June 6

We have a hard enough time remembering what day of the week it is much less anything more significant. It passed right over my consciousness this morning when MSNBC had a retrospective piece with Tom Brokaw on the 76th anniversary of D-Day that today was, indeed, June 6. I have seen a number of bloggers and commentators noting that over the last 3 or 4 months one days is so much like another that one does lose track. The only things that have stood out to mark days has been Election Day and doctor's appointments. Otherwise things are fluid.

I had a bemused thought this morning about how little we really know for sure about the SARS-Cov2 virus (a.k.a., Covid-19). We really don't know for sure how many people have it, have had it, have recovered from it, or have died from it. We don't know for sure how long it was circulating in communities before the first recognized cases or deaths. There was also a curious question of whether people died but had co-morbidities could properly be said to have died from Covid or with Covid, or even why that mattered except to politicians who wanted the Covid death count to be as low as possible. A lot of people with those underlying conditions might have lived another 10, 20, or 30+ years but Covid killed them first. Then there was the question of whether hydroxychloroquine was effective, ineffective, or possibly dangerous either way. There is no definitive, uncontroversial study as of this moment with respect to Covid. Over the last few days I have seen one series of articles in which researchers say the virus is mutating into a less infectious and lethal form and another series just yesterday and set of stories today which says neither is true--it isn't mutating and isn't declining in lethal effect. I read all studies and pronouncements now with a "wait and see" skepticism.

The writer of May Dreams Gardens is enthusiastically hoping that we are really seeing a new "golden age" of gardening. Perhaps. Then again, perhaps not. I was also surprised at the number of seed suppliers I normally deal with that had to temporarily stop taking orders because the demand had depleted their stocks. I visited one this morning to see about seedlings but found they were having problems keeping up with the orders. I did see the seeds in our local supermarket had already been picked over by mid May. I didn't really need any more seeds because my orders were sent in shortly after January 1. I have several pots waiting to be set out. One blogger I like to follow had sworn off veggie gardening last year for the same reason I swore not to plant veggies this year: the weather is so chancy that I seemed to get very little for all my work. The herbs and flowers do better for me. But this year the blogger decided to go back to veggies because of the supply chain disruptions thanks to the pandemic and I decided to plant one tomato and one pepper. Only one of each. But then we noticed that three churches which had once had thriving community gardens were reducing their allotments. One eliminated the gardens all together. Those churches may have older congregations whose members are not feeling up to the work, or members whose jobs still demanded their physical presence, or they may have had increased child care responsibilities with the schools closed. Some people may be taking a new interest (or renewed interest) in gardening while others find they simply can't fit it into their new normal.