When the WHO declared the global pandemic, I knew right away that things were going to get ugly. As of March 13th 2020, I have decided that my family needs to go into a bug in situation. This was always the plan, the proverbial trigger has been pulled! Here is a daily update on what we face.
Day 44 –
So where the heck have I been all weekend? Well, finally things are moving forward at a good pace. I hosted my first Zoom meeting and had a lot of prep to do for that…converting financial reports, secretary’s reports, and creating my own reports to be shared online with the group. I’m impressed with Zoom as a platform and kind of wonder why the schools haven’t picked up on this. Hand out some inexpensive tablets to the kids that need them and just have the teachers teach a class as normal, but online with Zoom, or some other platform. Heck, sounds simple to me, but I’m just a parent, what do I know?
We’ve also been repacking groceries and getting a lot of stuff put up. I have to say, in the past couple of weeks, we’ve been able to boost a lot of things to a one year stockpile. The grocery stores are causing concern. Not because of people, but because of supply. Toilet paper, as well as other paper products are a crap shoot to find. The 2 grocery stores in town, both major franchises, are completely out of flour of any kind. White, cake, bread, whole wheat, whatever…all gone. I’m hearing now that yeast is a problem. I hadn’t noticed that because I have a good supply and just wasn’t looking. Maybe next week I’ll have a peek to confirm.
The weather these past few days has really done a good job of melting the snowpack. My established garden areas still have a good foot or more of hard packed snow, but it looks like I will have access to the back of the property this week to finally start the yard cleanup. Then the to do list can start to get taken care of. There is a woodshed to rebuild and expand, raised beds to build, trees to remove or trim, the list goes on. Breaking new ground for more garden are is going to be top of the list.
I also did a third seeding of some of my starter plants. Really not doing that well with seed starting. At least what came up from the second seeding seems to be doing well. I also got an email today that my celery and sunflower seeds are finally on the way.
Thankfully, we were smart enough to have been stocking up on over the counter meds for quite some time. I really wrenched my back today splitting up some fire wood. With the projects planned, being out of commission for a few days would really put a strain on things. Lots to do, and I need to be able to get it done. My son will be recruited to help out especially with tasks that require a lot of bending over! I taught him how to light a fire in the woodstove this weekend!
We also did a cleanout of one of the freezers, taking out the older stuff and getting the fresher meats we’ve been buying into the bottom, and putting the older stuff near the top. We now have one freezer completely full of meat. We also took out all the pork we have been saving up and got it all ground up for sausages. This is done by hand as we don’t like what electric grinders do to the meat. We have an old #22 grinder passed down from my FIL, with the casing horn. We’ll season it up and stuff it tomorrow as it’s getting late in the day.
More news tomorrow…