It might be the shift scheduling. Our local McD's manager will actually do set hours for employees, and publish the schedule a week in advance, then let employees trade if someone has a medical appointment or school thing. Burger King does not give a set hours, no guaranteed hours, and puts the schedule out on Saturday night for Sunday morning. It doesn't do anyone any good to be offered $19 an hour, and then have no idea if they will get hours much less how many hours. So $13 at McD's and guaranteed 25 hours per week or even more is something they can count on.

I can totally see Burger King offering $19 and getting no one. They have a reputation for nasty policies and incompetent management. McD's pays less here, but as a reputation for treating employees a bit better, and management with more training.

In our area, the not showing up after being hired is often the result of the person finding a job at better pay before their start date. They should be calling to say that. However, I get it. Ds applied to numerous companies, interviewed, and never heard back. He took a job with a company that is turning out to be great, really awesome. But some of those companies have started calling him 2-3 months AFTER interviews that were followed by stone silence, and asking when he can start. When he tells them he accepted employment elsewhere, he gets sworn at by HR people who apparently think he should have turned down gainful employment while waiting for them to make a decision. Looking directly at Rolls Royce here! 😠 I think many times some of these HR departments even when they make a job offer, do it in such a way or with so many caveats that if the person can find a job somewhere else before they even start, they will, and if they have already been jerked around by the former HR department, they won't feel compelled to bother with the courtesy of a phone call. I still think they should communicate this, but I get why it may happen. Obviously, that is only one scenario and doesn't explain the phenomenon in every circumstance.

I am still in Alabama, two more days, and then Dd and sil are on their own for a while. He got put on a very flexible work from home account, and her health has drastically improved. So I get to go home and stay for a good, long while. Therefore, I am about to embark on a great frenzy of sewing. I have four lap quilts, eight draft dogs, and three sets of window quilt/draft curtains to make. These are all Christmas presents. I will try to remember to post photos as I go.

$9.87 in actuality. Federal is of course $7.25. The medical care facilities have refused to raise CNA pay above 10.50 an hour. Taco Bell is paying $12.50. So no CNA's.

Fell epically off the healthy bandwagon tonight. Sausage gravy and biscuita. Sigh. But they sure tasted yummy.

Sure. Send me an email with questions, and I will do my best to answer them.

About college. What I see happening is colleges actively wooing, vying for the kids whose parents pay cash...the ones with parents who saved generously their whole lives for their education, kids who come from upper middle class and wealthy homes. The poor, ramen noodle kids aren't living on campus because the size of scholarships has two dwindled dramatically in the face of huge tuition/room and board increases, and financial aid is not generous. Those kids take 11 credit hours a semester which allows them to move off campus because they are not traditional, full time freshmen, and live five -six people to small abodes rented off campus eating tuna and noodles all the time. I know plenty of them. They try to get out in four to four and half years by taking 6-8 credits every summer if they can afford it, and if the right courses are offered. Middle class kids often would prefer some cheap, bare bones dorms as a balance to rising costs, but colleges refuse to provide them since that doesn't help them woo the rich American studrnts, and the full pay foreign students. U diversified also tend to have a high number of commuter students who have parents living close enough that they can stay at home and save rooming costs. So all of those crazy, over the top amenities tend to be there for just the upper echelon of students. Our two eldest kids long distance commuted to campus, our middle son lived on campus and eventually though he was in the cheapest dorms, could not afford to stay since we could not afford to give him more money, and moved off campus with four friends in a two bedroom dump of an apartment that they shared until we pitched a fit about the condition of the place, and found means to help the four of them get into something safe. Our last was in the cheapest dorms possible at his state school, and managed to stay there all for years due to enough scholarships that with our parental contributions and his summer earnings, he could manage it.

I just wanted to say that the prices of used cars has gone through the roof to the point that for our 22 year old, it was not worth getting a "junker". The price tag for a nag that was going to break down every few weeks was absolutely ridiculous so it was far better to help him buy newer by giving down payment money and co signing the loan. I know many parents in that same boat. It was the only way to get their young adults into any kind of safe transportation. Also, in my parents' day, they seriously did not worry about safety issues. And those issues did not impact car insurance prices. Parents now tend to think about safety more on top of the fact that car insurers now charge an astronomical amount for cars without modern safety features, and those features must be proven to be in working order. Over the life of the car, literally having or not having side curtain airbags alone was enough to make the price difference between an older model vs. a newer model, cost prohibitive. Unless used car prices on older models go way down, I think we will continue to see a lot of parents helping their young adults get newer cars.

This is so astute! A McDonalds, Taco Bell, Burger King, Dollar General, and CVS on every street corner of every city in America is not a sustainable plan. Corporate expansion though had never been about long term planning, but always about short term gain. " Oh look, we are expanding". Stock price skyrockets. Investors make a killing. Then boom, oh wait, we don't have customers and employees for all of these places. Stock tumbles. And round that ring we go again. No one ever blames the corporate fat cats making these decisions though...just the regular Joe trying to make a living, and living on a budget that does not include eating out 7 nights a week, and buying knickknack crap and candy all the live long day.

Also, I have been told that lavender, rosemary, and mint is the trifecta of "stay away" for rodents and insects. I do not know if that is actually true. But, just figured I would add that. Everyone can choose to try it at their own peril! 😁

Not guaranteeing hours is a big deal. A new department store is set to open in the county seat. They want to hire 40 people, of which only 20 will be give more than 20 hours per week. The other 20 are on call, no notice workers, no guaranteed hours, and many will be fired after the Christmas rush. Management is mad that no one is applying. Well duh! People have to be able to make a living. They will choose to go to the tire center, the pharmacy, the good hardware where the employers give their employees 40 hours a week, pay competitively, and treat them decently. I just want to say to all of these kinds of wishy washy employers, "Stop, Whining! Karma is a b*tch. You reap what you sow." As for other issues, my husband's company also had a massive wave of retirement in IT when the return to work for those without permanent work remote agreements came into play, and everyone was giving up covid protocols. They were in that 59.5-65 age range where they could access their 401K without penalty, and if they could swing insurance, had the option to not return. His company had hundreds of positions to fill. I am happy for the new college hires. They brought on a whole bunch and are mentoring them through. Dh has four to mentor, and he is so impressed with them. They have been well educated, and are catching on quickly. There will be another wave of retirement in three or four years, and so they will all be eligible for promotions. He waited so much longer than that when he was young in his career despite his skill set being phenomenal. So I am thrilled for these young workers.

Oh, I agree. The whole system is nuts, and the American diet needs to change, for sure. Animal welfare needs to be a BIG deal to everyone. I am just not sure how to make that happen. I suspect though we could make a start by including this in middle and high school education so young adults become better consumers, and by having much better school lunches. Mediterranean diet based is yummy, heavy on vegetables, lighter on meat. This of course means investing in having dietitians and trained chefs/cooks for schools who can present these new food items and combinations in ways that children who have little exposure in the home will find enticing. I would love for it to be a rapid change, but suspect it is going to require one or two generations if we start now, to accomplish it since food culture s and eating traditions are hard to change. Of course, climate change, by necessity, may speed that process up as less choice to continue eating the standard American fare becomes the new norm. My sister has sent me photos of school lunches in France when she was teaching English in middle.school, and I wanted to cry. They were so tantalizing robust. She said her school had culinary trained chefs in charge of the kitchens so the food didn't just loom good, it tasted wonderful.

This is how it is meant locally. The very same people who complain about kids being "freeloaders" are also the ones consuming far more in social security and Medicare benefits than they ever paid in. While I don't have an issue with that because I think a civilized nation should simply take care of folks, I do have a massive issue with the hypocrisy of it. I think it is often just a way for employers degrade an entire generation as an excuse for treating them poorly. Here, fast food and grocery stores refuse to publish the weekly shift schedule more than one day in advance. How are they supposed to schedule doctor's appointments, car repairs, or anything else with less than 48 hours notice? These same employers refuse to give any kind of regular set schedule. It is beyond unpredictable. I suspect it is this way so that they force people to be absent, and then use it as an excuse to never give pay raises for promotions.

With this I agree. I really cannot stand how livestock is treated in commercial meat production. I am paying $4.00 a dozen for farm fresh from happy chickens. But, I also do recognize that for many folks, it isn't a matter of ethics for them because they lice pay check to pay check, and paying a lot more for eggs or chicken or whatever when feeding hungry children just isn't in the cards. The system here is just nuts. If we had universal healthcare and a decent safety net, then more folks could vote with their money on the ethical/moral issues with food production. And beg nd that, there should be a LOT more regulation. It should simply be illegal to cram 12 chickens into a tiny cage where they can't move foe two year before being sent to the Campbell's soup plant. Ugh!

Dh and I roll ours tight - it takes two of us to do it, tie down as tight as possible, and then wrap in one of our camping tarps, store in the rafters of shed.

100% spot on. We cannot pollute the earth endlessly and still expected it to produce lovely crops of food.

Good job, Gardenmom dh!!!

My tomatoes were not prolific. When I bought two bushels to can, I had a lot of loss...hard, green, almost calcified spots inside that had to be cut out. I bought each of those bushels from different farms, so I have to wonder if there wasn't some sort of weather/climate/mineral deficiency thing involved. Dh absolutely loaded my raised beds with leaves to compost, and I had put all of my apple feelings and trimmings in the beds before the leaves along with some other vegetable and fruit refuse being careful to not introduce seeds. That will compost all winter. Then I am going to add some more organic compost from my favorite Mennonite farmer. It will have some composted chicken manure in it. Mix and mix. I am hoping that if I do that and then add some tomato food/fertilizer mid way through the season, I will get good tomatoes and a lot of them. I am putting in 15 plants in the hopes of having enough ripe at one time to process 7 pints in a batch. I hate going to all the work to get less than 7 jars since canning is such a pain. But if I don't, I am going to blanch, remove the skins, and then fill quart size freezer bags and freeze. I told dh to start looking for another small, used chest freezer that I could just fill with tomatoes. Then when I get enough accumulated, I can thaw them and make pasta sauce, chili, and barbecue sauce to can. Of course, the best laid plans of mice and men.........

I am so sorry. And yes, lazy was his parenting style. Not acceptable. But, there is just no way to make a lazy parent step up. Sigh.

Whoo boy, that should be a wild ride!

The threat of having to deal with that which they do not want to deal is ineffective on a lot of men. They have to care so deeply for their kids above themselves that they want to replicate what mom does. Sadly, most men who cheat, have a mid life crisis and chase fantasies, etc. do not care for their kids more than themselves or they would have controlled themselves to begin with. They won't make costumes, care two hoots about dioramas, will not oversee homework, will not answer their phones when the school calls, will stick their kids on the bus to school sick, and will feed them junk food. I watched my own brother refuse to stop chasing tail, then get 50/50 custody when she finally couldn't take it anymore and filed for divorce. He promptly sat on his a$$ and did exactly nothing for his kids. Nothing. They ate chocolate donuts for breakfast followed by a can of Mountain Dew, he did less than nothing when it came to school, could not even be bothered to provide properly sized clothing, and he refused to answer his phone at work if it was the school calling. My nephews were feral in his care. So many times my mother ended up taking care of sick grandkids whom the school released to her even though they didn't have permission to do so just to get kids with strep and stuff out of there. I have seen so many men do this. I known quite a few who just ran off, out of state, and refused to see their kids again so they couldn't be bothered with parenting, and all the while being s.o.b's about paying child support which was a pathetically low amount leaving their kids in poverty. People who do not want to parent, do not step up to the plate and actually parent just because there was a divorce. Parents who truly care about their kids' well being do not bust up their marriages unless the mom is not a good person, and he actively wants to single parent. I do know a man who did that. His wife was abusive, and he got his ducks in a row so he could prove she was unfit, won sole custody, and worked his butt off as a single parent to provide, parent, and raise responsible, well adjusted young adults.

I agree Melissa! And the other aspect of this is that here in the states, the medical system is built on the notion that there is a bevy of females who following childcare will remain out of the work force to care for elders as well, and this will also not be respected, nor financially reimbursed. Literally, the system assumes females should do all the hardwork of caring for ALL humans, and then be degraded and poverty stricken as their reward. It is a type of very serious oppression that isn't acknowledged here. Is it the same in Australia, or is there a more robust system for caring for the elderly?

Carol, how old is your pomegranate tree? When did it start producing? The one we just planted is 3 year old stock.

You are doing great! I am so sorry about covid. UGH!!! Here in Alabama, we did get the fruit trees and raspberries in and when they had the three nights of frost, we covered them with sheets tied down around their trunks or anchored over the plants with rocks. Everything is looking good, and since it had warmed up, there is new growth. So in total, one nectarine, two peaches, one pomegranate, and two raspberries went in to join the two kiwi and one fig planted last spring plus the already established blackberries, blueberries, and mulberries. The rosemary is still going well, and Dd is still getting cherry tomatoes off the potted plant which we pulled inside when it was cold. She is going to try growing kale and chives inside as well as bean sprouts in a jar on the kitchen windowsill. I need to start plants for her. She is going to be down in March and won't be able to start her raised beds. She will have 8/ 4' x4' beds when we are done building them. She wants me to put in Amish paste tomatoes for her to can, cherry tomatoes, and a ton of green beans and brussel sprouts. She has wooden planters for salad greens and green onions. I figure that if she wants to make even 7 pints of salsa, 7 of pasta sauce, and 14 quarts for making her Mexican gumbo and her favorite chili, then she is going to need 15 plants in order to have enough ripe at once to be worth the effort to process. She does have room to freeze some of them.