Just another Day on the Farm

By this time, we have all seen the posts, the pictures, the news shows and newspapers and heard it said over and over again on the radio.  Panic Buying, Rationing, Empty Shelves..

SLOW DOWN.. Breath.. Take another deep breath, yes I know maybe you are out of milk, maybe you are out your favorite fruit, maybe you are low on fresh bread..  Maybe even more concerning for some. you are saying.. no you can’t have that.. one portion at this time..

This post is not meant at all for those that are out of their homes, stuck on the road but its for pretty much will work for everyone else..

Do not let the Media get you spun up

Do not let the Canadian Food Guide rule at the moment..

Do not worry if your family is eating half a cup of apple sauce daily for a week or two.. they are getting their fruit..

Instead of looking at what is missing.. take that deep breath and look at what you do have!

• Take stock of your kitchen cupboards. and I do not mean open it and look at it.. I mean take things out from those dark corners, that can of lima beans, that jar of antipasto, that small tiny jar of jam that came in a gift basket..
• Take Stock of your deeper pantry, be that a small walk in kitchen pantry or your where you keep your rice, flours, beans, pasta and so on.
• Look into  your tea and coffee area often extras are tucked in that area, like hot chocolate, or herbal tea or perhaps a tea box set has extra has something extra in it.
• Look over your spice/herbs
• Look in your fridge, take a good hard look at the sauces, salad dressings and all the little bits and bobs you have
• Look in your freezer, perhaps use the top, side or bottom freezer in combo with your fridge, perhaps you have a small apartment freezer.. take stock of what you have..

The odds are very good that you have far more then you think you do.. or if you are truly super lean, the odds are you do not need this post. you already live lean and are the queen of figuring out how to take a small amount of x combine it with broth for soups or pasta or rice to make full family meals out of it..

If and when you do get to the store.. NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO STOCK UP!

Stop.. just stop! Unless you are truly lean (as in extreme limited income/food bank/community support programs, you had time to put up a extra bag of rice or pasta, along with a few other stables after the lock down..  if you truly have made the past two years and you spent your money “supporting the local and ordered in” without a thought of bringing in at least a 14 day personal home lockdown stock up..

Well, honestly, I am going to shake my head at you while giving the stink eye..  and also welcome because you have clearly not been here long..

So if you are lucky enough to find items on the shelf, take only what your family needs and think outside the box but stay flexable.  if you can get a jar of apple sauce and have a working fridge, you can portion it out, do they only have the fruit cups, don’t get fuss right now.. you can find a way to use the cups somehow.. or maybe they only have soft apples.. that will only last a short time.. eat while you can, but be prepared to process iffy items instead of passing on them.

If you can get a bag of powdered milk or canned milk even if its just one, along with a smaller milk, if your house is a milk drinking.. keep the fresh milk for the littles, make the powdered for all cooking needed.. keep the canned for use as a rich way to replace milk..

Allow yourself to think outside the box. no butter.. consider Gee in a jar.. consider cream cheese, consider any kind of nut butter.. for certain things.. for cooking, baking etc.. move to oils or lards..

When you make your list.. come up with the backups and then come up with backups for the backups.. be willing to take the store brand, be willing to try new foods.. if you want fruit cocktail in a can and normal one is not there but the ones with papaya is.. take one jar and make it fun and adventure.. BUT if you know you will not eat it unless you are “starving” do not take it..

If you have a well stocked pantry.. stay home for a few weeks..

Keep track of what you are using most and they should be the items you are looking for to refill your own gaps as basic things become somewhat stable..  Hubby and I have made a list of lets add this list per once a month shopping trip.. its not a long list, and we are looking for one of each, its not something we are out of, it is something we use regular and this will mean that we will replace what we are using and rotate though oldest to newest.

We need to eat, of course we do.. but do we need to eat as much as normal? the odds are strongly no we do not.. I know, I know, I am totally a stress eater.. I get it!

However this is a area that we can STRONGLY look at.. over and over on so many media and blogs, its all about how to make frugal meals and I am right there.. but the truth is most of us N.A. eat far more calories then we need daily..

Could we eat 10 percent less calories per day for a few weeks, could we eat 25% less calories per day, could we make a “kitchen sink” type bits and bobs soup and have it with tweek’s for lunches.. its a trick used forever, add broth and make the bowls seems fuller then they really are, tastes good, makes us feel full..

Instead of looking to the stores or the supply chain or the feds to make everything “normal” .. its not normal times right now for tens of thousands and another storm is coming right at the other half of B.C right now..

Look inward to what you have and make it count!

Right now most of the peaple effected directly and those all around the province are in “this is happening shock mode”  They are just starting to move, those trapped in cars, that have been lifted out by chopper, those that after three days have been able to get one highway lane open heading went, bringing peaple from hope area to get back home to the Vancouver, the 200 plus peaple after a two plus day wait on the trapped train has been able to get out.. 

The water rising slowed for a day (but the weather at the moment says they are heading into 7 days of rain so that is not going to hold”

Having said that at the moment, a massive sandbagging effort is holding a break point.. I will let ValB’s comment do the follow up on that part..  

“Update: pumps still holding (hundreds of people and military managed to sandbag enough the station isn’t under water at the moment). Fraser river has dropped some (no more rain please) but pumps still operating at capacity. BC government in state of emergency (second time this year I believe – fires was the first one this summer). Ag minister Lana Popham (I’ve met her, hardest working woman I know) spoke about the livestock situation (in between trying not to break down as she’s been on face time with farmers, who are in their barns with their dead cows) has reached out to other feed suppliers. Many many silos, and hay under water. The BC lab that tests ALL the milk intended for consumption, is under water – Alberta and Saskatchewan have offered the use of their labs. The farmers will be taken care of, many more livestock will have to be euthanized.”

While the main thing right now is the “NOW” and I totally get it.. the overall effect on the food and supply chains for the province is in effect but its not just B.C. Massive amounts of BC milk flows to Alberta and trust me its not flowing! 

Now lets move back to the roads for moment, with 9 effected major highways plus the trains, and we need to talk a bit about BC for those readers that are not away of it..  if you have never driven those mountain roads, it can be hard to grasp how narrow, how cut into the mountains and how steep the drops are.. 

Thankfully the roads are much better these days then when they were creating them.. but honestly they are dangerous on a good day, amazing views yes.. but still crazy amounts of drops, mountains rising above you on one side, steep drops into valleys and most often long snaking rivers or at times depending huge lakes..  Beautiful and those that spend time in the mountains can and will feel the pull to come back. 

It will not a simple process to fix all those different roads, there have been slides, breaks, whole sections broken off and slide down into the rivers.. which brings as back to food and stores.. and for that, I am going to bring back comments again from ValB

“Most store shelves are now bare. This is way worse than the start of the pandemic. I flipped a pic someone local posted of our Save On Foods. The entire produce section is empty with the exception of half dozen of some weird cabbage things, and maybe six dozen lemons. 🤦‍♀️”

Honestly I can not write it better or explain it better then ValB did in this comment.. (thank you again for sharing your thoughts and comments.. 

“Yes the whole lower mainland is technically part of the pacific delta…crazy. Getting the livestock out, some smaller places did…but the reality is there is nowhere to get them out to, no passable roads, not enough trucks to move that much livestock…the system has collapsed. If they manage to get rail back up and running they are already terribly backlogged with grain. So this will affect farmers in other provinces who expect to sell their grain, much of it gets transported to the lower mainland to be shipped.
It was suggested to me ‘oh well we’ll just get grocery from Alberta. Alberta cannot feed BC. They need their supply for them and most people don’t realize Alberta gets they bulk of their goods from BC. Also had someone say ‘oh they can just ship to Prince Rupert and offload there’. No. Rupert cannot accommodate the traffic, and they are still in the process of building their deep water port for the big ships.

‘You can go down through the US and bring it back up’. Technically, yes. Is you can get across the border, if the goods aren’t time sensitive….but at a huge cost.

I feel almost sick at this. It boggles my mind how people simply do not understand – how precarious the supply chain is. Even up here they don’t get that their food comes to the grocery store every single day by truck. Every single day. They’re hoping to open highway 3 first (the crows nest) but no timeline. They’re also talking about designating it for essential travel only (trucks, medical etc). The federal govt has offered the military. We need it. (And they are getting help from the Canadian Military)

This will get worse before it gets better.”

I am going to second that..  

This will get worse before it gets better!!!

We will see what today brings, I have also been reaching out to contacts and friends involved in a few different parts of the supply chain and effects.. there is more ripple effects out there.. those will be shared over the coming days and weeks as I can get links and offical ways to backup what I am being told..  

Right now.. its still very much Shock Mode.. (but soon, soon that is going to change and its going to get ugly when it does!) 

This is without a doubt the largest Natural Disaster in my personal lifetime to effect my country.. most folks are still thinking this is a BC disaster, but its truly a Canadian one..  

https://vancouversun.com/gallery/in-photos-historic-flooding-wreaks-havoc-in-b-c?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR2ccRTtWr54TxePYQPAuUknxB6xkOgWfg_tR0yjdEyUgpgHuMPuI8bfJq0#Echobox=1637099422

There are another 40 plus photos on the link to show you even a blink’s worth of the damage and danger..  but more is coming to thousands as pumps are breaking and a area that was in the 1920’s a lake has a real risk of having 3 meters of water come pouring in to fill that lake base back up..

For thousands of families and thousands of business, the SHTF and hard.. while some MIGHT have water damage insurance, most will not have over land flood insurance and that means that this “act of god” will not be covered..  most will not have their extras if covered at high enough rates to begin to cover “2021” covid prices and I wince at what the recovery “covid/flood/supply chain” 2022 costs will be..  even those buildings standing but under a meter of water with fully flooded basements will need rip outs to the studs and rebuilds.

Now we widen our view moving to the businesses themselves.. their stock will be considered damaged and won’t be saleable and restocking (well we will get to restocking and roads just a bit down this post) while they will be strong at the beginning, they will soon find their shelves empty and while right now in the past 2 days most peaple are still in shock and in “help” mode..

In the next days, weeks and months, as the damage truly set in, as the mental health struggles, as peaple realize that there is no job to go to.. no paycheck coming in, that it takes months to even begin to get insurance claims moving as that shock wears off and a disaster form of PTSD and the daily struggle and grind wears peaple down, that help mode is going to be less in focus..

Take whatever help is being offered, and if you are in a home with space and are uneffected, sit down with your family and have a very real talk about if you have friends or family or depending the ability to offer a space in your home to help the displaced..  even if its just a place to park the moterhome and plug in etc

The power is off as is the heat and the temps are dropping at night, and its not like folks can just go to the local hotels, they are in the same place and there is a lack of space.. community centers that normally be opened up for warming are reporting in.. no, flooded, no power, no heat..

If you have the time to do so and have not done so, get those back packs ready, get your bug out kits ready, if for some reason calling it that “does not sound right” just get those evac bags and ideally backbags for each member of the family ready..

Now we get to really bad news.. the roads.. so many roads are closed, multiple mud slides, roads and bridges and train tracks are down..  I personally expect that a huge focus will be on getting the trains back up and running as they are the powerhouse for moving goods..  Which is not to say there will not be work on the other roads, for those from away..

In case you are wondering why I think the trains will be the focus, because without the trains, the goods and resupply from the port (which was already insanely backlogged) will not just not be supplying BC but it will not be sending goods to alberta,, Sask and MB and yes.. supplies can be brought up from the states to a point and across the great lakes from ontario.. BUT all the supplies and ships at the Vancouver port is not going to just suddenly pop up on the other side of canada at the eastern ports for off loading..   So my friends and family in alberta, please do not panic buy but it might be a good idea to just make sure some of your favorite SHELF stable foods are topped up if you are low on them.

In a nut shell about half the province is cut off from the other half.. the whole most populated area of the province (including the port, the resupply system and millions) are cut off from the rest of canada by road) you can leave one way by sea, and you can fly out but even that is going to be limited at least for a little while..

The flooding is covering some of the best and most productive farm land, the dairy’s are flooded, the crop land flooded, huge sections of one of two of our fruit production lands are either flooded, or damaged.. all the hundred of thousands of chickens and turkeys in their massive buildings did not get out, they are dead.. that is going to effect not only now but a whole raising cycle of all kinds and types of food production.  That is the future.. which for most is not top of mind..

Update “Fraser Valley farmers supply 50 per cent of all B.C.’s eggs, chickens and dairy products. There are 45,000 dairy cows in the valley, and each chicken farm has around 25,000 birds.”

50 percent of all BC eggs, chickens and dairy, worse then I thought.

Right now, its all about the here, this moment.. and empty shelves..  ( I copied this from facebook, I can not tell you if its real or not but I believe it is)

Its the tip of the iceburg..

My heart goes out to those effected..   I hope that when BC asks for help from the feds, they get it.. they are going to need it.. I hope that all of reach out and find a way to give a helping hand in whatever way we can.  Its going to be a very long 2022 and a very hard lean christmas for tens of thousands of families and then some..

please??