The Second Four Weeks

This is the end of the eighth week that DH has worked from home.

Here in Michigan, we are still under the Stay Home order. It has been extended to May 28th.  There are a few 'restrictions' that have been lifted, but really they were stupid things to be not allowed in the first place: landscape and gardening crews are now allowed to work, garden centers can open, people can go golfing and use boats with motors.  All of which are typically done outdoors and not with people on top of each other. Yesterday, construction crews were given the green light to resume business.

However, it is now mandatory to wear face masks in the grocery store and other enclosed public spaces.

So, I made a few more face masks for family members, at their request.

Flowers have been blooming all over the place.  I've been working on weeding flowerbeds, and also relocating some of my perennials that needed thinning.  DD1 has been the lucky recipient of some of them; she is happily landscaping her and Honorary Son's first home.

the bore bees (aka carpenter bees) are awake!

Garden planning, and tilling, and planting have begun.  Seed potatoes are in the ground.  Onion starts arrived yesterday, and will be planted next week (after this weekends' below freezing temps are over).

planning

tilling

onions

While the ground was still soft, DH and I pulled out a few weed trees with the tractor.  We'd meant to get them a year or two ago, but DH's job was so busy for all that time that they got overlooked and just grew bigger and bigger until they were no longer movable and transplant-able.

The clothesline got it's new lines, and has been in use frequently the past two weeks.

 We've had weather that varied from breathtakingly beautiful, to stormy, to WTF?!?

sunset

foggy sunrise

graupel?!?

beautiful spring day

lightning glow

lightning burst

Shopping has been an ongoing adventure.  I say adventure to put a positive spin on it.  Some of my worst days, mentally, have been days I went to the grocery store.

Toilet paper, unavailable for most of the first weeks, finally showed up in quantity, although usually one brand at a time and with purchasing limits in force.  I'm a die hard Quilted Northern fan, and thankfully I had enough pre-pandemic, to last until it was again available at a store near me.  Although, if you compare the last package of my January purchased tp to the April package, you will notice a size difference.  Hmm. Yes, the package on the left (January) is taller than the package on the right (April).

May has brought further downsizing on the tp front.  Notice that there used to be six rolls to a pack; now there are only four. And for an increase in price, compared to the six roll pack bought in January.

Flour and butter have been hit and miss.  I use a lot of both in my cooking and baking.  Whole wheat flour, which disappeared from the shelves the second week when everyone had bought out the bleached all purpose flour, has been my most desired commodity.  My everyday bread recipe is half whole wheat and half (unbleached) all purpose flour.  I began the pandemic with most of a 5 pound bag in my kitchen canister, but finally ran out about a week ago.  Grudgingly made a batch of all white bread last weekend.  Yesterday, when I went shopping, I scored a (teeny tiny) bag of whole wheat flour, as well as more unbleached all purpose flour.

2 pounds?!?  I'll have this used up before May is over!!

This week has been mostly temperate weather.  We enjoyed a small campfire last weekend, even burning a hollow log (aka a blow log) that DH found while cutting deadfall in the woods earlier this year.

The little oak saplings we had planted two Aprils ago are doing fairly well.  This week they started putting out tiny baby leaves.

Hoping that by the time another four weeks pass, much of the restrictions on daily life will have been lifted.  DH will probably continue to work from home much of the summer, at least for the parts of his programs that are teleconferences and analyzing data.