Price increases

 Blessings Darlings!

We had another hard freeze Sunday night.  It did a lot of damage to my sprouting Swiss Chard, which we were hoping to use for salad and cooking greens right quick.  Most of the plants survived, but there will be delays.
HOWEVER - the freeze didn't bother the wild spring greens.  Today on my 10 minute break at work I filled a gallon bag with some lovely dead nettle.  It will become a creamy green topping for pasta tomorrow night. 
This all matters because my job exists, but doesn't really pay a living wage.  And the price of food has jumped . . . and so has the price of propane.  We are down to the point that out propane tank has only about 12% of its capacity left, about 51 gallons.  So I ordered another 100 gallons.  Which is more than 3 times the price per gallon it was when we first moved in here, some 4 or 5 years ago.  I DID get a small discount for our first fill, I'm sure.  But with Covid induced price increases (due to workers missing work from illness and/or deaths, leading to supply problems) followed by supply pressure from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, added to the fact that the past month was 3 degrees F colder here than it had been one year before (and that year wasn't a warm one) - I'm going to be spending $500 to just get 100 gallons of propane.  100 gallons.  We usually use 400 gallons a year.  In November I spent $1400 on propane (we really were sucking fumes at that point, 4% left in the tank).  It looks as if I'll be spending at LEAST $2000 for propane this year.
I expect there will be a lot of weed - excuse me, wild crafted vegetable eating in our future. 
Frondly, Fern