Welcome to May

Yesterday was May 1st and I was almost totally lazy. I played most of the time--making up for the problems Facebook was having starting on Friday and which were finally resolved late that day. I did go out and plant the transplants we bought Friday. It was way too cold and windy to do anything Friday. So two tomatoes, two peppers and two begonias are doing nicely. All of the veggies are varieties I haven't grown before. I had wanted cherry tomatoes but I did't see anything on the shelves. We should have nice temperatures this week so it might be a good time to plant the seeds I have. So far the sage, 1 of the mums from last year, dyers woodruff, valerian, both roses, and chamomile are doing well--all winter survivors. And that was without much protection. 

It is already shaping as a bad fire season out west. I thought I would check out the Drought Monitor and it looks grim. I looked it up because two things came together: a memory from the last time--a week or so ago--I checked the monitor: we were in one of the lower categories of drought and our city is encouraging the installation of rain barrels even providing barrels at low cost to homeowners. If we owned our building we would take them up on the offer.

India has been in the grip of another devastating surge of COVID that has even cracked the media bubble in the U.S. I saw a bit this morning (sorry I forget where) which showed a graph of world COVID cases and though the Indian numbers are astounding those are only part of the world story. The pandemic is still raging not only in South Asia but also South Africa and South America. The blurb listed about 8-10 South American countries that are all in the top ten of the areas which are leading the numbers of cases and deaths. We have a simple rule which we aren't going to change even though we were vaccinated over a month ago: when we go out we will have masks in our purses and when we go into stores or crowds we wear them. We normally avoid crowds but summer is coming and the outdoor market will open in a month. For a good article on the Indian situation with some discussion of the economic ramifications see this Asia Times piece.