Sunday 14 May 2017

Reflections on a Sunday Afternoon.

Here is a question – how do you use your store cupboard?  Why I ask is that in my autumn fervour I have squirrelled enough food away to sink a ship!!  I kid you not. I cannot get any more food in, so several days ago I decided to organise them better and take an inventory.  I had lost track of what I had and there were some amazing collections, for example, lots of tins of chick peas, but only one of kidney beans and no pinto beans.  Taking myself in hand I decided to have only two of each in my store cupboard and the rest would have to go up into the top cupboards (which I need a step ladder to reach). It has made the cupboard more usable, now it remains to be seen whether I remember I have got a lot of food stashed up there!  My freezer is choc a block as well, I reckon I have enough food with the exception of perishables stashed away to last me several months.

Ambrose with my grape harvest which I made into grape cordial
So the question is how do I use this bounty?  Do I live off my stores for a while, or do replace what I use as I consume.  I had thought of living off the stores and saving my budget, but I am already saving money each payday and I don’t have any real needs at the moment and I have a healthy rainy day account. 
People might come into my home and say you need a new lounge suite or whatever, but my stuff is comfortable and cosy.  I can’t see the point of buying something just because what you have is old.  I am of the school if it is not broke keep it. And then I am likely to say I wonder if I can fix it!

So it looks like I will use and replace.  However I wonder whether I need as much as I have.  Most of the emergencies we have had here in NZ (earthquakes and floods) people have been evacuated from their homes, and I can’t imagine the emergency services calmly waiting while you empty out your cupboards, lol!  Although, this amount would be useful if there was a massive worldwide financial crisis and the banks failed. It could happen! (Maybe I had better start stashing money away in my mattress, lol.

So I would like to hear about how you use your store cupboard


Today, I went to the Market and brought the above collection of fruit and veg. leeks, spring onions, celery, mushrooms, baby carrots, butternut pumpkin and a huge bag of feijoas (pineapple guava), all for $10. It was a lovely little outing, a bit chilly but the sun was shining the trees and gardens lovely, the sound of crackling leaves as I passed over them lovely. 

I have been working a lot in the garden, who says spring is the busiest month!  We have had so much rain this autumn and quite a few floods as well.  My back garden has a spot where it seems to have a high water table and the last few years it seems to flood every time we have a heavy down pour and it is where my veg patch is!  So I have decide to move the veggie patch next to the house and put the existing one to grass and flowers.  Makes sense as then I won’t have to trudge down the back to pick veggies on wet blustery days and the soil near the house is wonderful far better than the existing garden.  A friend dropped of some old carpet which we have laid where I want the new vegetable beds, over the winter the weedy grass will die and compost and then it will be ready for digging in late winter.  I will have to move some of the existing flowering plants but will wait till flowering has finished, these two shows how mild this autumn has been.

Hibiscus

Naked  Ladies, cant believe they are still flowering
I was going to talk about food but the afternoon is ticking away and I want to sit in the sun for a bit!  So I will leave that for another post so bye for now and thanks for visiting.
Sharon


PS I saw this the other day and it struck a chord with me!

7 comments:

  1. Interesting post - especially as I have just decided that I must sort through my pantry and get it in order, again! I am guilty of buying tinned goods 'just in case' and then I forget about them because we tend to eat fresh anyway. At the moment I reckon our tiny village could be cut off from the world for a week and I would be able to feed the whole community. I need to take myself in hand and drop some tins at a local food bank.
    I spent too many years in the third row. Now that I am older I have migrated to the front and life is much more fun - I do occasionally duck back into second, though. I really like that image!

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    1. Thank you Elaine, good idea about the surplus tins. I think I have always been a row 2 girl with excursions into row 3 and 1.
      Have a lovely week.

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  2. We use our pantry a lot here, Sharon, but then we don't have a very long growing season here, so we only have a few months of eating fresh from the garden. I also use it so I don't have to spend money, so I can obtain things I wouldn't usually be able to afford. This month, we bought a woodstove for our guest cottage. We also live quite a distance from any really nice grocery stores and it's nice to be able to just go into the pantry instead of making a 34 mile round trip just to buy a can of something. Also, our winters can be brutal here, there's been many times when the roads were to icy to travel to get groceries. Another thing that I do is to choose one month to eat only from the pantry and garden and give the money I would have spent on groceries to a charity. But I can see that where you live you are able to have a nice garden for the better part of the year, so food storage wouldn't be as much of a problem.

    Very amusing picture. The ladies in the third row do not look amused do they? Here's to living life in the front row!

    Hugs
    Jane

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    1. Thanks for this Jane. You make me realise that we are very blessed here to be able to grow vegetables year round and not having massive snows to cut us off! Also even though our town is a rural town it is the main town for all the coun try people to get their supplies, so I am blessed with 4 supermarkets with 3 to 4 km from me! I love the idea of living off my stores for a month and giving my food budget to charity. I think I will do it twice a year, one in spring and one in autumn to make space for seasonal eating habits. Thanks so much Jane.
      Have a happy and blissful
      Sharonweek.

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  3. I stock up when things go on sale and then use things up as I go along. I, too, have several cans of chick peas but only one can of kidney beans and no pinto beans! LOL! But then, I eat more chick peas, on a regular basis, I guess. Sounds like your garden is doing really well and temperatures have been mild. Loved the pictures you posted!

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  4. Thanks so much Bless. I love chickpeas so I guess thats why I stock up on them! The weather has turned really cold this weekend and ther is snow down in the South Island. It is meant to get warmer next week again.

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