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The local grocery salvage has been hit by Y2K shoppers.

Submitted entry: It truly has been a very productive morning to say the least here. We woke up and had leftover dinner for breakfast which freed up the time we usually spent cooking for eating and then we were on our way. Sage went to the house to work on the redesign of the Bryant Creek Watershed Atlas a big project that has really helped us financially and should continue to for some time given the scale of the redesign. While she did that, Paul and I got our warm clothes on and trooped off into the woods to gather wood. We have a plan to get a good sized woodpile set up but so far that hasn’t happened. So after an hour or so of gathering dead wood - which was really dry and beautifully seasoned - we had a couple of days of heat. I may get more later today. Then Kitey came for Paul and I spent the remaining hour or so catching up on email and writing.

We still have a fair amount to do today though. We’re expecting a couple of checks for web work that we’ll deposit in a new checking account - this one should have a debit card. Our plan is to use some money to buy a new graphics tablet - the used one we got on Ebay works intermittently and has to be unplugged every few minutes as it stops responding for no apparent reason. We also are going to move off of best.com to another server and maybe even get a domain name for ourselves finally. The debit card will allow us to do a bit more ecommerce and also to pay for the new server space too.

Last night was a kind of crabby night with regards to the stove. I put a big piece of wood that was a bit too green on. The result was that it smoked all night so I had to keep the damper nearly open, sending the heat outside. Despite that it was warm enough for me to sleep in sweats and t-shirt and without blankets for much of the night. I slept on the floor on one of Kitey’s rugs all night as an experiment. Paul is a light sleeper and every time I get up to tend the stove or pee he wakes up and has to nurse back to sleep sucking more of the energy for Sage leaving her famished by morning. He also wakes up really early - 5:30-6:00 when I get up to pee. This time I slept on the floor so he didn’t feel the bed or blankets move when I needed to wake up. The results were interesting. He didn’t nurse hardly at all until about 4:00 and slept until 7:15. It was nice waking up after the sun was up for a change. So anyway I might do this more often - move the rug next to the bed so I’m with everyone but sleep there and see how it works.

So anyway, we’re off to town in a few minutes if the checks came in. We’ll probably do a bit of food shopping as well since we’re already in town. I’ll be interested to see how the stocks of bulk food and canned goods are doing. The grocery salvage place really has been getting hit by people preparing for Y2K - one day you’ll go there and they’ll be fully stocked - the next you’ll go there and the shelves are bare of canned tomatoes, vegetables, fruit, pasta, rice. Me, I’m not expecting anything and am in fact more concerned about the prospect of getting stuck here in inclement weather - last year Casey & Crow were stuck here for two weeks after an ice storm during which luckily they didn’t lose power as the water pump and heater blower are both electric. Since then Crow has stocked up on bottled water and installed a woodstove so they’ll be okay. I’m really looking forward to after Y2K as I fully expect to see lots of generators, solar panels, fuel cells, windmills, and other non-electric appliances for sale there as people sell what they bought “just in case”. I can be hopeful anyway.

Cough cough, choke choke.

Spring is here?