More of Some Things, Less of Others

I was cleaning up the kitchen after dinner when the husband came to the house with another one of these:

He’s found both of them out by the new shop. I might take a walk over there today and see what’s up. The husband opined that perhaps the UPS driver felt bad for me and decided to deliver some. This one also went to live in the garden.

I made another batch of salsa yesterday:

I ran 12 quarts of this through the canner last evening—for a total of 24 quarts so far—and I’ll probably have enough for another 12-14 quarts today. And there is no end in sight for the tomatoes. Oh, well. There are worse problems to have. I’ll just keep going until I run out of something. This is money we don’t have to spend buying salsa at Costco.

I am mentally cataloging shortages when I shop; at the moment, our stores have most things but the items that are missing are weird, like yogurt. I am comfortable with the level of our personal supplies, though. I’ve been musing on what might happen when the backlog of container ships finally gets unloaded at some of these ports, especially with regard to fabric. Fabric manufacturers ramped up to releasing many more lines each year—some of them seasonal—but then those lines got held up in production, delivery, or both. A store that ordered Fourth of July fabric for March 2021 delivery and didn’t get it until August is going to have to pay for and hold that fabric until next spring. They’ll probably cut back on ordering any additional fabric until they clear that inventory. I will be curious to see in what ways and how extensively these delays ripple through the industry.

I noticed yesterday that new Christmas fabric has started to arrive at Joanns. I saw a bolt of that cat Christmas fabric that I was hunting for last year to finish some Christmas stockings. I ended up buying a yard on Etsy to finish the stockings, but it’s now back in stock in the store. My sense from previous years is that Joanns had new Christmas fabric available by mid-summer, at least—crafters would need enough lead time to make items for fall gift bazaars—but I am only now starting to see new stock on the shelves.

I am the one who said that I thought things were getting out of hand—a new fabric line for each season still seems a bit excessive to me—so I may be getting what I wished for. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Shortages often spur greater creativity in using what is available.

I am off to chop onions, pepper, and tomatoes.