What I found with my Mortgage Lifters (besides a very limited harvest time because they took so long to mature*) was that their best flavor exists for only about 2 days: About 1/3 of the time if I chose the right day to pick them, they were quite good, if eaten right away. Shelf life was ok for use in most recipes, but in a sandwich or just sliced and eaten, they were very mediocre if not used very promptly.
I’m thinking that next year I should start 3-4 Mortgage Lifters indoors from seed VERY early, so I have about 3 foot tall plants to take out to the garden after frost danger has mostly passed, in a setup where I can cover them if we do get frost. Buying 5” tall plants in a 6-pack gave me a very late harvest, as I complained on here last Fall! Ditto for my plants from seed, which were the same height by the time Menards got Mortgage Lifters in. My Lifter’s fruits barely made it to harvest B4 frost, and by then the plants were too tall for me to easily cover them.
(This year I have some fully overwintered ML’s that I deliberately started early last fall and semi-starved overwinter so they would not grow too large. I’m not sure how that is going to work out - the transition outdoors has been poor.)
Yesterday was ammo day: Academy Sports has a $30 off deal on a $50 purchase* (doesn’t have to be ammo) if you get their credit card. They let you pay it off at the store, so, although I don’t like having another account to keep track of, by paying it off right away I don’t have anything extra to track - at least for now. I only make purchases @ Academy every blue moon, and don’t have any advantage in using this card for anything else.
*That may be an incorrect figure for the minimum purchase - I wasn’t paying close attention.
I only needed a few specifics:
9 mm shotshell rounds for the little 9mm handgun I picked up on sale last year for something more compact to tote, either for CC or for my pack when fishing / camping. These shotshells are just for the rare instance of running into a poisonous snake in an “unavoidable” situation, or if kids are around or frequent the area.
Hollow point 9 mm rounds for personal defense. I really would have preferred heavier subsonic rounds, but, 115 gram was all they had. (In almost any personal defense situation where I’d be using 9 mm hollow point rounds with this little pistol, the “advantages” of higher fps are not, so far as I can see...) (I already have plenty of FMJ for target practice.)
Hollow point 22WMR rounds for scoped .22 Magnum rifle my Dad gave me. (Dang nice gun.) Basically just in case I need to take out a large vicious dog or maybe an exceptionally big raccoon. Possible “backup” uses or for wifey if the New Madrid fault repeats its 1811-12 antics, which it will do someday, the question being if I’ll still be around and “functional” for the experience. Essentially no transportation in for months - yeah, that could get dicey! But, I have heavier / more capable weapons for that scenario...
Subsonic 22LR hollow point rounds. I haven’t been exceptionally happy with using my .22 1000 fps (with alloy pellet) pellet rifle to take out these raccoons the last few days, 3 of which have been ~ 25+ lb. animals. Even with near perfect head shots, sometimes it takes them 30 seconds or so to die. I want to minimize their suffering without waking up the neighborhood at 3 a.m.... These should of course be good in our .22 rifle for small game in the “New Madrid Shakeup” situation too, and should be great in my .22 long barrel revolver: It makes for a better / flexible light but not too light weapon than my other presently owned options for 3 a.m. chicken house commotion investigations too...