Spring was not Called Off

I know that there are parts of the world going into fall and not spring. And there are parts of the world where the weather is pretty much the same all year round. But I was up this morning listening to all the birds singing away and realized the world marches on even if we are all stuck inside (for the most part).

Went shopping yesterday. It looks like the disinfectant wipe panic is resolved because the shelves were well stocked. No toilet paper in sight though. The pre made salads were picked through. Meat was in relatively short supply. Soup and pasta were still nearly gone and certain crackers could not be found. Crackers?? Not sure about that one.

There’s an Amish farmer who comes to our farmer’s market but continues to bring his trailer down every Saturday morning. We buy chicken and eggs from him when needed. Decided to stop by and get some more chicken figuring that people wouldn’t be panic buying there. Yeah, never underestimate the power of panic. There was a line and people were coming out with full bags of stuff. By the time I got in, the chicken breasts were all gone.

We don’t normally buy whole chicken because there are just the two of us and that’s a lot to eat but I did anyway. Debating whether to roast the whole thing and freeze the meat or cut it up and freeze the parts. Oh and we ordered take out from our favorite little Thai place – really hoping they are able to stay in business through this.

We have a crew that comes to clean the house on Fridays. My wife works too much and we have different definitions of “clean” so this way stuff actually gets done. They were telling us that they were super busy right after all this started with people wanting their homes sanitized. Now, people are cancelling so they consolidated crews. I could really see some fear there. Probably a combination of fear about this stupid virus and the unknown about the job situation.

It is entirely possible that I’m viewing things with the largest rose colored glasses in the world but I’m still trying to remain optimistic about things. Which is hard considering the daily drum beat of bad news and the media breathlessly reporting the number of new cases and deaths. You know, if they did this for the flu each year, we’d probably do this panic thing every year.

The owners of our studio have been doing mini group classes on Facebook live. They said they want to do them every day. They are also trying to set up virtual lessons as well. There is a lot of good going on amidst all the panic. The number of places that are doing things like this – our zoo is doing little behind the scenes videos as well. My gym has stuff on Facebook as well and started some kind of virtual challenge where you can track what you do on your own. I like to see things like this where people and places are trying to keep us all connected in some way. It is the good side of social media.

I’m also thinking that the dogs are probably loving this. Most people are home all the time and, if you have a dog, it is an easy excuse to get outside and we all need time in the sun. We saw so many people today when on a normal early morning Sunday, we’d have the place to ourselves. And everyone is still being social and saying hi. Which is nice. I’d hate to think that we’d start looking at each other as possible carriers of the virus.

I have continued to turn off news sources because most of it isn’t real news. One thing that bugs me in the panic over new cases is that is exactly what was going to happen. The number of new cases was not going to drop to zero just because we closed everything. If you look at that graph that everyone shows, flattening means that we expect a certain level of new cases for a longer period of time rather than having some high spike. Also, without knowing anything about severity or even when these new cases actually contracted the virus, we don’t have good information about the rate of spread which is really the important figure. But the media keeps using headlines like “new cases soar” and if you focus on that number, things can look pretty darn bleak.

My store that sells all the bird feeding stuff has now gone to pick up only. You place an order, call them when you get there, and then pop your trunk and they come out to load your car. No human contact at all. Saw some other stores do the same.

In addition to our injured deer, we now have a raccoon with a back leg that doesn’t function. Watched him climb a tree on a sunny day where he ended up taking a nap on some high branch. He slipped a couple of times and we kind of thought he was going to fall but it didn’t happen. Nature is all about survival and I guess they do what they can even with the limitations. I suppose we aren’t helping the cause by offering food but starvation just seems like a cruel option.

I guess that’s all I’ve got for now. Stay healthy. Use appropriate caution but don’t panic. These are unusual times but we will get through it.