them. It's an on-going project - I have been doing a little here and there, but it's time to pick up the pace. Heat is coming my way, and soon. We're facing May starting tomorrow - and yes, May will heat up substantially around here - it always does. Then comes hell - June - which is a part of a 3 month onslaught of a nightmarish heat that is unreal. Then another month after that like May and then in October, if we're lucky, it will cool down.

Karen also wants to go to the casino this weekend. I have no "feeling" about that yet, so I neither agreed or disagreed. The cards played very well last weekend, but that most assuredly does NOT mean it will happen again. But - it could happen. I'm so very superstitious when it comes to casinos, blackjack and whether I'm going to play or not - I admit it freely. The feeling, the aura, everything has to be right. Even the place I park at the casino must be in the same, general area. I have mostly shyed away from it in recent times because I couldn't afford to lose. I still have $100 of casino money left from last week's adventure - I will consider it on Saturday - IF - I get that tree out of the ground! I spent $35 today on that shade screen. It was a smokin' deal. It's the heavy-duty stuff they use at nurseries to make shade covers for the plants. That stuff is normally 4 times that amount of money.

Oh, BTW, has anyone read about this thing where you can actually make your own solar panel? Allegedly you can buy the materials at Ace Hardware or similar place, put it together yourself, and it will generate enough power to power up an appliance. I've read a couple of sites with the plans - about $200 in materials. I'm undecided. It would be great to have and use for a refrigerator.

OH, that reminds me, the laundry tree! I totally forgot about that! Must get one this weekend after tenants pay me. I have $600 in tenant's money coming in - and with most bills paid up, it allows for the purchase, I hope anyway - of that tree. THAT thing will save a LOT of money in not using the dryer. 4 adults here using the dryer at various times throughout the week? THAT adds up.

I'm getting longwinded and I have some watering to do outside.

Take care, hope your day went well and that this writing finds you all in good health.
ben