The Barter Economy

I have a buddy who has always kept bees.  Even long before he got us involved with that addictive hobby.  Each week he would trade us 2 pints of his honey for our two gallons of fresh milk.  We had this arrangement for years.  I'm sure you are wondering, "What in the world did you do with all that honey?"  Well, we ate it and saved a bunch of it.  Honey will last forever.  It was a great arrangement.  The barter economy.  Two parties making a deal and both happy with the proceeds.  At that time, I was scared of bees and had no intention of keeping them.  My buddy did not want to wake up and milk cows everyday.  It worked for both of us.  

We no longer have that barter arrangement going, but we have another one that works for both of us.  Unfortunately, our friend no longer has laying hens.  Hawks, owls and other predators ate every last one of them.  What is one to do without fresh country eggs?  I don't know how you live without them.  We eat dozens and dozens of them.  Although he no longer has hens laying eggs, our friend has some land down by the bayou that is prime location for chanterelle mushrooms.  In the spring or early summer, after a rain, you can walk through the woods that slope down to the bayou and see the golden yellow chanterelles pushing up through the leaves that line the forest floor.  It doesn't take long to fill up a paper bag with them.  They smell faintly of apricots and they are so delicious to eat.

The other day we came home and found a paper bag by our door.  Upon opening it and seeing the contents, we knew exactly what they were and who they were from.  Chanterelles!  We quickly cleaned them up.

We dried them and cut them into bite-sized pieces.

Then we sautéed them in a cast iron skillet with some butter.

Tricia has recently discovered a new use (for us) for sour dough bread.  She makes sour dough pizza crusts that she lines with tomato sauce, cheese, fresh cut onions, peppers and fresh chanterelle mushrooms and then bakes them in the oven.

When these come out of the oven, I'm telling you, it's time to eat and these pizzas disappear in no time at all.  So good!

The barter economy is alive and well.  We got a nice mess of chanterelle mushrooms that we ate for supper and for those we traded our friend some fresh country eggs from our hens.  Everyone's happy.  No cash changed hands and no taxes paid or collected.  

The Barter Economy

Like a third world country, I heard on the radio that we're still relying on other countries to send us baby formula.  Someone said there is now a shortage of Idaho Potatoes?  Do we have a potato famine on the horizon?  Inflation is still at a 40 year high.  How will we combat this?  We were having this discussion.  I think it is wise that we have something on hand to barter with as the value of our dollar diminishes.

Which brings me to the brown paper bag you see sitting on the island in the kitchen.

I walked in and saw it and thought, "Now that is odd."  Tricia doesn't go to Burger King.  On the truly rare occasions that we get fast food, it'll be Popeye's Fried Chicken (spicy).  So I had to ask, "What's in the bag??"

Check it out!:

It's a half of a bag of fresh Chanterelle mushrooms.  Our beekeeping friend had found a big patch of them and picked them.  You're supposed to keep them in a paper bag.  He brought them by the house and wished to trade them for two dozen fresh eggs.  It was a good deal, so the trade was made.  In the past, we'd trade him two gallons of fresh, raw milk for two pints of his local honey.  If you can come to a deal where both parties are happy, which we are, you have a rare, win-win situation.

Tricia washed some of them up and sliced a big fat white onion.  I liked the direction this was going.

She added some butter to a black cast iron skillet and put the onions and chanterelles in the skillet.  They cooked down until the onions were translucent and then we were ready to eat.

I've been reading with much interest about the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents in the Inflation Reduction Act.  Hmmmm.  I happened to google if tax is owed on barter transactions.  Here's what I learned:

"Because "barter dollars," the fair market value of the goods and services you received, are taxed as if they are cash, you can owe income tax, self-employment tax, employment tax, or even excise tax on your bartering income – even if you don't actually receive a penny in cash."

You gotta be kidding me!  I'll be anticipating a knock at the door by one of the new 87,000 agents to collect from this transaction.  I'll see if they'll take mushrooms or eggs in payment instead of dollars.