Why, we use numbers every day...

I just wrote this tremendous dissertation, and when I went to the published page, there was nothing there. What a bummer! I guess I need to write it off line, and then copy, paste. This has happened twice now.

We went to the HSC on Saturday with a group from Savannah and a sister from Middleburg. The latter usually comes with daughters and daughter-in-laws as she really worries as I do that her children will have what they need should hard times come upon them. It is funny how we worry more about that when our children are grown. I guess we understand vulnerability more as we grow older.

Jac has gone to NYC with her mother and sisters. There is more than 11 feet of snow in upstate New York. I don't know how much where she is. We're hoping she gets home safely. Orion wanted us to stay in Jax on Saturday to watch a movie or something, but we are too whipped by the weekend to do much of anything. I felt bad as I know he doesn't like to be alone.

We had purchased 224 pounds of rye and 125 pounds of whole oats from Walton during the last order and needed to put it in storage containers.

I have been thinking of changing the way we do our food storage as I hate the waste that is generated by using the metal cans. I am thinking of going to 2 gallon pails. I can use a lid called a gamma lid on them which can be done and undone at will and seals completely when it is closed. The metal cans cost about 77 cents each, and when they are emptied, they are trash. The pails can be used over and over again.

Of course, if one stores their food and never uses it, the metal cans are a better option as long as they don't rust. But if one is using it as a working pantry, then the recycled $3 pails are a better choice. They come in 1 to 6 gallon sizes, but we have to consider how heavy they are when full and how long it will take to empty them.

The only source for gamma lids makes them about $6 each, but you can get in and out of the pails without compromising the storage ability of the lid. Again, they can be used over and over again, so each use depreciates the cost.

I have been thinking a lot about how Bonnie says they use half a #10 can every time they have pasta. They can buy a 20 pound box for 56 cents a pound. Each can holds about 3 1/2 pounds, so they are using about 2 pounds each time she prepares pasta (compared to our use of 4 oz at a time). Even a 20 pound box would only last them 10 uses at that rate. A six gallon pail would hold the 20 pounds, I think and last them 10 dinners. That's probably a 2 month supply, so she'd need 6 6-gallon pails (120 pounds of macaroni) for a year. (and lot's of powdered cheese!!!) It would be a lot cheaper to purchase the 6 pails and lids, and each year buy 6 more boxes of macaroni to fill them up. Once the initial pail purchase is made, there is no more storage container expense. I don't know if you'd need to oxypack them or not if they were only going to be stored for one year. I guess that wouldn't hurt.

When my kids were home, I used these big pails I found at the warehouse club for our flour, wheat, sugar, oatmeal, and cornmeal. It was a little tricky to find room for them, but after a while they become fixtures. They were too heavy to move around when they were full. I think they were the kids' seats for a while before we changed the kitchen around. If they were sitting when I was cooking, they just had to get up while I scooped. These were not air tight pails, but they did the job. It was a very efficient system. I don't recall any of the food getting buggy or anything. I still buy flour and sugar in 25 pound bags and store them in those containers that fit under the bed.

I guess it is silly that my mind is always playing these numbers games, but if more people did it, there wouldn't be as much waste in the world. I always told my kids growing up when they got a job that paid a certain wage per hour, they should truly work that hard. People make it sound like $5.00 / hr. isn't that much, but you can still fill a gas tank with 4 - 8 of them, and drive a heck of a long way. $5.00 will buy 20 pounds or more of grain which will feed a hungry person about 3 weeks. Sometimes we get too tied up in our luxury items and forget that the basics are not as expensive. We can have anything we want if we want the right things.

And so there you have it, we DO use numbers every day. Or they are being used on us...