Aww Shucks

Anyone who has ever taught their kids history class at home has encountered the discussion of how people used the bartering system in the past. We have used different curriculum's and they have all explained in great detail how the bartering system works. Even this year, studying Egypt, they didn't have a money system, they had a bartering system.



A couple of years ago the kids would have dutifully acknowledged what I was trying to teach them and moved on. They have not done that since Knight has worked his current job. They are now very aware of the barter system. Since we have all of these outdated Little Debbie products that we are able to sell, give, or eat to our discretion, we have lived the barter system out well. We do sell the out dates to either businesses that are looking for that kind of thing, to some friends for lunch boxes and snacks, and we also give some away, but we trade them. A lot.



We don't usually pay for milk anymore. We trade the milk vendor for L.D.'s. We also trade one of the bread vendors, one of the potato chip vendors, and on a rare occasion one of the pop vendors. He even trades some of his customers L.D.'s for gasoline. It's one of the benefits to owning your own company. It's legal and somewhat free.



This time of year we have an extra added bonus. He has found a couple people wanting to trade fresh corn for L.D.'s. We had found one farmer last year that thought this was the best thing ever, and had looked forward to Knight coming back this year. They had ran out of the L.D.'s in late spring, as they stuck them in the freezer and made them last.



As a side note here, Knight doesn't think small. Ever. When he sees a deal, he will buy as much as he can justify.



You can see where this is going, can't you?



Last year he traded that farmer two boxes of out dates for 24 dozen ears of corn. Yeah, 288 ears of corn. Oh yes he did. We were shucking for 2 days, and it took hours to cut off the cob and put in the freezer.



So this year, he did things differently.



About a month ago he came home and said that the store up the road begged him to trade, so he only brought home a 50 pound feed sack (think about the size of a 50 lb dog food bag, but thicker) full of corn, plus about 2 dozen in a box. He didn't want to take too much since he still was going to trade the farmer. It was probably a total of 10 dozen, give or take a dozen.



So two weeks ago he brought home 11 dozen.



A day of shucking, another day of cooking, cutting, bagging and freezing.



Then this weekend he picked up the rest of the corn. Another 14 dozen. This time we did most of the shucking, cooking, cutting, bagging and freezing in a day.



Here are the things you learn...

1. Even with an electric knife, your hands hurt by the end of the day

2. Even with the electric knife off, if it is falling and you think to catch it, you will get cut.

3. The kids shuck better when they are watching Disney.com on the laptop while shucking.

4. 14 dozen ears of corn, cut off the cob, fills about 5, 5 quart ice cream pails full of corn

5. Corn freezes well on the cob, but takes up a lot of room

6. Corn also cooks roasted on a stick over an open fire (like you would roast a marshmallow)