Bummed

I'm bummed.  

Why?  Because I finished watching Heartland today.  Well, the 18 seasons available on Hulu, that is.  I didn't realize I was so close to the end, or I'd have slowed down a bit.  Maybe they'll get seasons 19 and 20 up soon.  In the meantime, I need to find something else to watch.  I'm open to suggestions, but bear in mind, I've already watched quite a bit, so please don't take it personally if I've already seen your suggestion.  If it helps, I have Hulu, Prime, and all the free streaming services -- that I know of, that is.  No Netflix, no Paramount +, no Max, and no Peacock.  

In other news, today was one of those totally beautiful days that made it nearly impossible to stay inside. 

So I didn't.  I got up early this morning, and piled some red clay over the hornet's nest, hoping that would inspire them to move on. 

Then I got dressed and went to walk out at the lake.  This time I walked the lake circle on the south side of the spillway.  I almost went to the fitness trail again, but thought I needed a little variety.  When I got back home, I checked the nest and there were still a few hornets buzzing around, so I zapped them with some ant spray.

The thing about wasp spray is that it shoots in such a tiny little stream that you waste most of it missing the wasp.  Ant and roach spray covers a much larger area, and it still kills the wasp.  Maybe not as quickly, but if they get any on them, they'll eventually die.  

Anyway, I decided that I'd killed enough of them that I could work safely in that area, so I got out my mini chainsaw-- wearing proper protective gear of course -- and started cutting up some of those branches.  I made a pretty good start before I remembered I'm not 25 any more and should probably take it easy.  

I also really need to get it through my head that I don't have to do it all in one day.  Which is why I put off starting to dig the clay out of that last 4' x 4' bed, like I had planned to do.  I don't want to overdo things, especially since I've just started walking again.  I want to be able to move tomorrow.

Instead, I had to come up with a way to keep this thing out of my clover and pansy bed. 

She can't dig anything up because I have that plastic stuff down, but she still gets in there and naps.  Or just sits.  Even so, I believe that's why my clover isn't growing, so I pulled some chicken wire off the old coops the previous homeowner had built and covered the bed with three layers of that. 

Maybe that'll keep her out long enough for the clover to get a foot hold.  Or would that be a root hold?  I'm probably going to have to adjust it a bit to get it out from over the pansies, if the cat doesn't get the idea to stay out of that bed. 

My other plan for the day was to get my squash casserole and squash pie made, but that didn't happen. I got to poking around in my pantry, and do you know what all of this is?  

This is all canned goods that are past their Best By date.  Why I have six cans of pork and beans I do not know.  I don't even like pork and beans that much.  I guess I thought it's easy to heat up in a power outage and can be eaten directly from the can if need be.  I went through a bit of a prepper phase a few years back.  It was in 2020 when the Easter storms knocked my power out for 4 days.  I said I wasn't going to get caught out like that again, so I bought a camp stove and a bunch of canned goods.  The funny thing is, I didn't even use that camp stove during the ice storm, because I could heat stuff up on the top of my wood stove.  

But I digress...

You know, Americans waste so much food by throwing away so much food because of that Best By date.  It's not like your food turns instantaneously rotten the very next day.  If the ends of the can aren't pooched out, it's still likely safe to eat.  I'm going to eat up all of this stuff -- providing it passes the sniff test followed by the taste test.  If it doesn't smell or taste off, it's going into my stomach. 

I guess I'm going to be eating quite a bit of beans on toast in the near future.  Hey, we laugh at it, but it actually tastes pretty good. 

Speaking of food, my friend posted this, which has been going around socials here lately.  

The thing about it is, it's as phony as a $3 bill.  For one thing, who hangs on to a receipt for 24 years?  And as one of my other friends pointed out, the ink would have faded long ago.  It might still be legible, but it sure wouldn't be that sharp and clear.  

Secondly, the prices on the 2026 receipt are absolutely fabricated.  In an amazing coincidence, I had been at Walmart the same day my friend posted that meme, and I had actually taken a photo of the price of a dozen eggs. 

I'd taken it with the intention of reminding people that a mere 2 years ago, eggs were $9 a dozen and if you don't want to go back to that, you better get out and vote -- and not for the party that gave us $9 eggs.  But the point is, this is the price of an actual dozen eggs, not what the phony receipt has listed.  In fact, even the fancy schmancy organic free range brown eggs aren't but $5.96.  The rest of the stuff on that phony receipt can be easily price checked on the Walmart app.  The only one that is accurate is that price of the coffee.  

And that brings us to my third point:  The items on the receipts are not listed like they would be on a real receipt.  Those eggs would appear on the receipt the same way they appear on the shelf label:  GV 12 LRG A EGG.  I didn't buy eggs, but you can see on my actual receipt from yesterday how bread and milk are listed. 

For those of you with old eyes like mine and can't see it, the milk is listed as GV FF GAL and the price is $4.32.  The bread is listed as GV SWICH WHT and it cost me $1.52.  

That's your meme debunkeration for the day.  

And in case you're wondering why I spent $245, the biggest expense was this indoor safe propane heater, just in case.  

I guess I haven't completely gotten over that prepper phase after all.