Coffee's Ready, Come and Sit on the Porch

[Hinotori]

Well we are officially in emergency drought conditions.

https://www.king5.com/article/tech/...tate/281-f3c2d696-1539-4e58-ab5a-6f6e23d70742

 

[murphysranch]

I got in touch with one gal locally, who has a contract (along with two other ladies) with one of the 3 Costco's here, to pick up their produce discards. She gets their throwaways 2x a week, while another gal does 2x a week and one gal does once a week. They each get a full pallet of fruits and veggies each time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All three are small ranchers. The food is fed to their herds. This gal has sheep, two mama cows and one baby, piglets coming in next week, chickens, turkeys, ducks. When she offered some bags of onions and potatoes on the local Give and Receive page, nobody contacted her. So on the second day, I reached out and asked if I could come get them for the food bank. SURE, she said. Well, a connection and barter was created.

She's 36 with three little kids and I'm a 70 yr old. But I LOVED talking to her. She does sooooo much there on their land up at 1,000 ft elevation. What we've agreed to do, is when she gets good food fit for human consumption, she will message me. I'll drive up there, take the cases of food, and in exchange, I'll load up our truck with her cardboard cases to take to the transfer station recycling center in Vancouver.

Yesterday, I got 7 cases of food - red onions, two cases of bagged chopped up cauliflower, three cases of red grapes, a sleeve of portabellas, lemons, and cuties. I loaded this up in the back seat of the truck. Then I gathered up 26 cases of the cardboard and scooped up about a trash bag of rotting produce. I drove down the hill, went to the food bank to drop off the produce, and then to the transfer station to dump the cardboard. The rotten produce went into my compost.

Another small farmer who lives about 1.25 miles from me, also wants me to do the same with her. I'm very happy to source food for the food bank in exchange for hauling cardboard. What I don't want to know is how much the food bank will throw away cus they are toooooo damn picky.