Let's Do Lunch Community

Greetings all.
      Has any one been in the market lately?  Kris and I went shopping today. Te price of produce is terrible. I guess if it gets much higher we won't be buying fresh fruit and veg. I bought bananas buy a pound get a pound free. 4 oranges and a bunch of grapes. Oh and box of strawberries which were a 1.99. then some salad veggies and it came to more than $4o.oo .2.00 for a stalk of celery. I guess we will truly be on a bean diet soon if prices go any higher.  How are your prices doing.  Most of what I bought said the item was on sale. It was 7 dollars for a little box of clementines. We will just have to trust in G-D to see us through.
        Take care,    Judie and family

Hi there.. yes  I agree the prices are high and the worst of all the quality right now is not good.. No taste in the romaine etc..  I buy lots of root veggies and the rest I buy frozen. .I have bought cantaloupes and thrown them out.. absolutely tasteless, melons the same...  I buy parsnips, turnips, carrots etc.. I buy squash in the fall and puree it and freeze in zip log bags for the winter..    The Ontario hothouse cucumbers the long English ones are coming out now and price is good..

I know what ya mean, I bought 3 tomato's the other day and it cost me a little over $4.00 ,it's to bad I'm not good with a garden(we have to many snakes around here) otherwise I would be puttin one in.
Hugzzz
Rodie

Yikes!  I hate snakes, even the friendly, beneficial ones scare the living daylight out of me!!  I hope I never see another one as long as I live.  We can't have a garden here.  When we moved 15 years ago, we tried, but the deer eat everything.  While we were in FL this winter a deer smashed out our bedroom window and scattered glass all over our bedroom- even on the bed.  Thank goodness the deer didn't come in through the damaged window.  They are beautiful animals, but can be a nuisance sometimes.  They even eat all my flowers!  Hanging baskets are like a raised salad bar for them.  I guess I'll just have to pay the price for fruits and vegetables.  Hope they don't go too far. 
Pam

Snakes alive!
    In our previous home it was way out in the country, We had snakes.  In the house!  my bed room along with my daughters was in the basement. We were in bed reading and we heard a rustling noise. Low and behold on the bookshelf head board was a snake crawling along with his head sticking up. I jumped out of bed grabbed my pillows and blankets and right then and there moved to the attic! Kate didn't care she is not afraid of snakes. That buggar lived down there for a couple years we couldn't find him. Then one day our younger daughter was in her room down there and she saw the snake. She grabbed it by the neck and was taking it outside. when that snake turned around and bit her finger. By now she was outside. She was throwing her arm up and down  and screaming and the snake was whipping up and down .Needless to say we were all laughing at her. Finally it left go. So that evening she was in her room she heard a noise and there was snaky crawling across her carpet.
  But you know what? We never had mice as long as snaky was there.

Snowbirdie- If that happened in my house, I would absolutely have to leave forever!!!  I much prefer mice.  Pam

I would have to leave too.. I could never live in the same house as a snake..I have a friend in Australia whose hubby found a 6'  carpet snake in their house...  Yikes... I simply would faint or have an anxiety attack

Judie - Clementines are $7.00 where I live also.  I have a $1 coupon so I thought about buying some the other day, but didn't know if I wanted to spend that much on them, until they might possible get reduced.  Toward the end of last year I wanted to buy green and purple grapes to make LDL fruit salad.  I went to Walmart Supercenter and bought a bag of each.  When I got the checkout, with other groceries also, I noticed that I was charged $7.00 for the green grapes and $7.00 for the purple grapes ($14.00 just in grapes).  When I questioned the cashier about it, she said each bag was 2 lbs and they were $3.50 per pound.  I couldn't believe they were so expensive, but I bought them anyway for the diet.  A week or so later I seen them much cheaper at a Schnucks.  You would think Walmart would be able to have cheaper grapes than Schnucks.  But as far as prices go, it seems like everything is sooooo expensive!   Jerrie

My worse nightmare was finding a rattlesnake wrapped around the toilet in my MIL's bathroom.

Have any of you thought about going through a Food coop? That's what has really helped my family to be able to buy produce that we normally wouldn't be able to afford with this economy. The following website can help you find one in your area.

http://www.localharvest.org/food-coops/

CQ

YIKES!!!!I'm sorry I brought up snakes,at least I don't have them in the house,and if I did the house would be theirs,cuz I would be GONE! I had a garden years ago, and when I was leaning down to pick a tomato,there was a snake,now we all know their probably more scared of us,but that day I know EVERYONE in the neighborhood heard me scream,lol and that was the end of my gardeny days.
As far as the produce I do know the stores are good for saying that something is so much a lb,and we grab a bag and just assume it's that price,that's why I have started to weigh everything because it usually is double.
CQ,I do have a co-op very close to me but it is very expensive,but I'm sure it maybe depends what state your in.
It is pouring rain out right now and we are spose to get 5-7 inches of snow,figures,in the last week all the snow finally melted off my deck.
Hugzzz
Rodie

Rodie, great story!  Snakes!    My DH and I weigh bags of prepackaged produce with a set price to choose the one that weighs more.  For example, a bag of clementines can sometimes be 1/2 pound more so we'll select several bags and weigh to see which one weighs more and choose the heaviest.  It takes very little time and makes the dollar go further. 

I know I'm going to have nightmares after reading these snake stories! Luckily, in Alaska there are no snakes. I had a mouse once. I wanted him out of the house but I didn't want him hurt. ( I know...silly me). So I got one of those plug-in thingies- not the cheap ones- I paid over 70 bucks. Well, the mouse took off, I'm glad to say. Mice creep me out almost as much as snakes do. I'll scream like a little girl if I ever see either one again.

SweetRose

Rodie,

Some of them are if you don't do your homework. We found three in our area that really paid off and has been a real blessing for us.

CQ

Hi folks,
    sorry to say we have no co-ops here within 100 miles.  We have two markets        superone and supervalu on our side and safeway in canada. Safeway has much nicer produce then we have here in U.S.  But we can bring only produce grown in U.S. and Canada. If we want to bring from any other country the border guards will just take it and destroy it.
      Back to snakes, We used to live in Pennsylvania and on a saturday we had driven to the mountains. My kids were young
and i always warned them about snakes that would wind around the underneath of a toilet seat. Well kids being kids they did not believe me. So of course son bud was 11 and he had to pee. we stopped at a local lake that had a nice br and in he went. I reminded him to look under the seat kick it up with his foot. Sure enough there was a great big black snake under there. They are big  as fat as your arm. Guess what he forgot about peeing. From then on those kids believed mum.
                                Judie

snowbirdie,

That was just the half of it. I totally freaked when my MIL realized what was happening and walked in with her pistol and shot the snake AND the toilet. Then my FIL freaked. She just calmly told him that she meant it when she said that she wanted to redo the bathroom (my FIL owns a plumbing company).

CQ

hi
    Wow  good for you!  Wish I could have been there. I HATE SNAKES!

How funny are those stories? It's amazing how just word (snakes) can start a number of great stories.
Thanks for the laugh
Hugzzz
Rodie

Prices are still not too bad here.  This week, Pineapples are 1.59 each, bananas 39c a pound, celery $1.15 a bunch, strawberries, $1.49 a quart, grapes $1.50 a pound.  Avocados were $.29 each last week.  Tomatoes on the vine---about 5 are $2.29.  Beans and eggs have gone up a whole lot.  Snakes really scare me.  I had a brother who was bitten by a copperhead when he was about 12, He was between life and death, so our family can't stand snakes, even the little helpless green ones.  Australia has 5 of the most deadly snakes; I'm glad it was only a carpet one.  It has been beautiful here, so soon we will have farmer's market.  We already have watercress from farmers.  Like Pam, the deer eat everything we put out.  They are beautiful, but destructive.  Pam, we never could get the coyote picture up on our computer.  It's a wonder the deer story wasn't in the paper.  Interesting.  We also have a coyote being spotted in our neighborhood, so we have to watch our little dog when she is outside.    JF

Pam,

My father uses little bars of soap (like the ones used in hotels) around his roses and the deer leave them alone. Of course, I don't think that would be a good idea to use in a garden.

CQ

Know anything besides mothballs to keep cats out?
Have them around for mice control but tired of them "marking" everything!