Should be a nice day.\u00a0 [72F sunny and blue sky @10am]<\/p>\n
Yesterday was another beautiful day, but it did get HOT.\u00a0 100F in the sun and in my driveway.\u00a0 Caught me a bit by surprise as I was moving from shade to sun and there was a nice breeze.\u00a0 Realized I was panting and went inside to cool down for a while.<\/p>\n
I was busy doing yard work and cleaning and organizing.\u00a0 I mowed the back yard.\u00a0 I don’t want the lawn guys back there,\u00a0 too much to see that isn’t there during normal times.\u00a0 Plus, I don’t want the guys shedding virus and spitting all over the place.\u00a0\u00a0 So I mow, and blow, and yesterday I also did some edging.<\/p>\n
In the garden, the cabbage seems to be doing well.\u00a0 The broccoli is still alive, and growing, and the brussel sprouts are alive, but haven’t really changed size.\u00a0\u00a0 Last year’s pepper plants are heavy with sweet delicious peppers.\u00a0 This year’s are growing well too.\u00a0 The tomato plants still live, but haven’t flowered or set fruit.\u00a0 Potato plants continue their vigorous growth, although there are fewer plants in each tower bag.\u00a0 The onion sets seem to have taken hold and are growing.\u00a0 There is attrition due to something, squirrels mostly.\u00a0 I think I’ll be lucky to get ten whole onions in the fall.\u00a0 No sprouts from any of my seeds yet.<\/p>\n
The citrus trees all have fruit this year.\u00a0 Every tree, which has never happened before.\u00a0 I don’t know how many will make it to harvest, and I’m betting only a few oranges, but maybe I’ll get grapefruit and limes this year!\u00a0 The peach tree is fully leafed in and the remaining apple tree is struggling to get leafed.\u00a0 The trees in the store were covered in leaves weeks ago.<\/p>\n
The blueberry sticks have all set fruit.\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe we’ll double our yield this year and get a full cup?\u00a0 Kids have fun with them anyway.\u00a0 The grapevines are growing.\u00a0 The one is vigorous, the other died back to a foot from the ground.\u00a0 No fruit from that one this year, maybe no new vines.\u00a0 Haven’t had any of my grape nemesis caterpillars show so far, but I’m vigilant.<\/p>\n
Take any opportunity you get to add to your long term and medium term food supply.\u00a0 These processing plant shutdowns will likely continue, and we’ll probably see transportation issues or teamster type issues at cross docks and transfer agents.\u00a0 Someone needs to unload the trucks, and that almost always means a guy on a forklift.\u00a0 It’s not a hard job but it is demanding.\u00a0 Essential workers are getting sick, and I expect that will get worse as the restrictions ease.<\/p>\n
I’m glad to hear reports that stores have restocked, and that goods are available.\u00a0 Take advantage of that so that NEXT time, you won’t be caught short.\u00a0\u00a0 Even if we’re on the downside of this, and I don’t think we are, TPTB are starting to talk about the second wave.\u00a0 China has locked down even more people again, something like 11M so far.<\/p>\n
The third world is starting to really see their first wave sweeping through.\u00a0 It’s gonna be a tsunami soon.\u00a0\u00a0 FWIW, we have been getting a LOT of food from those third world nations.\u00a0 That’s where all the ‘out of season’ fruit and veg comes from.\u00a0 (And the Imperial Valley in Cali which relies on the same sort of labor.)\u00a0 I expect that will get disrupted soon, and the extent, if the wuflu is unchecked, could mean no laborers to pick the crops, no way to get them here, and we’re back to thinking that citrus at Christmas is a Big Deal ™.\u00a0 I remember as a kid when getting a case of oranges or grapefruit at Christmas was a nice corporate gift, and my dad was happy to get a single orange as his Christmas gift when he was a kid.<\/p>\n
The bottom line is that this thing is still spreading, and growing, and there is no effective treatment.\u00a0\u00a0 People are still dying, and we’re discovering that maybe the survivors are not escaping unscathed either.\u00a0 You don’t want to get it.\u00a0\u00a0 In the US, I expect that we’ll see localized outbreaks that grow rapidly, and then recede, and it will be going on for a long time, as the hotspots move around.\u00a0\u00a0 We are about to experimentally determine the amount of economic contact vs public health isolation that the country is willing to accept.\u00a0 Like any other human endeavor, that process is going to be messy, but we’ll also figure it out.<\/p>\n
Keep in mind that if there were no more infections starting today, we’ll still have more than 760K cases that will need to resolve, and the totals would\u00a0 continue to rise for the next month at least.\u00a0 If even 5% of those cases die, that’s an additional 37K added to the 50K so far.\u00a0 IF no new cases were added.\u00a0 New cases will continue to be added for some time though.<\/p>\n
So, stay in, stay safe.<\/p>\n
nick<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Oh, and today marks my 15th year as a married man.\u00a0 Short time compared to some of you, but something I never spent much time thinking about when I was younger.\u00a0 I married well, and I can only hope she feels the same \ud83d\ude42 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Should be a nice day.\u00a0 [72F sunny and blue sky @10am]<\/p>\n
Yesterday was another beautiful day, but it did get HOT.\u00a0 100F in the sun and in my driveway.\u00a0 Caught me a bit by surprise as I was moving from shade to sun and there was a nice breeze.\u00a0 Realized I was panting and went inside to cool down for a while.<\/p>\n
I was busy doing yard work and cleaning and organizing.\u00a0<\/p>\n