Things You Would not Expect People to make runs on.

Just ask her to give you first dibs before the trash can. It can probably be baked into dog biscuits instead of bread, Some folk will probably be compelled, of necessity to broaden their tastes, and overcome their negative prejudices about certain kinds of food...My Covid19 diet has worked for me....have lost about 3Kg over the last 6 weeks.

 

Many young couples have found out that Youtube and TikToc can get boring after a few days, so they are trying projects at home. My niece has been into sewing/knitting and cooking for quite a while so her and her peers are trying out new recipes/baking for the first time, therefor emptying out the what I had called "grandma's isle" in the grocery store (flour, cornmeal, spices,...home cooking material).

Many young men are also discovering the wonders of home repair and maintenance, to include yard work. I've seen neighbors actually cleaning their gutters, trimming tree limbs, fixing window screens, and starting pet projects like building bird houses. Maybe this will help strengthen the character of this generation, or it might just lead to kitchen fires and missing digits from power tools.

 

I have to admit, one of the first things I did was to buy a new knife--big ole honkin' belt knife. Those are legal to carry here, exposed or concealed, and it projects a bit of "leave the big man with the scowl and pig sticker alone", which is exactly what I want. I didn't just buy one off the shelf (I ordered it, and did extensive research before I settled on the one I bought) and in reality it will absolutely find regular use. I generally just go with my everyday-carry pocket folder, but having this bad boy (Schrade SCHF36) on my side will be very handy in just about any situation...so I got it.

The first "prepper" thing I recommend to anyone I talk to (and I continued that trend as the COVID situation was developing) is to buy a bag or two (or more) of pool shock. Sounds like someone was listening!

Shock is a no-brainer to add to your stores, even when we're not facing a viral pandemic. Household bleach is just sodium hypochlorite mixed with water, which has a stable shelf life of less than six months before it's just expensive saltwater. Granular or powdered pool shock is shelf-stable almost indefinitely as long as you keep it dry and in a cool place (mine is in a lidded bucket on a shelf in my basement). You need precious little of it to make common-purpose bleach (add to water in the proper proportion, and you've got virtually the same thing you'll find in a bottle of chlorox), and very, very little of it to purify water for drinking. Calcium hypochlorite and sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione, both common chlorinating agents found in pool shock, are both safe for either use. In fact dichlor is actually somewhat preferable because it has a neutral pH, and it maintains a higher chorination for a longer period of time (meaning you can kill all those little nasties in the water that may be slightly resistant to chlorine). Some things to remember, though:

DON'T GET THEM WET. Getting these into your water is a good idea. Getting water into these is NOT. It can actually create a fire.
DON'T MIX THEM, at all, ever. This can cause an explosion. If you treat a large quantity of water with one and then the other, it should be fine, but don't mix the powders.
DON'T STRESS IF YOU CAN'T FIND 100%. It's hard to find this concentration outside of a pool supply store, and generally speaking you want to avoid additives like aglaecide and such. But the general recommendation is to try to stay around 70%, and adjust the chemistry accordingly. Google is your friend when trying to determine how to mix particular concentrations of particular chemicals for your particular purpose.
BUY A GOOD FILTER IF YOU'RE GOING TO TREAT WATER FOR DRINKING. If you want to go all-out and buy a Berkey water contraption, go for it. But folks, it's two stainless steel pots stacked on top of one another, with a filter or three mounted in the first one. Skip the middleman and just buy the filters. I bought a Pur replacement filter that strains water down to .2-.5 microns (small enough to remove residual chlorine and other chemicals), two 2-gallon frosting buckets with lids from the local Wallyworld (they charged a buck apiece), drilled a hole in the bottom of one bucket and the lid of the other, mounted the filter, and voila--crystal clear water for pennies (the whole thing cost me less than fifteen bucks) compared to the fancy $300 Berkey and similar cons. I mean contraptions. I fill the top bucket in the morning while my coffee is brewing, and the next morning I empty the bottom bucket into gallon jugs I have specifically for that purpose. We use the water from the jugs throughout the day (though I always keep reserve jugs in case I need more than two gallons). Works beautifully.
AS AN ASIDE--and I'm not going to go into detail here--calcium hypochlorite has, shall we say, "other" uses in a true SHTF scenario. Kinda like fertilizer can be used to grow really big tomatoes, but can also create really big booms. You get my drift.

 

LOL I must remember this one!

 

" Chili Beans Not a can to be found."

Now you know why there's no toilet paper.

 

I did find that there are endless rolls of the Commercial John Wayne toilet paper at Sams You know the rough and tough kind that don't take shit off of anyone

 

Yeah, with so many people out of work most folks are not going to be able to eat out or afford lawn services. I just spent my day-off cutting grass with a push-mower, while my Sister used the zero-turn mower, planting potatoes and restoring a rusty old 2 row field cultivator. I'm tired!

 

My friend is trying to get 6x15 trailer tires and theyre on back order for 2 to 4 months depending on where he looks.
So he got LT235/75R15 tires.

 

Please be aware of the difference in construction between LT and trailer shoes.

 

I just had a few 13 inch tires put on my boat trailer. It's a lightweight boat , so I don't think there'll be a big issue with my tires. 2 tires ,, 100 bucks , mounted.

 

Yeah he is an engineer that works at a tire plant. He knows. It was the closest thing he could get with out waiting potentially till the fall. These are the biggest that will fit. He went from smaller tires that were rated for 1,800 to 2,100lb tires.

 

have just discovered this myself... amazing.

 

So far all the stuff gone out of stock is stuff I never buy, but yeah, baking isle looked pretty sparse for a while, and bleach Isle was bare (I cant use bleach, gives me a massive headache)funny how nobody seems to be stocking up on tinned sardines though

 

LOL
My DW made 40 cloth masks for the local FD dispatch center. Seems the local pols haven't' taken enough of my money to buy everyone PPE as mandated by Hiz Honor, the mayor for life. The FD folks were very happy, seeing the efforst - and gift of both time and money - as a validation of their job.

 

I've been thinking the same thing, and was planning on starting my runs tomorrow.

 

I can explain sum of the shortages. Its not very nice, but most likely true. See all the lil crotch goblins are out of school. Parents are learning their lil spawn have been trained to have 3 meals & 2 snacks a day, several days a week. They thought they were doing great normally with only having to cook 1 meal a day, & cereal for breakfast. Well the making meals & snacks got old fast. So all the snack & quick to fix foods disappeared from stores.

Yall might have noticed the internet seems a tad slower these days? Thats b/c so many are at home bored. An without their jobs many are finding it hard to come up with posts to gain their daily social approval. So they are scouring the internet. Youtube, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Reddit, & more to come up with ideas of things they can make or do so they have posts besides the usual moaning & groaning about Corona Virus & Quarantine, that every one else has. Thus baking supplies are going fast. As that can get them "Good Mother" social approval points as well.

Now the poor guys. They might have gotten to lay around the house, watching tv or gaming for a few days. Until their spouse sweetly reminded them of all the things they had promised to do around the house "when they got time". Followed up with a "Get On It" or Else you can take care of your devil spawn instead. Needless to say they hopped in their trucks & ran like hell to the local home improvement stores.