Welcome to General Chat - GAW Community Area
This General Chat area started off as a place for people to talk about things that are off topic, however it has quickly evolved into a community and has become an integral part of the GAW experience for many of us.
Based on its evolving needs and plenty of user feedback, we are trying to bring some order and institute some rules. Please make sure you read these rules and participate in the spirit of this community.
Rules for General Chat
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Be respectful to each other. This is of utmost importance, and comments may be removed if deemed not respectful.
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Avoid long drawn out arguments. This should be a place to relax, not to waste your time needlessly.
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Personal anecdotes, puzzles, cute pics/clips - everything welcome
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Please do not spam at the top level. If you have a lot to post each day, try and post them all together in one top level comment
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Try keep things light. If you are bringing in deep stuff, try not to go overboard.
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Things that are clearly on-topic for this board should be posted as a separate post and not here (except if you are new and still getting the feel of this place)
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If you find people violating these rules, deport them rather than start a argument here.
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Feel free to give feedback as these rules are expected to keep evoloving
In short, imagine this thread to be a local community hall where we all gather and chat daily. Please be respectful to others in the same way
Hey pedes, big corp just went into a new mode- quick, find everything we rely on from China and what would be affected if, hypothetically, they suddenly stopped sending it. So, just in case, maybe ask yourselves the same thing and whether that might impact what you buy this week. Hypothetically.
No take out then , I guess. all joking aside, the worst of it is the big chain grocery stores, you can check a piece of hardware for made in China, a lot of companies are good with labeling, "made in USA", clothing is harder, we just do not make textiles in the USA anymore, save for some specialty, expensive companies. Its the food that is processed over in China, the farmed fish, tilapia, salmon, shrimp. You have to check for the "country of origin", and fyi Full Circle Organic products, available at many big box chain groceries, are labelled in small print "responsibly made in China". Generic brand apple juice, from China. Companies ship live poultry all the way to China for processing, and then ship it back frozen for US customers. Caveat Emptor.
How insane. Trying to minimize supermarket trips, replacing with farm visits and farmers markets, but yeah the amount of crap from China is overwhelming. I used to work near Hanes Mill - yep, cotton mill clothing central. Not a trace that they ever made anything there, just their names on buildings they contributed to. I try to find clothing at least made anywhere else, especially the Americas, to help industry there so they stop coming here lol
But collectively we'll need a huge growth in manufacturing to replace all the chips, small appliances, tools, housewares, etc. Pots and pans! I mean, car iron is awesome but we have glass stovetops. Just think of all the plastic and silicone and bamboo junk in the dollar stores and cringe...
I recently learned about apple juice and its most major brands. There's a very tiny black stamp on the bottle, made in china. China uses human waste for fertilizer and they don't discard the rotten fruit. Whole Foods (Amazon) saw a clip on social, their frozen vegetables are from China. It blows my mind how much produce is from Canada. Even in the summer green house grown tomatoes from Canada. They don't even taste like a tomato. When I grew up and maybe as far back as 10-15 years ago we only had in season produce. Now just as much watermelon in January as July. I don't buy it because it's crap. I'm still waiting to get a decent mango. I really don't understand why this crop looks either rotten or doesn't ripen. Traditionally mangoes are better in the winter in USA because they come from South America but now they aren't the same. Probably so toxins. I only eat seafood I know is caught locally from the NC coast. (Or any other coastal area) All the big chain restaurants seafood is very bad.
NC here too! Signing up to help the Robinson campaign; our children will put up statues of this man if we can get him into the governor's seat.
We moved here for many reasons but when we did, we looked to be outside the cities and close to farms. From city folk to Green Acres lol, we even got invited to a backyard chicken processing 'party' this weekend. While we miss mangoes and other tropical delights, we've learned the difference between local clean produce and whatever these monsters are that show up in the stores... Apples that don't go brown are not natural. Learning tons from our wonderful neighbors, guard geese, pig farming, chickens and food plots, goats, bees... farmers markets are the right future for US.
Replace a pine with a fruit tree, people! (And use the wood chips to mulch it!) Swap out annual flowers and plant berries or bush beans. Arbors look great with cucumbers or tomatoes. Our families in Chile talk about car ports covered in grapevines, I think that could work great here too. I found neighbors who have pesky bamboo; years ago I would have thought, what a pain, now I think- free sticks for trellises! How the turns tide for us recovering city folk, kek.