July 28

Well, we are nearly at the end of July and the current death toll from the coronavirus is a shade above 149k. We will definitely be over 150k by August 1. I wonder if anyone in this country is untouched by this pandemic. We haven't had to change much of anything because even before March we avoided crowds--simply don't like being in them. We did enjoy going out to eat but found that fewer and fewer restaurants were worth the cost and time. We miss that far less than we would have thought before. We did add masks to our wardrobe which was very casual since we are both retired and don't go to dressy affairs. We are two degrees separated from someone who tested positive but we haven't heard how that went. We don't get much info from that part of the family. We haven't seen any family members since March. Many of them are hunkering down even more than we are because they have more conditions that would make getting the virus really, really bad.

I finally got out to do a bit of gardening and harvesting. Picked two trays of peppermint and four of spearmint which are drying now. Got a bit of a surprise. I thought I had planted woad but the plants didn't look quite like I expected. Since it is the first time growing it I let it go. It is trying to bloom and looks exactly like the plants I know are indigo. I probably grabbed the wrong packet. Oh, well.  I will try woad again next year. The indigo won't survive the frost so before it gets too cold I will harvest and dry the leaves for future use. I will definitely put in indigo next year.

Reading today:

John Feffer at Tomdispatch. He lays out The No-Trust World very neatly. And what he lays out is only the tip of the iceberg.

Axios has a couple of good pieces today including this one. This puts some numbers on what we see in the news: some (few) of us are doing pretty well and haven't lost much while some (many more) of us are sinking.

And also at Axios a story that reinforces some of our experiences with the virus.