Losing Track of Time

It seems like I was just here posting, but I look at my calendar and it's been a week. Idaho currently has 1,170 confirmed cases of Covid-19. That number is just an illusion. We (our country) still don't have enough test kits, and we are still only testing people that check all the boxes as far as symptoms go. If someone dies of Covid-19 and they were never tested, they still do not get tested. Not tested means not reported. There's no comfort in that number. We know it's far worse than what is reported.

New York has 131,916 cases and 8,898 deaths now! It's terrifying.

Mostly I try not to dwell on our situation and how unprepared we are as a country. Being at home we have lost all track of time. Weekends do not feel like weekends, and weekdays do not feel like weekdays, despite the fact that we are all working or studying from home.

Spring has arrived and that is something to smile about. It's been rainy and gloomy, but the light is changing, and it's starting to green up outside. I love Spring.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is recommending that people wear homemade cloth masks when they have to leave their houses for essential supplies. This is so that people who have the disease and don't exhibit symptoms and/or don't know they are infected cannot infect others. It doesn't protect the person wearing the mask from catching the virus, but it is a good reminder not to touch your face.

I made masks like this for my family, and I'm continuing to make more for others until I run out of elastic and fusible interfacing.

Wearing an N95 mask can protect you from catching the virus they are in short supply and must only be used by health care workers and first responders. There isn't enough personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care workers and it's ugly.

Working at home is weird. After the first day I really struggled to stay focused. Today was better, but it's so isolating. I'm thankful for the home gym we set up in our basement last year, because sometimes I need to just get up and walk on the treadmill. It's also nice to be able to start a load of laundry and move it when it's ready for the dryer when I need a break from sitting. Staying up on the little chores like that is easy when you're working at home.

When we aren't working on work, we try to make a little progress on any one of our million projects we have going on at any given time. Whenever we can be outside, it's much easier to put the virus out of our minds.

Here is my dry creek bed. It was looking so much nicer in August, before we had to pull a large section up in order to dig a trench to run a propane line. Our oil furnace died so we took the opportunity to switch to a propane furnace. It was a lot of work, but we don't have the diesel smell when our heater is running now, and we're actually spending half of what we used to spend on heating because our new furnace is a high efficiency furnace and not 30 years old like the last one.

We got it all put back together before the snow flew, and then we had a crisis with our well at Christmas and had to dig another trench through the same general area. We were digging for a week solid starting Christmas Day. It was horrible, miserable, work. Over spring break we got that trench mostly filled in, and now we're starting to put it all back together again. If we get some nice weather this week, I should be able to right everything and move onto newer projects.

I'm very excited about this project that Peanut Head has been working on. These are new roosts for our chickens.

The best part is the tray that collects the droppings. It slides out in order for me to empty it. It will save me so much time when I clean the coop. 

Sadly our flock is down from 13 to two hens and one rooster. We lost five hens to a predator last spring when we were letting them free range. We even lost two babies. Then several weeks ago we lost another four hens to a predator, again when they were free ranging. Needless to say we aren't letting them free range anymore unless we are outside with them. We get one egg every other day now. Bad timing.

We recently bought three Rhode Island Reds and three Sapphire Gem chicks, but one of the Sapphire Gems died. 😥 We've also ordered six Brahmas that we are hoping to get this month. I love the Brahmas because they are big and they have hairy feet. Or maybe that's feathery feet. It will be fall before any of the new hens start laying.

We got out for a hike on Friday when the weather was just barely decent. We went to Menan Buttes and it was nice. It was a little over four miles with a lot of vertical incline and a lot of rocky terrain.

My family kicked my trash and I was sore the following day. Honestly, we haven't been hiking together since Zoe was a baby. It was a nice afternoon.

Baney was exhausted too. He's snoozing right behind me.

Here's a better picture. I love his sweet little crossy legs. His crossy legs are what made me fall in love with him. He's such a Delicate Flower.

The New Normal

Only businesses which provide essential services are allowed to remain open. That includes grocery stores, trucking companies, doctors and hospitals, etc. Hair and nail salons are, of course, not considered essential. That means Peanut Head wasn't able to get his monthly haircut at Great Clips, and as his hair grows out, he tends to look a little like a Q-tip. Thus, I was forced to start a little side hustle by giving Peanut Head the first hair cut at #CoronaCuts over the weekend. He will likely be my only customer as the girls aren't that desperate.

Today was my first day working at home. We expect to be under this Stay at Home order through the end of April, so this is going to be our new normal. Idaho currently has 423 confirmed cases of Covid-19.

I sat down at my desk at 8:00 a.m. this morning and got to work. I was actually pretty productive, which was a pleasant surprise. This was only day one though.

The girls were also busy with school and Peanut Head was working in his temporary office in the basement. When he turned to go downstairs this morning I said "Have a nice day at work, Honey." He thinks I'm whackadoodle.

I was happy to see that our internet supported the four of us working throughout the day, although only one of us at a time participated in video meetings.

I haven't been away from home since the middle of last week when I couldn't find flour anywhere, and my friend, John, surprised me with a 25 pound bag of flour. I have never had a 25 pound bag of flour before, and you can't just store it on a shelf.

I ended up dividing it into five one gallon freezer bags. I'm thankful for the flour.

Modeling by scientists tells us that the worst is yet to come. Two weeks from now New York will be at its peak of infections, which is insane because today they have 67,325 confirmed cases and 1,342 deaths. Governor Cuomo implored any available health professions to please come to New York to help. It gave me goosebumps.

The United States has 163,932 confirmed cases and 3,169 deaths. Worldwide there are 790,111 confirmed cases, and 37,896 deaths. It should be noted that we don't necessarily trust the numbers coming out of certain countries. China, for example.

It may sound corny, but we are living through history right now.

Waiting for Spring and Freedom

I feel like I'm in a dystopian novel. Idaho currently has 189 confirmed cases of Covid-19. More than double what we had two days ago. New York has 38,977 cases, and the United States as a whole has 85,476 cases. We have now surpassed China and Italy for the number of infections.  

Yesterday I went into town to get groceries, since I was going I planned to pick up more landscaping bricks at Home Depot since I have time on my hands this week. Well, one of the entrances was blocked off and they were controlling how many people could be in the store at a time. Their magic number was 100. While waiting to get in, customers were to stand the required six feet apart. X marks the spot.

While checking out, the cashier warned me that Winco was doing the same thing, except she thought their magic number was 200.

Here's Winco. I power walked to the entrance to claim my spot in line, but I still had to wait about ten minutes to get in on a Wednesday in the middle of the day. 

I wanted to get a bag of flour to keep my food storage stocked up, but there was zero flour. Also, no chicken noodle soup, ice cream, or decent hot dogs. I didn't need the ice cream anyway. I was just checking for a friend. Riiiight.

While I was in the store, I got a notification on my phone that Governor Little finally ordered a 21-day shelter in place. He took too ding dang long on that call, in my opinion.

Upon seeing the shortages, and then getting that notification, I think I panicked a little. I told the fam when I got home that we weren't going grocery shopping again for two weeks because I had just spent two weeks worth of budgeted grocery money in one trip.

Fred Meyer didn't have any flour either and now I know that there is a national shortage. I think it's because everyone is making cookies during quarantine. I know that I've been eating more than usual while on lockdown. I think it's the anxiety.

We're trying to be careful about not letting food go to waste. Here is Peanut Head making tortillas and quesadillas with leftover ingredients from tacos and other assorted items. They were pretty good.

Stinkerbell finally decided to do her chores. She either doesn't do her chores at all, which makes me lose my mind, or she does do them and goes a little overboard. I snapped this picture after she had moved all the family room furniture into the kitchen so she could vacuum. Then she dusted each piece with precision and returned them to their rightful place. Here she has just dumped everything out of the drawer of that side table so she can dust each item inside the drawer as well as the table itself. Items which she felt did not belong in the drawer, she deposited on my bed for me to figure out what to do with. She doesn't know this, but I just put it all back in the drawer when she wasn't looking. She didn't get her passive aggressive behavior from her Daddy, that's for sure.

My plan is to stay home and not go back to town until we desperately need something. Monday Peanut Head and I start telecommuting and the girls start online school. That's going to be interesting, for sure. Until next time, stay safe.