Grocery shopping in the time of COVID19

[petefrom bearswamp]

My son was here today helping me with a bunch of chores, yes we maintained 6' when possible but not 100 percent of the time.
They grocery shopped at Walmart on line last week and had a very good experience.
Ordered and paid on line then went at the designated time for pickup.
If a desired item wasn't available they let them know and either had the amount deducted from the total or if it was acceptable had a similar item substituted.
I think Linda and I will try this as I have a couple of underlying conditions, sleep apnea and a left ventricle bundle block.
I did a little shopping yesterday at the local Aldi and about 75 percent of folks had masks and a good number had gloves on too.

[pabst79]

I went on Friday to our small IGA, TP and soup were available but in small quantities. The weird thing was that honey nut cheerios and honey roasted nuts are always on our grocery list, neither could be bought, even in generic form? I suppose the suppliers are over run by squirrel away shopping.

[sawguy21]

I have noticed empty shelves too. Most shoppers are normal although they try to to keep their distance and I respect that but some seem obsessive with masks, gloves and maintaining their space. I ignore them.

[petefrom bearswamp]

I am a mask and gloves guy

[clearcut]

Used a lightly used N95 with a hair tie origami bandanna version to keep it clean longer. Gloves and hat - the hat mostly because I really needed a haircut before self isolation and I’m now rocking almost as much hair as I had in high school. Unfortunately it is distributed on a much smaller surface area. Call it the mad scientist zapped by electricity look. 

Shopped online for in-store pickup of the water heater that failed Saturday. Who would know that a water heater would only last 26 years in service. American made and everything.   

Since we were headed to town, my son drove with his learners permit. Traffic was light. Parking plentiful. Excellent conditions for less stress driving practice. Settled for only my regular dose of Lisinopril.   Gas at $2.099   Almost always over $3 here. Often near $4. 

No lines to get in most places. Trader Joe’s had a short wait to get in. Staff wiping down each cart before handing off to the next entering customer.  Staff would not touch reusable bags. Shelves less than fully stocked, but most items were available. Pasta limited to a few boxes of the expensive fun shapes, the $0.99/lb. pasta shapes sold out. No TP. No little cups of coffee or samples. Staff and customers observing distancing rules. Diminished supply of two buck chuck. 

No lines at Costco. Earlier in the pandemic, I had driven by more than an hour before the first senior’s early opening hours at the beginning of quarantine. The line literally wrapped around the Costco building, each person leaning on a shopping cart. All of the shopping carts were in the line with a person.

That day I bailed for Winco. Short line to get in. Lots of food with some items in short supply or missing. Like at TJ’s only a few boxes of more expensive  pasta shapes were left.  Scoop style bulk bins removed. Took longer to shop, waiting at a distance for people to select produce. TP on aisle 11. One per customer 8 rolls for $9 couple of pallets worth. Returned to Costco, no lines, no TP and mostly well stocked. 

Yesterday no lines at Costco. Mostly stocked. Scouted people’s carts as they were leaving, but didn’t see any TP. Got near the back, noticed a few chub packs of TP in a few carts. People began rushing towards the back – 3 fresh pallets of TP! One pack per. And there was much rejoicing – yeah!

Interesting to observe social distancing measures. 

Stay safe. 
Stay sane. 

[Sedgehammer]

Gloves and wipe the cart down before grabbing. I tend to lean on the cart due to my back pain, so i try and clean it well. We usually go in pairs. The other person loads and they check out, i hold the cart. They also have gloves.
Wife uses a P100 at work with gloves.
Stores are mostly fully stocked now. The worst of panic buying is over, now we'll see how the work force holds up in the supply chains. 
Can find gas around a buck, buck 10
We don't have many cases here, so people are still pretty much going out and doing home improvement like work. Restaurants of course not seating people.

[kantuckid]

Our eastern KY stores are still often out of staples such as Martha White Hot-Rize corn meal which we've been looking for all month. TP is spotty as are paper towels which we live OK w/o the towels. I've seen carts with more towels than we use in a year?
Pasta & sauce and canned goods are often empty. Almost zero broth in cans or soups. One thing there's a normalcy to is produce fresh items! other than not normal potatoes it's full and normal!
Obviously many still live on "JUNK FOOD!"
I read last few days where a farmer in ID plowed under a million pounds of onions as market had collapsed. Meat is very sparse-unless you can live on pork ribs everyday? Dairy is sparse.

I read an interesting article on masks and how long the virus lives on masks of various types in NYT's this week. My N95 will get reused once a week now. I'm also gonna give it a dose of H2O2 in between grocery visits.
Seems the virus doesn't live long at all on a mask surface-it's likes that cozy home in your body!
If you shop periodically, like with us it's a 50k RT so it's weekly virus or no virus and no masks needed here in the woods at home in between.
You can use your mask, lay it in an airy location and it will be good to go for your next weeks grocery run it is said. The microbes die while you eat away at the groceries. 
The comments in their articles can be very entertaining and informative too. Sometimes better than the article itself overall. One yesterday was by the doc who helped develop the intubation techniques to a high level. His article garnered many comments from all sorts of medical professionals who mostly praised him. A few used his situation as a means to go political toward socialized medicine, medicare for all, etc. but most played nice-as I am trying to do as well. The NYT's has been free during covid-19 digitally, but may be $1 per week now.
Springs given us a couple of decent days lately and I'm feeling real safe back in the woods, leveling a cabin build site this week.

[Southside]

The dairy issue shows how poorly our system is set up.  Got a call from another producer yesterday looking to sell some of his cows.  I had looked at buying some of his a few years back as they are really, really, nice cows, and he has a very nice set up, but I could not justify the price he was asking, although they were worth it.  Well, yesterday he told me he needs to sell some, they are dumping milk - "using it as fertilizer" was what he said - yes it does make very nice grass fertilizer FWIW.  This is the "spring flush" time of year and dairy cows are in overdrive as far as production goes, beef cows are putting on 2 to 4 lbs a day, there is no food shortage, but there sure is a logistics shortage.  

Sure would be nice if we can come up with better means of getting food from the farm to the table at the end of this. 

[sprucebunny]

I went grocery shopping today. First time in 2 weeks. I live right on the state line so no deliveries available.
I got up early cause last week or so they had senior shopping at 6-7 AM. Not any more. 7-8 reserved for seniors. 75% of people had masks. I wore my silicone half mask. One guy just had his beard in the mask I have my usual dipped type work gloves and a spray bottle of alcohol in my car to 'wash' them. All the PPE gets to sit in the car for a week.

They seemed to have most stuff except rubbing alcohol, normal dishwasher machine soap and fresh meat was a little thin.

Any day now they can change the check out screen to pressure not touch cause touch doesn't work with gloves. Tried one of those rubber tipped 'pens' that come with phones/covers sometimes but those don't always work either.

Wiped all the refrigerated stuff down with alcohol when I got it home. Non-refrige can sit a couple days. Haven't figured out how to wash bananas  

Dairy section was pretty good but not much cream.

[low_48]

Our Menards now has enough groceries that I bought some on line when I ordered bird seed and sunflower seeds. Cost $11 extra, and oddly enough, they had all my groceries stacked loosely on a pallet. I guess they don't have bags in the back of the store yet?  Went to Costco on their seniors hour at 8am. Fairly relaxed shopping, but a crowd around the meat. With meat processors slowing or closing, meat could become the next TP. Items like tuna and canned chicken was limit of one 6 pack. Only TP was the mega gas station style rolls. No waiting at all for checkout, and they had an employee wiping down the carts. Odd times out there!

[Ukrop]

The first two weeks were awful. Some of the grocery shelves were empty and because of this, I wanted to panic. Fortunately, the situation has returned to normal. But I still wear a mask and gloves when I need to buy something. I try to keep a distance but some people don't understand that

[kantuckid]

In nearest town masks are seen but in my rural area I was the only one with a masks.

Wash a banana-give me a break
Hand wipes we keep for fuel-ups are NLA, as is most cut meat. Surprisingly ground beef was full @ 7a.m. wally as was dried pasta for a change and like always plenty of normal fresh produce.
Flour, meal and baking supplies are NLA. Box cereal is OK. Dairy seems better overall but the spray butter (I call it fake butter) I buy due to having stents has become NLA.
Sad to see farmers produce and dump off milk and field crops. The covid-19 rebound will see meats hard to come back over time. If I owned a restaurant, steak house type for sure, I'd be finding me some buddies in the livestock business right now!

[trapper]

Plenty of venison and rabbit in freezer til it is time to get some more. Still eating vegtables out of the freezer some from as old as 2016.  Stocking up on butter from kwik trip at $1.99 lb limit 5.  tp available at menards.  eggs 68 doz at aldis limit 2  Mask and gloves when shopping.  my mask is motorcycle helmet liner hood  n95 for wife.

[Walnut Beast]

Plenty of venison and rabbit in freezer til it is time to get some more. Still eating vegtables out of the freezer some from as old as 2016.  Stocking up on butter from kwik trip at $1.99 lb limit 5.  tp available at menards.  eggs 68 doz at aldis limit 2  Mask and gloves when shopping.  my mask is motorcycle helmet liner hood  n95 for wife.

I had some elk scraps that I took out of the freezer that was in there for 12 years and cooked it up for the dogs and tried some and it tasted fine 

[Walnut Beast]

Plenty of venison and rabbit in freezer til it is time to get some more. Still eating vegtables out of the freezer some from as old as 2016.  Stocking up on butter from kwik trip at $1.99 lb limit 5.  tp available at menards.  eggs 68 doz at aldis limit 2  Mask and gloves when shopping.  my mask is motorcycle helmet liner hood  n95 for wife.

I had some elk scraps that I took out of the freezer that was in there for 12 years and cooked it up for the dogs and tried some and it tasted fine

The bag was vacuum sealed

[Southside]

Went into town today and stopped in for a few things.  Saw a couple folks wearing gloves that I think they used to change the oil in their truck with before venturing in.  Yea - that's a sanitary way to do things.  

Cracked me up but made me sad at the same time to see pop up ads online featuring an attractive model, wet hair, leaning against a wall all doe eyed - wearing a mask they are selling.  Seriously, imagine telling folks that your portfolio consists of "mask modeling" - strange times.  Would not want to be in the dating pool these days.  Bump into her shopping cart as a way to say hello to later discover - "WHOA"     Used to be the worst that could happen was you ended up with bruised Artichoke heart with that move.  

[Raider Bill]

Went into town today and stopped in for a few things.  Saw a couple folks wearing gloves that I think they used to change the oil in their truck with before venturing in.  Yea - that's a sanitary way to do things.  

Cracked me up but made me sad at the same time to see pop up ads online featuring an attractive model, wet hair, leaning against a wall all doe eyed - wearing a mask they are selling.  Seriously, imagine telling folks that your portfolio consists of "mask modeling" - strange times.  Would not want to be in the dating pool these days.  Bump into her shopping cart as a way to say hello to later discover - "WHOA"     Used to be the worst that could happen was you ended up with bruised Artichoke heart with that move.  

Reminded me of "beer goggles"

[Texas Ranger]

[EOTE]

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Right there with you...

[Bill]

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Dang - surely you keep meat in the freezer longer than me !