May 31

Another nice sunny but cool day. Yesterday I got sage and thyme transplanted and convolvulus seeds planted. I also placed some other pots outside to harden before finding them permanent homes. I have several pots I need to add some soil to but I am actually not in any hurry to do that. I cleaned out the dried herbs I put up every year and discarded any over two years old or that we tried but didn't use. The only jar of aged discards that still had any potency was the rosemary.

Found this at Jacobin this morning and the author asks a very good question: who is doing the looting and who is being looted?

Random observation: I think we were ripe for some form of explosion. We have basically combined the frustrations resulting from the coronavirus restrictions (large and small) with the uncertainty going forward as the restrictions loosen, growing unemployment and the stress that entails, with the rage resulting from the murders of three black citizens by police.

The economic pain mentioned above won't end any time soon no matter what swill the politicians are trying to sell us. This article clearly indicates why the economy won't rebound the way #45 and his sycophants tell us it will. I have been reading similar articles from other authors--some anecdotal and others surveys. If the small businesses aren't around the jobs won't come back and the people they employed won't have jobs to g back to. That doesn't even address the large business that are dying or laying off huge numbers of workers.

May 29

Well, I guess Twitter has upped the ante in its dispute with #45. They have masked one of his tweets on the Minneapolis riots. I hope they stand pat. He may be the President, however unPresidential he behaves, but that doesn't mean rules don't apply to him. The situation doesn't need him adding gasoline to the fire.

Found this item from the Smithsonian this morning. The contrast is mind blowing. The last sentence makes a very good point: one irony of public health is that the more successful experts are, the more people forget about the dangers. 

May 30

Sunny but cool today. Already five months of this year gone. Given what has gone on so far I 
am somewhat apprehensive about the rest of the year.

Oh, well. I found this just a bit ago. Sounds like last year's nasty fire season in the high latitudes is about to rise from the dead.

For a bit of gallows humor head over to the Onion. There is, indeed, a right way and a wrong way to loot businesses.

May 26

I saw this interview when it was first broadcast. Don't you just love being described as human capital stock. It is what I would expect from the current administration: insensitive, narcissistic, cruel. And by the way, given that half of the 90k+ who have died are not over 65, some 45k+ of the dead are working age and so part of that "human capital stock." So that asset was not as intact as Hassett claimed.

I still wonder if this isn't a joke but considering how innane so many of the people are who refuse to wear a mask or social distance while demanding their "right" to get a haircut or a manicure or party hearty, it may not be.

May 27

May 28

We have a bit of sun now but I would guess not for long. The weather forecast is for scattered storms all day. No problem. I got our trash out for pick up and swept the patio. The maple seeds are falling so that needs to be done periodically. At least I won't have to water.

I went through the jars on our tea shelf and gathered up the empty ones. Our local bulk tea/spice/grains shop isn't going to be allowed to reopen until late in June. The health department classifies it with buffets so the opening is delayed. I don't feel comfortable calling in an order so we will wait. We generally go in and stock up about every three or four months and it is well beyond that now. We will pick up some alternatives at the supermarket next week. Damn!

The U.S. tally is now 100k+ deaths. How much higher that goes is anyone's guess. Given what we saw over the weekend and the number of protests and outright defiance of medical advice, I think we might be lucky if we don't hit 200k by September. The news this morning had a piece about a recently released research paper which claims that the virus is airborne not just droplet borne. That would be a nasty game changer. Think about how many of our buildings are pretty much self-contained environments where air is circulated inside but not much comes in from outside.

May 25--Memorial Day

Actually, if it weren't for the constant reminders over the weekend, I would probably not have remembered. A couple of the commentators on the various morning shows remarked that it certainly hasn't been like any Memorial Day weekend in their memory. For the first time in decades AAA didn't release a prediction of the traffic they expected to see on the roads. Though some cabin fever stricken people have decided to travel, or visit parks or beaches (most not minding social distancing or masking), a large number of us haven't. That a lot of us aren't indulging is probably a good thing considering other news from the "opening" front: a hairdresser in Arkansas exposed as many as 60 of her patrons and 2 in Missouri exposed 140 while symptomatic.

I can see so many things that can go wrong with this. The blogger who included the link indicated that she is allergic to oats and soy and the wrong substitution could kill her. We have gone more and more to cooking from scratch. And we do watch the labels. We thankfully don't have any allergies or other conditions that involve food. I am also aware that whatever is "temporary" often turns out to be permanent.

I finished my gardening for the day about an hour ago. The temperature on the patio was near 90F, probably much higher than the 81F the Weather Channel list currently. I have said before that the white fence around our small patio makes the area an oven in the summer. But before giving up I transplanted my lavender, tomato, pepper, 3 of the 4 remaining marigolds, and the spearmint. I also put in the seeds for the morning glory and sunflower. I will get some more done tomorrow. I know said  I wouldn't put in any pepper or tomato but those are somewhat like an itch and putting in one of each is a good way to scratch without investing too much space or energy into the project.

May 23

Found this right off the bat. We, on this side of the Atlantic, are already (and have been for some tine) dealing with this. I hope the Boris Johnson's government isn't so desperate for a trade deal with the U.S. that they won't knuckle under to U.S. pressure. However, ever since Bush II proclaimed the ambition to create an "ownership society" I thought he really meant an "you're on your ownership society." In almost every aspect of our lives we can't rely on the "protections" and "advice" we had trusted because it has been corrupted, diluted or dismantled. Throughout the pandemic business interests have succeeded in getting the administration to "ease" regulations. We do have to do much more research when deciding what we will do and buy.

Cassandra's Legacy has this interesting post. No one really knows how the COVID-19 moves. My guess, as a literate, non-expert, is that the number of contacts leads to increased exposure and increased chances of infection. The stay-at-home orders and shutdown of "non-essential" businesses (in quotes because that term is very different in different areas and for different people) leads to fewer contacts, fewer chances for exposure, and lower chances of infection.

Sunny right now and nearing 70F. So I am getting transplants into permanent pots. I put two marigolds in small pots in front of the large pot with the begonia by the front door. I will put more marigolds around the begonia arrangement by the back door. I will continue working outside, slowly with frequent rests, until either it gets too hot or until the expected afternoon thunderstorms come. I should be able to do the same tomorrow and Monday but without the threat of storms.

Charles Hugh Smith at Of Two Minds says some things I have thought about what our post-COVID world will look like. I have long thought that rarity provided much of the value of educational attainments (degrees, certifications, etc.) As long as the proportion of people with those credentials was low they had value. When they were no longer rare--you had PhDs driving cabs and Master's Degree holders unemployed. Another blogger once commented that she thought the real purpose of the yearly physical the medical establishment was to search for something, however trivial, they could treat. The condition may not bother you, might even go away on its own, but it was an income stream and kept you coming back regularly. I wonder how much we have been accustomed to buying we will suddenly realizee don't need, don't really want, and won't do what we thought it would.

May 21

Our state is 2 days away from the next stage of "re-opening" when more businesses will be able to open including some of the personal services outlets like hair salons/barber shops. I hope the little bulk tea/grains/spices store will be able to open up to in store customers. I was surprised that it wasn't allowed to have in store customers as food sellers were considered essential. The owner posted on their Facebook site that the health department ruled against them because they are basically "self-serve" since customers scoop out their own orders from the bins.

We did our usual shopping on two days two days because we hoped to get up to the tea/etc. store. Most of the grocery was filled at the only "big-box" store we go to (not Target or Walmart). We saw more cars in the parking lot though not nearly as many as we would have before the the shutdown. The store was not at all crowded and customers were merely "urged" to wear masks or face coverings. About 1/3 of customers weren't wearing either but all were trying to stay clear of each other. The baking aisle had big gaps in the flour area. We got our 5lb bag of flour. They still had a few of them. The cat litter aisle was also somewhat sparse but we did get the two 20# boxes we usually get.

The dairy had everything though the meat freezer was still very light. They had 1# packages of breakfast sausage but not the links we had been getting. The sign said "2 to a customer" and Mom asked it we could get 4 since there were 2 of us. The clerk laughed and told us to go ahead. The limit was to curb the customers they had been getting in from Illinois because Indiana was loosening up earlier. They had a problem with those customers coming in and buying everything in sight leaving little for the regular, local customers. She said our local meat market had the same problem and a person she knows who works there described a man who came in from Illinois each week and took out a very large order. I hope he was shopping for several families. We have noticed a couple of places urging families to send one person in to shop. We have basically ignored those suggestions because Mom and I go together just in case something happens and one of us needs help. That is something we have to consider since she is 88 and I am 71.

Instead of going to the tea shop we went to the local garden store I prefer and started picking up plants. I have most of the herbs we use in cooking and for tea. I have planted the two begonia arrangements and set the pots by the doors. They are my "show" pieces. I also planted the two spearmint cuttings that I found taking root under a bed of leaves where the runner had hidden over the winter. I hesitated transplanting because they didn't seem to be growing above the soil so I wasn't sure how the root systems were doing. However they were doing very well. I will transplant the rest of the seedlings as I get to them. That will be slow going, however, because I simply don't have the energy to do a sustained hours long stint of gardening.

May 17

The weather predictions were right. We had rain overnight and have had more so far today. We aren't far behind last May for rain and it was the wettest on record. No gardening today.

Instead I am trying out another Tunisian stitch pattern to, hopefully, reduce my scrap stash.

Two things have been absolutely unavoidable over the last almost five months: the coronavirus and politics. I try to limit my exposure for my own sanity but, even so, I feel like I am drowning in information, misinformation, outright lies and bombast. I will give you a few random thoughts on the matter.

Random thought 1: there are a number of good reasons to open up the economy bit just because you want to get get your hair cut/styled, your nails done or other such frippery is not a good reason. I don't know how many of the "protesters" really feel that those things are important or if the news media focuses on them making them seem more numerous than they are. The local news made a big deal out of Chicago's mayor getting her hair cut about a month ago and asked the Illinois governor if he also planned to go for a hair cut, and just last week asked again because his hair looked neatly trimmed. This is all in the "gotcha" spirit that seems to permeate news these days. (Note: Pritzker said he did his own hair cut with help from his son.) Frankly, this trivializes the pandemic which has cost nearly 90k Americans their lives.

Random thought 2: No one, repeat no one, was prepared for the pandemic. Not on any level, though some of us were better prepared than others. The politicians could be put in two categories: those who could think creatively about  how to deal with the situation and those who tried to magically wish it away. At the individual level some of us were more resilient and adaptable while others were more brittle and simply wanted things to go back to what they were before we even knew the pandemic was here. A character in a book I like described cats as furry little Republicans who don't like change at all. Whether they vote Republican or not people are much the same just without the fur.

Random thought 3: The pandemic put us in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, socially, economically, and politically. No one is really happy with how politicians have handled the problems whether they vigorously attacked or kept hands off. Every state is split between those who think the politicians did too much for too long and those who think the stay-at-home orders and other measures should be maintained/extended/strongly enforced. People are in the same situation. If your employer is deemed essential and you go to work you risk getting the virus but if you don't you will lose income if not your job. If your employer is non-essential you may not have a job at all and a good many of those businesses won't be coming back. What about child care? With schools out the kids are at home whether you have a job to go to or not.

That is enough random musing.

May 16

Today has been nice and sunny--so far. More rain is predicted for tonight and tomorrow. The weather people on the morning news said we got more than 4 inches--some areas much more. I checked all of the plants I put out under cloches and they seem happy. I don't think they will be affected unless we have winds strong enough to blow off the caps. I still have 5 or six pots to put outside but no cloches for them until we get more vinegar and milk jugs empty and washed out. I spent a bit of time out front digging up the pampas grass and weeds. The landlords know we hate the damned stuff. It always grows profusely enough to interfere with our front door and it attracts all kinds of insects that then come in on our clothes. I plan to put a planter with a nice hibiscus out there after I get the main clumps of grass out.

Down With Tyranny makes a couple of points that reflect some of my thoughts concerning the course of the pandemic so far. Most of those protesting loudest (and brandishing their guns with macho bravado) probably don't know anyone who has had the virus or who has cared for anyone seriously ill with it, or (gods forbid) who have died from it. Until they do have that experience they won't really see it as serious. What they do know is that they have, at best, been inconvenienced or, at worst, have taken a serious hit to their income/business and they really don't know why. Their empathy seems to end where their convenience and income begins.

Another thought that has been simmering at the back of my mind every time I hear a news-reader, or political commentator moan about the lack of a unified plan from Washington, D.C., is that the complaint assumes that 1) the current administration is capable of formulating a unified plan for the country as a whole,  2) that the states would go along with it without complaint, and 3) that people in the various states would meekly obey. I think the virus has shown all those assumptions to be false. The current administration is not remotely capable of formulating any coherent plan, short term or long term. Various people have cited the plan 45 proposed for shutting down the economy but failed to note that the occupant of the White House started backing away from it almost immediately. Now he is busily demanding that the economy open up immediately and lambasting the governors, especially those who haven't kissed his behind to his satisfaction, move faster. The governors are pursuing their plans independently of the White House but often find them selves in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation between those who what things to proceed faster and those who want a slower, more cautious approach. So the second and third assumptions have gone up in flames. Everyone wants what they had in January but even if the virus disappeared today (which I don't expect) that will not happen. Too many businesses won't be able to reopen and some that do try won't be able to stay open. Too many people have too much to catch up on: bills, mortgage, rent, etc. The shake up from the pandemic is just starting and will be painful.

A couple of days ago as we watched the news and saw a segment which proclaimed, yet again, that the economy can't recover until we have effective testing (with tracing contacts and isolation) and effective vaccines. My comment was: what about the anti-vaxers, all those who are vehemently vaccines they view as dangerous. We have had outbreaks of measles, mumps, and whooping cough over the last several years as the numbers of the unvaccinated grow. This story from the Guardian indicates that the anti-vaccination sentiment isn't changing with respect to the coronavirus. A vaccine is a vaccine is a vaccine and they are all dangerous. Again, as with the coronavirus, few of us have seen a lethal case of whooping cough, or measles, or polio. I remember a girl in my 8th grade class who came from Czechoslovakia just ahead of the Soviet crack down and had polio. But the last case indigenous transmission in the U.S., according to the CDC website, was in 1979. We, as a society, have forgotten how serious these diseases were so that the potential side effects of the vaccine are more terrifying than the diseases the vaccines were designed to prevent.

May 15--half past May

We have had a lot of rain over Wednesday night, through yesterday and into today. I have a deep (about 2 inches) drain pan for pots that I leave out for water for the birds. It is full. This time Wednesday it was empty. The news said a lot of areas here in N.W. Indiana and in N.E. Illinois are flooded. They were trying to drain underpasses and low areas on major roads.

During a bit of a lull in the rain I decided to move some of my seedlings outside to get the benefit of stronger, natural light. I still have several to move but I ran out of my milk and vinegar jug cloches. Basically, all I did was cut the bottoms off so the rest would sit above the plants. I didn't transplant them yet. I remember when I would have had the garden pretty much planted by now and it wasn't all that long ago. But for the about last four years we have had vicious rain and wind and/or late freezes. I think I might be able to visit the local garden shop and fill out the list I still have for my gardens.

The hardy plants that came back after the winter are all doing very well. One large planter has purslane and creeping Jenny. I will leave it alone. The purslane is already trying to bloom. The peppermints are also growing well and filling their pots. I might get a couple of more peppermint plants. I ran out of the dried herb last winter. The spearmint is sprouting strongly from the original core and I saw a couple of sprouts coming up away from old plant. I have two more plants I started from cuttings. The yarrow is also growing well and filling its planter.

Yesterday I read an article that suggested the real estate industry was in some trouble and the decline in sales of single-family houses. The story focused on the Bay Area of California. However, this piece and the linked sources indicate that the situation may be more complicated. While cities may be  seeing a decline in real estate sales the areas outside some cities are seeing a sales boom. This Politico article says some people are even moving out of the country.

I described the shopping trip in yesterday's post. What I didn't describe was the traffic. We usually go out early before it gets crowded on the roads unless we are going to a specific store that opens later in the morning. The stay-at-home/commercial shut down period has been nice for people, like us, who dislike crowds, on the roads or otherwise. Well, we saw more traffic than typical for the last little while but not as much as before the virus shut down. We state still is six days from the first opening of non-essential businesses reopening at the 50% level.

May 13

Gail Tverberg has some interesting comments on the pandemic.

The wonders of globalization. We did our usual shopping trip this morning and noticed that the meat freezer at the dairy was nearly empty. The cashier said that their usual suppliers have been slammed as the pandemic has hit the big meat processors hard. Evidently, other factors are hitting the meat supply chain as well: like supplying the Chinese market.

May 14

I ran out of gas yesterday as you can probably guess.

As I mentioned we did our fortnightly shopping trip yesterday. I mentioned the dairy and its woes keeping up its stock of meat. We would have picked up a package of breakfast sausage links but they were out of that and almost everything else. And limiting customers to four packs of ground beef. The owner was headed out to Shipshewana to try to stock up but had no assurance he could get his whole order filled.

The local supermarket was well supplied and we got everything we wanted there. We don't by meat there because the quality has left us underwhelmed. But I didn't see any large gaps anywhere. They still limit people to using one door to come in and one to leave. We tried to follow the arrows on the floor that direct one-way traffic but usually we were too busy thinking about what we were looking for and wound up going the wrong way. Interestingly, about half the shoppers were not wearing masks. We were.

We wanted to go to our local ACE hardware store but the hours were reduced and we weren't going to wait two hours for them to open up. Evidently they had just re-opened after having closed for the shutdown. I wonder why since hardware stores were deemed essential. They had a large sign outside "Masks Required."

The dollar store hadn't changed at all. All the customers were masked though the clerk was not.

Naked Capitalism had this little piece that I think hits a bull's eye the politicians would rather we all ignored.

A new topic has entered our discussions. Yesterday we passed a bin with 20 lb. bags of rice at a good price. Should we get one? We decided not because we have 2 five pound bags already. Today, as I emptied a 5 lb bag of flour into our canisters I told Mom to put flour on our shopping list. We have another so Mom suggested we not. I reminded her of how hard it had been to get flour the last time. She put it on the list. We have gotten very flexible about what we need and what we can substitute for what we might not be able to get at the time. They say the prices are going up but it hasn't had a major impact on us--yet.

May 11

All the plants are back outside--those that survived the mice. They ate 4 of my 6 spearmint cuttings. Damn rodents. It has been much too cold to do much outside and will be for most of this week. Spring has definitely not sprung. Mixed in with the rain I think we had either a bit of snow or some light graupel. But the temperature stayed just above freezing. The plants that came back from the winter are all doing well.

Time Goes By has another good post asking "Are Old People's Lives Worth Less Than Young People's Lives?"

Contrary Perspective has a good one this morning: Opening Up The Economy: A Crap Shoot. No, I don't feel lucky.

May 12

May 9

The Weather Channel says our temperature is now 27F. I did move plants into the shed. I hope they are alright. I will find out after it warms up a bit after the sun comes up.

I found this interesting item on Euronews right off the bat. The population of the Czech Republic is only 2million more than New York City and has had 270 deaths and 8000 infections. I'll let you look up the stats for New York which, last I saw, are considerably worse. They seem to have had chaotic messaging from their political leaders just as we have also had. But the main feature seems to be that the Czechs spend more time outside. The preliminary studies the story mention indicate the virus doesn't spread in an open environment as easily as an enclosed one. We spend a lot more time in enclosed spaces over here.

CNN had an interview with a senior nurse who wrote a piece oh the 8 things she will be doing after the "lockdown" ends. The featured item was continuing to wear a mask in public. We pretty much came to the same conclusion a while back when Dr. Fauci predicted a resurgence of the coronavirus in the fall just when the seasonal flu begins to ramp up. I wondered what her other 7 things were so I googled it. I will let you read it yourselves. Some we already have done from a good while ago like reducing non-essential errands. We find we like shopping every two weeks as opposed to weekly. We have paid more attention to hand washing and paying attention to often-touched surfaces. A couple of her strategies for the future aren't relevant to our situation and a couple of our long-standing strategies  weren't included: avoiding crowds and shopping in "off" hours when stores aren't crowded.

I often wonder as I see headlines with contradictory information concerning the coronavirus and our responses to it. I get a feeling that we won't really "know" anything about this pandemic until it is over. I noticed a headline that proclaimed Seoul, South Korea is closing bars and clubs again because of a resurgence of the virus. They had, from all accounts, done a good job of containing their outbreak. Another headline asserted that most of the Covid field hospitals are being dismantled without ever treating a Covid patient. True? False? Something in between? Who knows. One thing the virus has done is shine a light on all our divisions and the splintering continues.

Just read Ugo Bardi's latest post on Cassandra's Legacy. I had heard one media comment on Dr. Neil Ferguson's little sex scandal involving a visit from his mistress during the coronavirus lockdown he had advised. I hadn't heard that his modeling had been getting a critical second look that revealed some shoddy science. Over on this side of the pond we have had some heated discussions about the models, and science and assumptions behind them. I don't think most of us really understand science or what the models based on the science can, and can't, tell us. It is rather like telling a person that doing x has a 25% chance of yielding y disastrous result and 75% chance of giving a wonderful outcome. That person decides to go ahead because those seem to be pretty good odds of getting what s/he wants but suffers the adverse outcome and then blames the model(er). It is all a matter of probabilities until the event happens--then you have certainty for good or bad. One interesting comment in the piece concerned the binary choices the government faced according to Ferguson's arguments: accept a high rate of infection and death or tank the economy with a lockdown. Unfortunately that is a false binary. The first would have caused also caused an economic crisis with large numbers of people sidelined by illness and/or death and more unwilling to go about business as normal for fear of getting sick. It seems to me to be a "damned if you do, damned if you don't situation" with no good way out.

May 8--VE Day

We often watch BBC News and they covered the VE Day observances in the U.K. I noticed also that we haven't observed it much over here.

I wonder myself and have noticed that a good many bloggers and pundits are wondering what lasting effects this pandemic will have. This little item asks if it will teach us to be frugal. Some of us, perhaps. However, I have seen a number of people in the news stories of the protests bemoaning the fact the can't visit their hairdressers, or nail salons. On the other hand, I have brought out my old knitting loom to use up some of my scrap stash (the left overs from earlier projects), my drop spindle (which I have been threatening to learn to use since the late 1980s when I bought it on a whim), and am thinking about making a new bird feeder out of a 2 liter bottle.

The winds are kicking up here and making an already chilly day downright cold. We are suppose to have a freeze tonight before the temperatures go back to near normal. Just in case I moved the spearmint cuttings, roses, and rosemary plants into the shed til tomorrow afternoon. I plan on getting some more seedlings out into the gardens as I get the containers ready. I have a bag of compost to mix with the soil before I set the plants. I have several improvised cloches to give them some protection from any more low temps, or from wind and heavy rain like we had a few days ago.

The job losses over the last three weeks has been breathtaking. However, the labor "market" has been in trouble for several years. We are used to the old economic class divisions: rich, middle, working, and poor. Over the last couple of years several economic/social bloggers proposed a different system: privileged (the 1% and 0.1%), the protected (those whose jobs directly supports the privileged), and those whose jobs and income are increasingly precarious, the "precariate" (low wage, uncertain hours, gig etc.). Robert Reich offers another descriptive ordering that fits the age of the coronavirus. The Remotes whose jobs allows them to work remotely by computer, Zoom or other means. They can live and work with more space, with good health care and benefits. The Unpaid: those laid off, recently fired, gig workers without new gigs. The Essentials whose work puts them in harm's way: medical personnel, food production workers, grocery clerks, police, fire etc. And, finally, the Forgotten: the incarcerated, undocumented, homeless, etc.

May 4

David Kaiser has some interesting comments on how the corona virus spread. The data he examines (deaths per million population) appears to show that the virus has spread most widely in advanced countries and less in the "developing" countries. And in the U.S. the hardest and earliest hit areas are New York City and its surroundings and the West Coast. The least affected areas are the "fly-over" states. That tallies with something I noticed looking at some of the maps and checking with the various state maps. The virus spread most widely and earliest in cities especially those with colleges or universities while spreading last and most slowly in the rural areas. Kaiser suspects that the key to the spread is transportation. I think he might be right.

A friend posted on her Facebook page a picture of a protester at one of the rallies against the measures imposed to fight the virus (stay-at-home, business closures, masks, and social distancing) who held a sign reading "Albeit Mach Frei." My friend and I both took it as a sign of abysmal ignorance and another failing of our so-called education system. But someone else responded with a comment that, honestly is more frightening: what if the person knew exactly where the phrase came from and believed in the underlying ideology? That would mean that the Nazi ideology won WWII 75 years after Germany surrendered. I asked when I saw the picture whose work? and whose freedom?. Those who worked in the Nazi camps were certainly not free and many were worked to death before the allies liberated the camps. I remember a comment the governor of Illinois made when he got complaints from people whose livelihoods were threatened by the shut down: you have to have a life to have a livelihood. Twenty years ago (plus or minus) I thought too many people (myself included) were working themselves to death to make a living. Today, I think it is a major indictment of our "capitalist" system that people work themselves to death to not make a living.

Happy May Day--OMGs--already into the fifth month.

We had a really heavy rain over the last two days. I am not complaining because, although I have my hose hooked up, I won't have to water. I moved my two miniature roses (yeah, they are still alive) and six spearmint cuttings from the table on the patio to the shed Tuesday evening because we expected the heavy rain, high winds, and (possible) hail. And I put the 3 rosemary plants under the table. The plants in the shed survived the two days in the dark well. All are back in the open on the table or resting on containers yet to be cultivated for spring planting. I won't do anything more outside today because it is a bit cool yet.

We did our shopping yesterday. We have things down to about every two weeks plus/or/minus depending on whether we need milk and other dairy products. Because cat food (wet and dry) was low we went to our regional big-box supermarket. That chain isn't national/international like Target and Walmart and does try to use local providers when possible. And things have changed once again. Most of the shelves were well stocked though we didn't need toilet paper and cleaning supplies. We got everything we wanted except the elastic. The craft/sewing section had a lot of empty spaces. Though there were big gaps in the meat department they hadn't been cleaned out. Evidently they didn't get quite the run on meats some other stores did because of the problems with the meat packers. Most noticeable was the traffic control. We could enter by one door only and an employee (wearing a mask) greeted us and entered something into his small tablet. We did ask and he said he was making sure that the number of customers didn't exceed whatever limits had been set. The store was far from crowded and the lines at checkout did move smoothly and fairly quickly. We did see three customers move to another line because the cashier didn't have her mask over her mouth and nose.

The dairy hadn't changed. I did look at the meat freezer just in case something appealed to me and found it very empty. I think they did have a run on their supplies. We weren't looking for meat at all because we checked our stock and decided we didn't really need anything. We were the only customers until we were already checked out so there was no crush here either.

We did pick up a bag of compost yesterday since I plan to mix that into the containers. I won't buy plants until at least the middle of the month but getting the containers ready seems a good idea. The plants I started upstairs are doing far better than expected. The only failures were the woad and forget-me-nots. I will start more seeds over the weekend. I hav.e never had any success with lavender from seed but this year the seeds sprouted.

Our governor is supposed to announced whether he is going to extend the stay-at-home order and, if he does, with what changes for businesses. It seems that governors are faced with opposition no matter what they decide. If they keep the shutdown there are those demanding their "freedom" to risk getting the virus themselves and exposing everyone around them. Many governors insisting on opening up more broadly are facing rebellion from mayors of urban areas and some business owners who don't want to open before the numbers of cases are considerably lower than they are. I saw the figures for my state and county and the numbers haven't hit their peak much less a plateau. Whatever he decides we will still wear masks and, if he decides on a broad opening, gloves. We'll see.