Corona Missives

Here we are quarantining ourselves as easy as we can.  No fraternizing or family hugs.  Boo hiss.  But we and our family are virus free.  Hooray!  Haven't seen our little great-grandson at all and he now has a baby brother coming in September.  We really miss all of them.

Friends have gifted us with more homemade masks.  We've been WYZE to get some standard surgical and 10 KN95's to protect us from individuals (Trumpers) we come in contact with who will not wear masks.

Summer may never come to our area this year.  Everything is green with the every other day showers.  Some days, if we are lucky, the temperatures reach 75.  But, my oh my, we are so happy to be here than experiencing the heat in Phoenix at 115 degrees!

This is probably the longest we have stayed at home for almost forever.  Including NO dinners out.  Feeling better about creating our own meals than others doing so.  All grocery shopping is done for 2 weeks to save getting germy.  Found out freezing eggs in the shell is not a way my mom would have recommended.  Ugh!

Eating less beef after the price has jumped $4 a pound.  Of course, we could afford that as Google told us we only drove 65 miles last month (seems like a lot of miles to go to the post office and Costco--whatever).  And used only 1 1/2 gallons of gas.  

Have pleased many birds.  Chickadees, goldfinches, house finches, hummers, and flickers.  They love the food and bring their off-spring to learn where the goodies are.  Missing for a long time were robins! and sparrows.  Probably another neighbor has better food!   

Great fun feeding and watching the high jinks of the gray squirrels.  Even new babies.  High count was 7.  Down to 2 now.  1 crossed the road too slow and 4 were disposed of by a neighbor who believes they are rodents....well, yes.

Watching too much TV.  In shock and disbelief that the country we have always believed in was smart enough to conquer all hiccups - isn't.  Been reading a number of newly released tell-alls.  That's depressing too.

After having medical checkups, we decided to postpone the Seattle specialists appointments until the CHOP protest zone and the marches quieted down or left the area.

Dean chopped down a bedraggled 20' tree in our yard.  Laurie was in charge of pulling on the rope to keep it from decimating the neighbor's fence or the lilac tree or pulling down the electrical line.  Success. 

Then the energetic fellow* dug the tree roots (lots of roots) out by hand and has nice grass growing now.  (*energetic fellow - lying on the ground - looked to be an elderly man who had fallen and passers-by checked to see if he was ok).

Laurie is having great fun enjoying piddling around her garden beds.  Especially, watching the summer blooms and learning more about how good these plants bloom when they get fertilized regularly.  A bit of a problem with slugs who enjoyed all the beer she left them.  What a waste of beer.  Sluggo is working well now.

A few of my pretty flowers.  

 

 

Getting a great crop of raspberries and strawberries in the garden 
but still bought a flat of each and made some freezer jam from both. 
Strawberry jam "syrup", ah well.  For the first time, we have a bunch of plums (meaning more than one) ripening.  Soon!  Rhubarb has done wonderfully and Dean planted some spaghetti squash seeds.  Plants are up - no blossoms yet.

Even getting household projects completed (not to be included here is Laurie's Crapft Room).  Trainman Dean added lights to his commuter train car.  Laurie rebuilt a wicker outdoor love seat.  But the bestest is Dean's Handy Dandy Rolling Garden Cart.  
Now known as The Weed Wagon by Dean and Mr. Weed Man by me!

The Weed Wagon

My, that works fine!! 

         

Hope this finds you all well.  Hang in there.  We'll get through this.

Modeling my Coronavirus Toilet Paper Earrings