A Trip to Town

For many, running to the store to grab an item or two is a convenience often taken for granted.  For us, it's an event!  Other than picking up something on the way home from church, our main grocery shopping is done about every two months.  We keep a running list on the frig of staples that we need, and when the milk check finally shows up on the clipboard in the milkhouse, I plan a day to head down to the nearest larger city (about 24 miles) to hit the discount grocery store and that old standby:  Wal-Mart.

The Country Kitchen (The Northwestern Farmer Recipe Book)

When you live in a household that hunts for and/or raises its own meat and grows and cans most of its veggies, there isn't all that much need for anything else to build your meals around.  So, with calculator in hand, I go down the aisles in the grocery store, tabulating my purchases as I go, so as to stay within budget.  We like to try new ideas for meals once in awhile, so a few ingredients that I don't normally buy are snuck into the list also.  As far as some of the recipes I see in magazines in the dentist's office - if the ingredients sound like they come from a foreign land or I'd have to mail-order them, I just skip over those.  Family probably wouldn't eat it anyway!

A stop at the Farm & Fleet is a must also.  We keep a list of things that we need for the critters too.  Calf feed, horse feed, cow medicine, vaccines - you name it, we get most of it at Fleet.  The medicines that we can only get from the vet are budgeted in at herd health time.  But as far as generic needs, it's nice to get these things when making this trip to town.  When the cows are low in milk or the milk price is low (quite often), it's nice to stock up on a few things.  Because when the cash flow has ground to a halt, you just don't have the cash on hand to cover some or all of these things.  And to no surprise, that's when a cow gets sick or a calf gets scours.  You run out of soap for the pipeline, on and on and on.  But the checkbook has no wiggle room.  So, now that the milk price is at a reasonable level (but not for long!), I refill the barn cabinets with supplies and hope that they can get us through the next price cycle.

So . . . for now anyway, the cupboards and freezer are full.  The feed bin is full.  All of the pig and horse feed is supplied, so everyone is happy.  Including mom.  I think I'm going to sneak off and enjoy that bag of cookies that I snuck into the cart.  They sure taste good dunked in a coffee cup full of our 4% butterfat milk!