Early Retirement Extreme Forums

We found a local CSA that had openings and bought a full share for this season (I was tempted to buy 2 shares so I had extras to freeze). I confirmed with them first that they already had all of the supplies they needed for the season and wouldn't be affected by the slowdown.

Our local restaurant store is fully stocked because restaurants have closed. They are set up so people can order online and pickup in the parking lot to limit exposure.

We ordered extra seeds. Johnnys delivered right away. High Mowing is behind but say they are filling orders as fast as possible.

Since all restaurants around me were ordered closed, some have turned themselves into grocery stores, selling off their stock on hand. It's an alternative to crowded grocery stores and you're helping out a local business.


re: seeds and restaurant store purchases
I am fully stocked for now but I don't want to use up all of my stockpiles. I am buying things that I don't need right away and I'll leave them in the garage until I'm sure any virus has died off. If the shutdown ends quickly, they will go into my stockpiles. If it doesn't, I'll be good through September at least. SIL accused me of being a hoarder and part of the problem, but if things continue like this for months instead of weeks, I'm sure my basement will turn into the neighborhood bodega.

@Fish (or anyone) -- Other things to buy if we're looking at a few months instead of a few weeks ...
bullion since soup is a good way to stretch ingredients
evaporated or powdered milk (powdered buttermilk, too)
powdered butter or real butter if you have the freezer space (salted butter lasts twice as long in the freezer as unsalted)
cooking oil
tomato paste
shortening (for making depression-era saltines or biscuits)
flour (I recommend keeping it in the freezer)
salt

^^That (minus the bullion) is pretty much all that was in my grandmother's larder. Anything else they either grew, caught, or butchered themselves.

Don't eat raw. Cooking will kill the virus. Fruits with skin is no problem. Wash hand with soap before and after eating. infection from food is rare. It's mostly transmitted by breathing the droplet from the mouth/nose of infected person.

When I go out for grocery once a week, I'll wear safety eye glasses which fully cover the eyes and also surgical face mask and vinyl glove. I still use re-usable bags but I'll dis-infect it with bleach solution after shopping. Once I return home, I'll immediately wash hands with soap, take shower and change all clothings. and wash the cloth with hot water immediately.I am doing the best I can to reduce death.

Is anyone quarantining/ washing groceries? I'm going to need to restock once I'm out of self-isolation due to unknown illness next Wed. Getting self-quarantined early messed up my grocery game a bit (mainly on the fruit/ vegetable tip).

Yes, but still working on procedures. Decon is a major PITA, so I think quarantining the food is the better solution anyway just in case I forgot a surface or didn't get into a crevice. The virus can survive on plastic (bags and packaging) and metal (cans) for up to 3 days. Cardboard is less than a day.

When mitigating risk, it is important to note that avoiding close extended contact with just one additional human is likely the equivalent of spending hundreds of hours wiping down surfaces. For instance, why even bother if you are still socializing with “just one friend or neighbor” who is still socializing with “just my aging Aunt” who is seeing “Nobody but my niece and my cleaning lady” etc. etc. etc.

I wipe down all groceries completely before they enter the car/home with a 10% bleach solution that I have in a spray bottle.

At my balcony here in the Alps the temperature at night sinks about 10 degrees below freezing point.
I let my (non watery) groceries a night on the balcony as I do my shopping clothes and gloves. Does that kill the corona virus?

One freeze-thaw cycle kills 90% of virus particles. Two cycles kill 99%. And so on.

Otherwise virus particles have a half life that depends on surface material. You can google those times. They can be pretty long. According to recent news, viable virus particles were found on the Plague Princess 17 days later.

Protection (are they covered in snot or "naked"), heat (the higher the deadlier, opposite of bacteria), humidity (the higher the deadlier, also opposite), and sun light especially (UV radiation) also kill.

TL;DR - No, not all of it, unless you leave it there for a few days. 72 hours for plastic and metal packaging.

At this rate we'll all be shopping like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCJMcLY8B-k

I realized I know of a grocery store that's off the beaten tourist path. Will look into it next week.

I read somewhere that heat/fever may not have as much effect on this virus, because it originated in bats, and bats get very hot when they fly. By the same logic, maybe less resistant to UV radiation?

Because bats are transparent to UV?

Because bats “live” in places that are always dark, so virus wouldn’t have necessarily been exposed or developed any defenses. Human skin is slightly translucent, so I am suggesting that topless (exposure of skin above lungs) sunbathing behind glass door wall might not hurt.

The virus is particularly hard on vampires too for obvious reasons.

Last weekend we rounded up all our dry/canned food and I did a cursory low-balling of the calorie counts. We had around 4ish weeks worth of calories, plus we just received a shipment from a local orchard of about 7-8lbs of dried fruits and nuts, so maybe a week more?

After about 10 days of self-isolation, we were running low on fresh produce, so we considered a grocery store run. We were planning on doing a super early trip on a low-traffic day (e.g. Monday morning), but for giggles we figured we'd check out outline ordering for home delivery. We put the same shopping list into 3 different online systems: 1) Safeway, 2) Whole Foods (via Amazon Prime), and 3) Instacart via a small local grocery chain. Safeway and Whole Foods delivery options were booked solid for days or didn't have any delivery windows at all. Instacart got the food to us within 3 hours! Awesome!

Funnily enough, our order through Instacart was about 67% produce and 33% pantry staples (e.g. flour, baking soda) and some junky/snacky packaged goods (SO's mother...). The shopper texted us while shopping when items were out of stock/about substitutions. Final verdict: all the produce we wanted was available and none of the packaged food was available. Turns out, there isn't a big run on bok choy. (tip: squashes like butternut/acorn etc. can store for a long time and are useful for staggering out the timing of fresh veggies)

Not sure what the real situation is inside the grocery stores here, but happy none of us had to go inside. Decontamination wasn't too bad - a combination of washing certain fruits and veggies with soap/water, quarantining some items in the corner for a while, cooking rather than eating raw. So far so good.

7Wannabe5 wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 25, 2020 1:38 pm

so I am suggesting that topless (exposure of skin above lungs) sunbathing behind glass door wall might not hurt.

I mean, it might not hurt (vitamin D is important, would probably boost neighbors' morale), but there is just no way that UV is getting through: 1) atmosphere (you're at a northern latitude in early spring), then 2) glass (consider type of glass and band of UV), then 2) skin (a cursory Googling shows that only 10% of UV makes it through skin down to a depth of 2mm), then 3) at least an inch of fat, muscle, bone, and blood at levels that will make any difference whatsoever.

I ordered vegetables and milk from whole foods for delivery. They arrived in a few hours. The large local grocery also delivers but is scheduled out a week. I ordered from them too. I don't want to let my supplies get low.

My brother tried out delivery today from his local store and was pleased with the results. Think laundry detergent wasn't available.

I've been happy to find one of the farmer's market vendors is doing a pop-up drive-thru for eggs, vegetables, fruit, and butter. Small town butcher shops (the ones with painted concrete floors) seem to still have meat and are not crowded. On FB there is also a local plant nursery making porch deliveries of vegetable starts and soil amendments.

The only thing I have added to my shopping procedure that I didn't see mentioned is dedicated "outside" shoes. We have repurposed an old baker's rack in the garage.