Stocking up

I got to missing my work buddies, so a few of us met at the local pastry place for very fudgy brownies and conversation. Most satisfactory.

Then down to business: big-time grocery shopping. Like the pioneers did it – staples for a month or so. Well, OK, not really like the pioneers. I didn't harness Buck and Nelly to the buckboard. But I did brave the huge WinCo warehouse and obtain sacks of oats, rice, flour and sugar. That's a whole new mindset for me – planning ahead and shopping just once or twice a month, instead of often and on impulse at lunch or after work. Any little thing I forget now means making a special trip the 25 miles to town. Or doing without.

Beer and chocolate are first on any list. Staples, you know.

The little keets are doing well. The big brown one was being weird yesterday,  bobbing her head and wiggling her neck around in an uncomfortable way. We'd just discovered that they go nuts for skinny little strips of cabbage. A brave one would rush up and grab the cabbage "worm" at one end and gulp it down like a pelican with a big fish, while everyone else tried to steal it. That was really fun to watch, so we gave them more and more cabbage. We figured the poor little guy had a great wad of cabbage in her crop (she found it impactful). We gave her a few drops of olive oil and that seemed to solve the problem. Little pigs. They can polish off an entire mashed-up hard-boiled egg in about 15 minutes.

Off to bed. That pioneer shopping really wears you out.