A Grand Funk - Again!

So far we've had a perfect spring melt. Warm thawing temperatures during the day and freezing at night. As of yesterday the fields were black, the ditches empty of snow with very little water standing in them with the only snow still visible accumulated in the trees around the farm sites. So the cabin fever that had been developing in my feeble little brain had mostly disappeared.

And then I woke up to THIS!!

Six inches of flippin' snow - heavy, wet snow. Will it never end?? How will the Easter Bunny ever manage to get through all of this stuff? He'll sink out of sight never to be found again.

So Ole is currently out blowing snow so that we can at least get in and out of our driveway. It's 10:30 and the snowplows haven't been out yet. There was just an announcement on the radio that they wouldn't be going out until the snow has stopped, which is forecast to happen around 4:00 this afternoon. Lovely Daughter and Lars left for work this morning with their 4-wheel drive engaged.

Oh, well, quitcher bitchin' - there's nothin' you can do about it anyway.

On to other things.

We have a new Super Walmart that has opened in our area. We had one previously, but it was waaay out on the west side of the city, (20+ miles) so I rarely went there. We had a regular old Walmart about 7 miles from my house, and that's the one I shopped at. Well, two weeks ago the old Walmart closed and the new Super Walmart opened so yesterday I made my first shopping soiree (neener) to the new store. I've done my grocery shopping for years at a local chain that's a bit more on the pricey side, but they have the best fresh produce and their own meat department where they do all their own cutting and packaging, besides cutting to order.

What I found was somewhat disconcerting - no - to be honest it made me downright angry. I was shopping for some Russet potatoes and was quite dismayed to find that they had all been packaged in Mexico. It was obvious that they had "been around" for quite some time as they were somewhat soft and wrinkled. Not nice and firm like a potato should be. What's going on here? I live in the middle of one of the largest potato producing areas of the United States and they expect me to eat potatoes shipped in from a foreign country? NOT!!! This prompted me to check more carefully on the other packaged produce - ALL OF IT had been packaged in Mexico, which also means that it had probably been grown in Mexico too. Who knows what kind of pesticides have been used on these items? I guess I certainly don't want to find out.

Then I went to find some tea biscuits - that was another exercise in futility and I left the store without them. Every package that was on the shelf had been squashed to the point that the biscuits looked like little pancakes. That's another thing about my local chain - they have their own bakery and are noted for their wonderful breads. They also make all their own deli selections - they don't ship it in in big tubs from some central warehouse.

What happened to Walmart's boast that they only sell American made products? Needless to say, I'll be doing my grocery shopping back at my pricey local chain where the food is fresh, they don't put the cleaning products in with the food items when they bag your groceries, they use paper bags that stand up instead of the plastic ones that allow your items to roll all over the back of the car on the trip home, and they carry your groceries out for you and put them neatly in your trunk or back seat. There's a reason my local chain is a bit higher priced, but I'm willing to pay for convenience.

And, oh yes, for those of you concerned about the use of paper bags by my grocery store. If you bring them back they issue you a nickel credit for each bag that is reusable. So they're not killing anymore trees than necessary.

So what are you having for Easter dinner/brunch? We're going to eat late afternoon and I'm making a turkey. We've had so much ham over the last month what with all the church ham dinners that have been around that I don't think I could swallow another piece. So turkey it is, with do ahead mashed potatoes, gravy, and all the other trimmings. We were going to go out for dinner on Sunday, but decided we'd miss the leftovers then. And besides, my back is finally better so I'm feeling up to cooking. It's not 100% yet, but almost.

And on that note I leave you with this:

Blame global warming!