Monday, October 16, 2006

Rare photograph


I bet you haven't seen a sign like this recently?!?! Taken this morning just down the road at the local filling station. Just one of the fringe benefits of living in the southeast US. With the truck getting a whopping 10 mpg I can now fill up for less than $40 yippee! Post a comment and tell me what the latest price of gas is in your town & anything you do to save gas. As for myself, I just drive less. That saves more money than you think. The less I drive the less money I spend at stores, bars & resturaunts & I don't get in trouble!

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Farmer's Market Thursday

Well, since last week's trip was just to get some fruit we made another trip to the farmer's market today to get more fruit and tons of fresh vegetables. We found an 8th family (for now, it still remains to be seen if they are good farmer's market people), so everything splits up much easier. This is what $28 in our little coop gets you...... 2 head cauliflower, 3 zuccinis, 5 kiwis, 3 mangoes, 2 head broccoli, 5 limes, 11 green bell peppers, 10 apples, 9 red onions, 14 ear of corn, 15 potatoes, 13 pickling cucumbers & a big plastic bag full of green beans! You can't beat it with a stick!

Good little article posted on cnn.com by Lou Dobbs the other day. Lately with all of the election/ political rhetoric going on, it always seems like the average Joe gets forgotten about. The more partisan the talk gets, the less that actually gets done. I'm sure Dave will be the exception to the rule!

Sunday, October 08, 2006

The real deal!


A great article in the Boston Globe today about Zdeno Chara. I like the bit about the bearhug at a family picnic! Mark my words.....Norris trophy comes back to Boston this year. As much as I hated to see Thornton go, I would rather have big Z on my side.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Farmer's Market Friday

It's been a while since I posted anything, a big apology to all of my 3 loyal readers. I've been a bit busy, a few 54 hour work weeks tend to wear one out. As tired as I may be, today is Farmer's Market Friday!!!

For those uninformed, about every 2 or 3 weeks, Kimberly & I head to the state farmer's market and do some shopping. We don't do just any shopping, no. We'll buy about $250 worth of fruits & vegetables, enough to fill up the truck bed. Then we come home a split everything up 7 ways and some of our friends come by to pick up and pay for their share. How did this start happening you ask? Every so often we would go to the farmer's market to get some plants or a case of tomatoes & peppers for salsa making. Our local farmer's market not only has local vendors but is also the HQ for many of the local produce distributors too. When we would go we would always see great prices for bulk items too but only lament that we would never be able to eat a case of bananas before they rotted. Our idea was to get others in on this and then we could split the cost and the produce so that everyone gets lots of fresh fruit & vegetables and saves money. We'll usually drive through the local area first to see what's in season and what deals are around. Then we'll head to the wholesalers to get anything else we haven't found locally. Lately watermelon have been in season, $2-3 each and now local muscadine & scuppernog grapes coming into harvest (maybe some muscadine wine in the future??). As for the prices at the wholesalers, the last time we went we bought a case of 18 cantaloupes for $16! They usually sell for $2.50 each in the local grocery store!! Right now we have 7 families involved and we like to keep the cost around $30 a week. It's a little bit of effort to buy everything and split it up but definitely worth it! We are still searching for an 8th family because much of the bulk produce comes in multiples of 8. If you're interested let me know. In order to be good farmer's market people you must be local to the Columbia, SC area and be able to pick up your stuff the day we buy it! It also helps if you have a few kids because we usually get too much stuff for one or two people to eat by themselves. Besides kids love fresh fruit! I'll add some pictures from our trip later today.


UPDATE......
Here is a picture of our booty today. After everything was split up this is what $19 got you..
3 bunches of green bananas (it takes a while to eat 3 bunches, so we buy them green), 2 pints of strawberries, about 15 pears, a bag of grapes, a pineapple & a honeydew mellon. We had a few extra things so some people got 2 pineapples or 2 bags of grapes or 2 mellons.