A Garden Day

Blessings, Darlings!

Gardening time. Even tho' my knee is still extremely fucked up with tendonitis (It will need another 4 to 11 weeks before I expect it to be 'mostly better') I worked in the garden today. Not being an idiot, I focused on stuff I could do with minimal knee involvement. I focused on covering the newly mown grass (holy fuck, American Facebook doesn't think that 'mown' is a real word) with flattened cardboard boxes and weighing them down so they won't blow away in the mighty spring winds. This will help smother most of the grass, making it easier to turn it into garden without having to put lots of knee effort into it.

I didn't get a huge amount done, maybe only about 30 square feet covered. But it I do some every week, that's serious progress. The cardboard boxes are empties I took home from work over the past few months. I knew SOMETHING was coming, and was clear about shit being shut down, but didn't know about the virus. So I prepared to increase the garden as cheaply and efficiently as possible.

They are weighed down with bricks that I really want to use for a different purpose, and if I can get my knee or my family to agree to haul manure to put on the cardboard to hold it down, I'll replace the bricks with that. 

 

Now that I'm not working, I will run out of cardboard pretty darn quickly, I'm afraid.  I'll have to look for new sources at that point.  Probably the grocery store.  

 

Meanwhile, I have been starting seeds for the past week and today my radishes are up! Yay! 

 

In the more daily daily - washed dishes, have started bread.  

Grey and Chilly Tuesday 3/31

Blessings Darlings!

Laundry started.  I'm not very started, tho', feeling very sluggish.  Laundry got hung on line, but it has been so grey and cool that I had to finish it in the dryer.  Did dishes.  Dinner is just spaghetti and sauce - neither of which I'm making from scratch, so that's trivial.  My toes are cold.

Coronovirus deaths in the US have now passed deaths from 9/11. Christ Cuomo, son of the late NY Senator Mario Cuomo/brother of current NY governor Andrew Cuomo, and journalist himself, has Covid 19 apparently.

Of course, we only know the names of the 'big name' folks who get and/or die of Coronavirus.  Local folks are too busy trying to survive it to bother to go public (with rare exceptions, like the folks who made their battle to even get TESTED public). 

Welp, I had a pretty useless day.

Frondly, Fern

Soggy Sunday

Blessings Darlings!

Tis a cloudy Sun's Day here, had some rain earlier.  So no work IN the garden or hauling manure today.  I'll process the meats that the Spawn bought earlier this week - form the ground beef into 4 oz patties and freeze then bag them, cut the chicken leg quarters into thighs and drumsticks, then fry them and freeze what we don't eat.  And as always, do the never ending stream of dishes.  It's too damp out to hang laundry, so that will await another day.

Oh, I'll start more veggie seeds, and continue the reading and practice of Esoteric Stuff.  We'll take the recycling to the curb for tomorrow's pick up.  And since the trees are still insisting on having sex in my nose, I'll sneeze a lot.

For those wondering - I have NO set schedule during this coronavirus stay at home thing.  Other than trying to get up at 8:30 am.  After than, it's all about what I Will to do.  And I'm not some always-busy driven person.  But I'm still getting lots of stuff done.  A

I DO wonder if the lawn care guys are planning on starting mowing tomorrow, and if they are, what time they'll arrive.  It complicates line drying clothes.

And while all this goes on, the virus spreads and spreads FAST.  Singer/songwriter John Prine is in critical condition.  Deaths from it in the US doubled over the past two days.  It's a clusterfuck.  It's spreading in my area - hell, my town was where the first folks pushed hard enough to get tested for it ... and of course came back positive.

I'm kinda pissed that the Spawn is getting his car worked on tomorrow.  He promises to stay outside of the dealership, in a chair he'll bring with.   And I'm giving him a bandana to use as a mask.  Sigh.

Frondly, Fern

Jupiter's Day

Blessings Darlings!

There's a VERY new baby calf today!

This being the planetary day of Jupiter, I'm going to do a small rite during one of the hours of Jupiter.  Invoke Jupiter, make offerings, ask for blessings on our household's health and wealth in this fraught times.  Basic magical stuff.

I'm also ... actually going OUT today.  Have to mail a packet of info to the Healthcare Marketplace, as we're STILL fighting with them over a problem from December of 2015.

Did laundry.  Made Kahlua.  A new loaf of bread is on it's final rise.  Will be making Pork Fried Rice shortly.  Filled out the census.  Did lots and lots of dishes.

A nursing home here in WV is being hit hard by COVID 19.  People are idiots.  The governor ignored the problem until it was too late.  At least they've now decided that the entire presidential primary will be done by mail, so that will be safer.

Ooops, posting this Friday morning instead of Thursday night.

Frondly, Fern

Blessings Darlings!

Rainy and somewhat raw here today, with the temperature dropping all day.  A good day for me to throw towels in the wash, since I prefer them dried in the dryer so they get softer and fluffier.

The CEO of the hotel that the Spawn and I work for called this morning, one week after the hotel closed down, to see how we are doing.  And to make sure that we all applied for unemployment.  He's calling all the staff today.  Unexpected, and very nice of him.

Boring day - cooked, washed and dried the towels.  Got closer to finishing the unemployment application (the info on my second job took some getting, and I'm going to have to explain a lot about it.)  Cleaned house some.  Napped. Took my medicines.

Yawn.

Frondly, Fern

March New Moon

Blessings Darlings!

Husband is over his little nasal drip, so the man-crisis is over.  I'm still working my way thru' the unemployment application - while the site is great at 2 am, I can't wake the CH then to get the figures on what our home business has paid me over the past 18 months then. 

I have lost track of what day of the week it is.  I can't even recall if today is the dark moon or the new moon.  Probably the new moon, from the posts online about 'what magic to do' today.  I shall now go print out the chart of moon phases for this year, and tape it up somewhere by my desk ... 
Here's the site I use https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/phases/@4140844  And it's almost exactly the new moon as I type this morning, with a 0.1% waxing crescent. 

Another load of laundry done and on the clothesline.  Clean dishes put away.  I poked the yeast/flour/water mix and am waiting to see if it's alive, because we're almost out of bread.  Can't look at my bank stuff online, their web site is down, and I need that info for the next step for filing for unemployment. 

Going to wrap asparagus in prosciutto, drizzle oil oil on it, dust it with parmesan cheese and freshly cracked black pepper, roast it, then eat it and smile a lot.  Bread is still rising.  Dinner is 'make what you want out of our abundance of leftovers.' 

Didn't work in the garden at all today.  Didn't hydrate well today.  At least I'm blogging a little something, even if it's totally inconsequential.  "I'm building a habit." 

Hmmm.  My workplace will have been closed a week tomorrow morning.  Maybe it's time that I should take my work knives out of my purse? 

I'm really impressed how day to day living in a crisis is ... immediately a 'new normal'.

Frondly, Fern

Husband has sore throat.

Blessings Darlings!

The governor finally closed the state, kinda sorta.  Hardware stores still count as vital businesses, somehow, tho.

The Chubby Hubby has nasal drip, and is freaking out.  He's in bed with a glass of Tang right now.

Due to rain, I didn't haul any manure today, but I did take a walk and harvest a lot of creasy greens (wintercress).  Probably won't cook them for dinner, will make something the CH will be more at home with.   Didn't do laundry, either, since line drying was out.

In this time of uncertainty - I wanted an egg substitute in the house that I could use for baking with.  Since no one in my house has issues with soy, my go-to for this is soy flour.  Two oz by volume each of soy flour and water equals one egg.  Of course, for the past three weeks the local stores have been out of both soy flour and soy beans, and I didn't want to drive to Frederick MD to get either of them.  So I went to order them online.  And Bob's Red Mill was totally out.  I had to buy soy flour from a vendor I knew nothing about.  The First World Horror!  At any rate - they said they'd be here between 3/25 and 4/1, but it arrived today.  I'm happy.

I should take a pic of the cherry tree - it's in full bloom and lovely.  Maybe tomorrow.

Frondly, Fern