Shelter-in-Place Day 23

I may have spoiled my ability to update this blog sans stress.

I can usually ease any pressure I might feel by remembering that these little entries are virtually reader-less. But today I told my poetry friends that I have been writing, and now I must at least assume that they may, indeed, glance at it if I actually send them the link.

So in case my future self has done so, I'd like to say "hello" to those friends who have visited.

Hello.

And I also have to say that one of my favorite verb tenses is the future perfect. I will have written this. You may have read it. We would have [conditional] both read it by the time you reach here.

Here.

There's an idea, at any rate. How many of us live focusing only on the future perfect, rather than the existing within the muddle that is the present progressive? As in "I am trying to live a more perfect present so that I will not have had regrets about the past in the future."

Moira, sleeping (she had slept for an hour or so by the time I took this. She will sleep more tomorrow, until she will have slept most of the week away):

Darcy, sleeping (see above regarding weekly quantity of sleep):

Shelter-in-Place Day 22

Here's what the Johns Hopkins map of America looks like right now:

Over 1,500,000 cases. 314 dead in California.

And yet, the irises are about to bloom, and my vegetable starts are sprouting. The pair of crows to whom I feed walnuts, who had been absent for a day or two, are back. The three people who live here are still working and/or being paid. N. and A., while not working, are at least dividing time between here and Sebastopol, and are not flying back to New Jersey, as they had previously planned. It's a new hot spot, and I'm grateful that they're here, and safe.

Broadway is closed until June.
Bernie Sanders has dropped out of the Presidential race.

I continue to send poems out to journals at a rate of one per day this month. It's a little like playing the lottery or planning a trip, where the anticipation of the results is at least half the fun.

Shelter-in-Place Day 21

We're coming up on a month of social distancing.

It's so strange how even days that feel long are zipping by and turning into weeks. I am also surprisingly not getting as much "accomplished" as I thought I would in terms of going through old papers, photos, ephemera, etc.

However, I am researching and submitting to literary journals every day, and am writing - even something as simple as this counts, I tell myself - daily. I am walking. I am cleaning, tending the garden and keeping up on housework, etc.

After my "I haven't napped yet during this pandemic" statement, I did nap for about an hour today. But I also walked for over an hour and later submitted to not one but two journals.

The weather is better, and looks to improve even more by end of week. Pollen going into both hives. So even though I can see now that the large hive is battling deformed wing virus - but their varroa mite load still seems low, based on the monitor board - they must have brood. This is beekeeper talk that basically translates into background free-floating fretting mixed (as always) with faith that things will work out with the bees as it should. This colony continues to demonstrate a genetic predisposition for hygienic behavior that will serve it well right now. So there's that. 

Shelter-in-Place Day 20

This is what the animals do mid-morning. Also late morning, early afternoon, evening, and whenever it suits them. I don't think I've taken a single nap during this shelter-in-place. But I live vicariously.

And Mr. Dary, mid-yawn. Because napping wore him out, apparently.

Most of today was spent composing poems, and tonight a zoom critique group. In between, a dog walk and in the evening, a short but very intense lightning storm with hail. The chickens like to eat the hail. 

Tomorrow, the National Guard will arrive to help at the Food Bank in Santa Rosa, and the County Health Officer anticipates cases of the coronavirus to reach an apex in June. Tonight, the Library Commission met regarding pay and closure. I'll have to check the recording tomorrow, because the timing conflicted with my poetry group. Whenever we do return to work, things will be very different.

Shelter-in-Place Day 19

Today, I fasted until dinner - something I've never done before but tried as a re-set after two days of almost criminal overeating. I also, once the rain stopped, went on a four-mile walk, gardened, and finally emptied the box I've hauled around for 30+ years that contains ephemera from a 3-month Eurail/Youth Hostel trip which I've been meaning to put in a scrapbook "some day."

I did not complete that project. But I did run across some interesting items, and perhaps by this time tomorrow, I'll be able to provide photographic evidence of what this odd hoarding has accomplished.

I've kept up with my daily poetry writing/blogging/submitting for April. There was a typo and a missing page break I caught after submitting pieces, so it tells me to slow down and double-check. But it feels good to know that I now have a total of 25 poems pending responses from 6 places.

California and Sonoma County now recommend masks for people who are out in public. There are many people, friends included, making their own. I have a couple of older N-95 masks that I will use when I eventually go shopping for food again, unless I use a bandana or the like instead in order to avoid criticism because N-95 masks should go to medical professionals for their PPE. However, the ones I have are old. However, who would know that?

It's amazing how quickly what would have been something out of a dystopian novel becomes "normal."

Sonoma County's caseload is now at 111.

D. told me people are finding creative ways to cope with being home-bound. Lots of music, lots of baking. And apparently, one man counted how many smiley faces he could draw with a standard ballpoint pen before it ran out of ink (29,249).

Is putting 1989 museum tickets and travel brochures in a scrapbook just as worthless a use of time?

Shelter-in-Place Day 18

It rained today, and I spent most of the day at the computer, reading poetry, listening to poetry podcasts, watching poets interview one another, knitting, and feeding the fire in our wood burning stove.

I also spent some time trying to watch the presidential corona virus briefing. But it kept stalling out, so I only heard snippets. Enough to know that the next two weeks will be rough, especially for some hot spots. And that the POTUS is capable of contradicting himself, even about vitally important matters, within the space of a single sentence. And that the U.S. has been accused of diverting shipments of medical supplies. 

As I wrote this, I wonder whether a day will come when the world will be in such dire straits that international cooperation in coordinating relief efforts will override the base human impulse for preservation of self and tribe. In other words, what would it take for us to work together as a social animal that is able to put the species and its survival as a whole ahead of individual needs? I wonder what E.O. Wilson has to say about SARS-CoV-2. 

As of right now, the Johns Hopkins worldwide numbers are 1.2 million confirmed cases, 64,753 deaths and 246,886 recovered.  For California, the numbers are 13,723 confirmed cases and 317 deaths. That figure comes from the efforts of the New York Times to track cases at a state and county-wide level. When you see that fewer than 21 out of 100,000 people in Sonoma County are affected, and .2 out of 100,000 people in Sonoma County have died from this disease, it would be tempting to think of it as "just another flu" about which officials are making a huge fuss. But in New York, the deaths at this point number 22 out of every 100,000 people, and they're having to create more makeshift morgues. That's the way this would go everywhere - or worse - if we weren't sheltering in place.

I'm hoping to avoid any trips to the stores or anywhere, apart from driving S. to work and picking her up, for the next couple of weeks. 

Shelter-in-Place Day 17

I spent a good part of today trying to clean up the dumping ground that was the area just outside our back window, along the house in the back yard. We'd gone through the rice straw bale we use as bedding for the chickens, as well as the pressed wood logs we use for the fireplace when we don't have enough of the hard oak cut. So a trip to Rivertown for both things was my essential outing for the day (as well as a walk with the dog).

I also managed to check both bee hives, briefly, and replace a splitting super for the Mountain colony, which appears to be doing beautifully. The Shakespeare hive is still huge and still busy, but I'm concerned by the large number of bees they're pulling out each morning, dead, and by the even larger number of bees I see walking on the ground near the hive. I can't see that they have deformed wings or mites, so maybe pesticide, or something else? Some do seem to fly after walking around quite a bit. The colony has always had a strong hygienic habits, so I suppose it could be something else going on with the newest bees. Just not sure.

After the hive inspections, determined to find a better way to store the rice straw bale than up against the house for mice to tunnel under, I thought of setting it up on top of something. A simple enough idea, but to make it work and clean up all the unnecessary clutter took hours, for some reason. I moved make-shift nesting boxes created with old dresser drawers, but now abandoned by the hens. I moved buckets of sand and BBQ briquettes and wood that still needs to be split and dilapidated seed starting trays, and it only now occurs to me as I write this that only the nesting boxes were my idea. The rest was, as it were, imposed on me by the erstwhile projects of other family members. If that sounded bitter, it was only a tiny bit so. There are moments, especially during this shelter-in-place, when I feel as though I do nothing but clean up after everyone else. Which is ridiculous to admit because meanwhile, people are dying and losing their jobs, and my family members do help me, sometimes, and oh, yeah, again: people are dying.

The number of diagnosed cases world-wide, or at least admitted (because who knows how many really died in China), has exceeded one million. And Dr. Anthony Fauci has had to have increased personal security because of death threats from conspiracy theorists. I think Fauci (head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) knows his stuff and has helped save countless lives with his ability to stand firm and tell the truth while the person next to him at the podium vacillates between one ego-driven declaration and another. [Insert deep breath here, to avoid expressing my real - heated - opinion of said person.]

The day ended with D. and I watching an episode of MST3000 together, although I fell asleep before it finished, having had too much red wine and too much sugar during a zoom celebration of a friend's birthday. Is seeing the faces of my girlfriends on a screen instead of around a table in person the new normal? Some think so.

Shelter-in-Place Day 16

I'm copying text that I'd put in my poetry blog here. The post was entitled "Well, That Was Quick":

As if to reward me for focusing on my work, [insert name of divine being, fate, luck, synchronicity, etc.] has provided me with a less-than-24 hour turnaround for acceptance of a poem I sent out last night. I am so very grateful, especially because the journal is beautiful and I'm honored to be part of it. More to come on that later. 

In other, less ego-centric news, there was a zoom Litquake reading tonight that would have been in Grace Cathedral had circumstances allowed it. The event was hosted by Rebecca Foust, and featured I got to see and hear Kazim Ali, Tongo Eisen-Martin, and Jane Hirshfield. I felt like I'd gone on a three-stage journey by the time the reading had finished, and that the scenery and local food and language differed, but they all carried me along my way, and I was grateful to have traveled. 

Otherwise, today was spent running errands and working on bee equipment and trying to find the next place to submit poems. It's a sign of the times that when I went to Beekind for lemon grass oil and Bee Quick, they were allowing only one customer in the store at a time, masked, and that they had hand-sanitizer to use before you entered, and you weren't to touch anything but what you bought. At Costco, there was a forty minute wait to get into the store. But the shelves were well-stocked in terms of what I needed, with the exception of eggs, toilet paper and flour. I bought equipment from John at Buzz Off Honey as well. There, the shopping experience was as it normally is.

I am finding that writing poems every day, submitting poems every day, doing Whole Life Challenge and managing two blogs is keeping me busy - especially if I put off much of it until the end of the day. Tomorrow, if the weather is good, I'll add a hive inspection to that list.

Shelter-in-Place Day 15

It is April, and therefore National Poetry Month. Here's a random photo of late February daffodils to liven up this post.

Today also marks the 30 year anniversary of my husband asking me to marry him. Yes, April Fool's Day. If this has been a long-running prank, I admire his ability to stretch out a joke.

Today a neighbor and I walked to a friend's house to sit socially distant from one another in her garden and catch up. This is after I had a zoom session with poetry friends. So many interpersonal interactions in one day!

Also, I gardened (weeded) and read and wrote. I'm focusing more on poetry this month: trying to write a poem a day and submit to a publication every day. We shall see how that plays out...

Shelter-in-Place Day 14

Today I took another long walk, trying to enjoy the natural world as I know a lot of people are now. I also did a little bit more yard work, and a little bit more housework. It's the birthday of my birth father, my husband's sister, and a friend from the library. But the big news that marks the day is that the county has decided to extend the shelter-in-place order for another four weeks, until May 3rd.

No. C19-05
Extending The Shelter In Place Order No. C19-03 Beyond April 7, 2020 To May 3, 2020.
DATE OF ORDER: MARCH 31, 2020
Read Health Order Appendix – Social Distancing Protocol »Frequently Asked Questions »Detailed Summary of Changes – New Shelter Order issued on March 31, 2020 (PDF) »Please read this Order carefully.  Violation of or failure to comply with this Order is a misdemeanor punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both.  (California Health and Safety Code § 120275, et seq.; Cal. Penal Code §§ 69, 148(a)(1).)UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF CALIFORNIA HEALTH AND SAFETY CODE SECTIONS 101040, 101085, AND 120175, THE HEALTH OFFICER OF THE COUNTY OF SONOMA (“HEALTH OFFICER”) ORDERS:
1. This Order shall become effective at 12:01 a.m. on April 1, 2020 and will continue to be in effect until 11:59 p.m. on May 3, 2020, or until it is extended, rescinded, superseded, or amended in writing by the Health Officer or the State Health Officer.

etc.

It spells out the details of essential businesses, and I hope it cuts down on the number of bored people shopping for flowers to plant. The hardware store where S. works is considered essential, but under item 13, which defines "essential," there are caveats about cosmetic versus safety purposes:

1. Hardware stores;

1. Plumbers, electricians, exterminators, and other service providers who provide services that are necessary to maintaining the habitability, sanitation, and operation of residences and Essential Businesses, but not for cosmetic or other purposes;

1. Arborists, landscapers, gardeners, and similar service professionals, but only to the limited extent necessary to maintain the habitability, sanitation, operation of businesses or residences, or the safety of residents, employees, or the public (such as fire safety or tree trimming to prevent a dangerous condition), and not for cosmetic or other purposes (such as upkeep)

This means another month at home. I hope to use it well. 

 

Shelter-in-Place Day 13

Another swarm today. This makes three in nine days, and this time I'm not sure whether it was the larger "Shakespeare" Hive (so named because I received it 4/23/18), or the smaller "Mountain" Hive, given to me as a split from Nick on Sonoma Mountain. I'm going to try to link a video to this blog. It's as the swarm just started to find the queen in the oak tree. I'm standing in the middle of it all. Another three hours to carefully box up. Again, no stings.

Here's what it looked like once they landed:

On the coronavirus front, I'm going to let the Johns Hopkins map tell it all this time:

Shelter-in-Place Day 12

Sunday.

Just as I despaired about any one else helping with projects around the house, D. improved upon his live rat trap for the plague that visits our back yard at night to snag chicken feed, which seems to be a target no matter how well we try to cover it.  We'll see how it goes. I hate to kill anything, even these troublesome rats. D. counted 11 in our backyard the other night! But if we lived in the country, it might be even more of a necessity than it is now to deal with the intrusions from nature. So I tell myself I should get used to it. In the meantime, I know that if it were just up to me, I'd be driving each captured rodent into the hills and letting it go to live out its days. Or be eaten by a raptor.

So much for this being any kind of pandemic blog. How self-centered.

New York is in a very bad state, with the National Guard preparing beds in advance of what is still coming.

I donated toward a non-profit that is getting masks sent to the US by the thousands. It's legit, because a friend knows the woman doing it personally and has already seen masks come in to the hospital where her husband works as a result. It feels like such a small contribution. But it's something besides just staying home, in my own house and in my own head.

Shelter-in-Place Day 11

I've found myself slightly irritable now and then during the last couple of days. But I can recognize it's happening, feel it, and not act on it. It passes quickly, and usually I can identify what's going on.

It could be that I'm getting a little stir-crazy. But more often, it's a sense that I'm accomplishing things on our long around-the-house to-do-list while those around me (especially D.) literally play video games for hours. Or at any rate, sit in front of a screen for hours. I do too, honestly, but almost always at the end of the day, after I've done "all the things" or at least enough of them to feel I've been productive.

It's true that some of that screen staring might be programming or research. It's true that by the time I'm zoning out in front of the computer or Netflix, other people are just starting to get into gear and get things done. But if I were to express my real feelings about the hours of what I consider wasted days (and we only have a limited number of them!), it would be ugly. And not worth the fallout. Writing about it here is as close as I'll get, most likely. Until I can find a kind way to speak my truth "quietly and clearly" as the Desiderata would have it.

Come to think of it, when I just now went to make sure I was quoting that text correctly, I realized that it represents almost entirely the guidelines by which I have tried to lead my life. Whether or not it has been conscious, I've applied the whole thing to how I try to move in the world, what my beliefs and values are. I remember memorizing it as a child, mostly, when it hung on a shellacked piece of wood in my nana's mobile home. I have carried it with me all this time. It has shaped what I think.

So there. A self-discovery for the day.

Shelter-in-Place Day 10

I might as well document the look of the painted living room wall. Take it from me, it's much better than it was before, when it was full of clutter and an ugly splotchy dark green. The peregrine painting is from my birth dad. Moira is drinking water at the edge of the scene.

What does it say that we have a Burne-Jones print and a RoboCop diarama in the same cabinet? 

That D. and I live here. That's what it means. 

The days are indeed starting to blur. But tomorrow is a weekend, so D. will be home. The rain is coming. I've done some weeding and watched the smaller hive do a dry run of a swarm. I tried to identify the emotions I was feeling while I waited to see if they were really going to leave, and while I prayed they wouldn't head east, into the yard of the neighbors I don't know, whose house sports a thin blue line flag, like this one:

I think the primary emotion was resignation, with some kind of stoic support underneath it. The same emotions that I feel about the shelter-in-place - although in that case they're under a whole lot of guilt-tinged happiness about being home and relief that I have a federal and state-mandated excuse not to socialize. 

Shelter-in-Place Day 9

I admit that the days do blur a bit as I try to keep track of them.

Today, just as I was about to drive D. to work, the Shakespeare hive swarmed again. I was able to watch it swarm. I'd jinxed myself Saturday when I said that was the easiest swarm ever to put in a nuc.

Here's today:

The good news about this one? It landed in the back yard next to the smaller "Mountain" colony. The bad news, it wasn't just *on* the umbrella, or even just *under* the umbrella. It took nearly 3 hours of patient coaxing and careful disassembling to find that the queen was hiding in the very bottom of the pole, on the inside! Phew! This one goes to the next name on the "needs bees" list. I'd known it was going to swarm because when I'd gone into the hive Sunday, I'd heard piping so I closed it right back up. I'd added space but couldn't get into it further to find queen cells.

Shelter-in-Place Day 8

Today was remarkable because I received a quick and not automated rejection email from a literary journal. If I were taking part in the 100 rejections a year community in one of my FB groups, that would be one to add to the list.

I spent the day painting the living room. I guess these projects always take longer than you think they will. It feels frivolous while so many things are happening that are so much more important - a nephew with a burst appendix, a half-sister in ICU with heart problems - but not, as far as we know right now, coronavirus. But I can't seem to not take advantage of the shelter-in-place order to complete things that have needed doing for a long time. In spite of the heartache so many are feeling, I am so happy at home.

Shelter-in-Place Day 7

Well, the rain came today. And so I set about starting the project of painting the wall in our living room that had been a dark green, and was spotty at best, especially where the 450 gallon fish tank had lived.

It took until 9pm, with a few taxi-driving breaks, to get the primer up. Tomorrow, I hope to put on the "flaxseed" that is already on the adjoining entranceway wall. Because the corner from one room into the other is rounded, it would be awkward to transition to another color. I just hope the flaxseed isn't too dark. Of course, anything would be dark compared to the arctic primer I spent hours putting on.

In truth, most of the time is spent cleaning and taping. I'm not the neatest painter, although I'm better than I used to be - so paint really saves me, every time.

I saw part of the White House televised conference today. President Trump hoping to get the economy rolling by Easter. Because it seems like that would be a "beautiful day" for that to happen. Somebody better inform the still-spreading novel coronavirus about his plans.

Shelter-in-Place Day 6

Today, I conquered a fair bit of dread and anxiety and tried a zoom conference for the first time. I had no choice, because it meant seeing and hearing my poetry friends from the MFA program, and I wasn't going to miss that. It turns out that there is almost nothing to it, and it went well, and I am so grateful that I could spend that time with them. I wrote each one afterward to send my gratitude, support and love.

I normally don't even like to call people on my cell.  It's another behavior that this pandemic is changing.

Later, I attended a virtual poetry reading via zoom, with 40 other people. While covid19 is a tragedy for many, it must be an unbelievable boon for the makers of zoom and other videoconferencing software.

I made the mistake of making fresh bread just as my resistance to sugar and flour was at a low point, and didn't so much fall of the wagon as hurl myself there. At least I saw the binge coming, watched it happen, and can say, yep, that's what that was. Tomorrow is another day. But what I learned from this is that almost certainly if I've done something difficult during the day, or if it's been a long stressful day and I've reached the end of it, my habit is to self-medicate with sugar and alcohol or both. I need to find another form of recompense. Some ideas: knitting, a cup of tea, stretching, a walk around the block, or all three. But not at the same time.

Britain is under very firm shelter-in-place orders. I watched Prime Minister Boris Johnson's address to the people of Britain, and he seemed to be taking things very seriously. I understand that he may be cut of a similar cloth to the blustering buffoon we have in office, but at that moment, I appreciated his gravitas, and wished he was our leader.

They've closed all Sonoma County Parks because people were essentially flocking to them and congregating too much for safety's sake. But the rain is coming, so D. and I wouldn't have been going to Schollenberger anyway. I'm glad I checked the Shakespeare hive when I did, and gardened while I could.

an effort to track down how rats are getting into the attic, and to see whether they were nesting there, I crawled around for a while. I found that a few of the girls' shelter projects had been raided for nests, and had to throw them out. S., burned out by working so many hours and helping customers with zeroconcept of "essential shopping," said she didn't care if I got rid of all of those early childhood projects. 

In the interest of space - and in the face of lack of interest - I did toss these beauties, but not before taking pictures, which are of the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, a sailboat (2nd or 3rd grade?), the signature of Elizabeth 1 on Mary, Queen of Scot's death warrant - from R/N's People to People project, and a yarn design.

                     

                                                       

Shelter-in-Place Day 5

Another day of working in the yard because I thought the rain would be coming soon. The skies have stayed clear for now, and the yard is looking better.

I tried to get into the large hive to check for queen cells, but I didn't get far before I found myself performing surgery to extract new comb built sideways outside the follower boards - honey, and even some drone brood. I also heard piping. So I just added another box and frames, pressed the new comb on wired frames (note to self: get large rubber bands for this task!), and closed it all back up. It's now six medium supers tall. I'll have to wait until the shelter-in-place order is lifted and I can get help to clean it up more. But also, if there's a new queen, I don't dare mess with it at all for a while.

I'm hearing more and more that we should only be making essential trips, and I admit to feeling guilty for buying paint yesterday, but it's a done deal now.

Tomorrow, I'll try my first zoom conference. I find myself intimidated by, not the technology, but the social interaction. Shyness, or something else? I think it's just a manifestation of anxiety, so I'm accepting it and moving on.

Johns Hopkins reports over 330,000 cases and over 14,000 deaths (30 in California) - but nearly 100,000 recovered, which is the number I try to focus on.

This morning I sent poems to an online journal known for a quick response time. I will send out more tomorrow. Writing and submitting always takes longer than you think it will, but I have the amazing luxury of time right now. I am grateful for that unexpected gift from the pandemic.

Shelter-in-Place Day 4

For me, anyway, today was as good a day one could hope for during a pandemic. I read poetry and wrote poetry, looked into options for submitting poetry, gardened (i.e., pulled weeds) and then just as I was starting to inspect my larger hive, which I knew was likely to swarm soon, it swarmed.

This time I was able to spot the bees congregating in my neighbor's back yard. I went next door, and sure enough, he was already aware of what was happening. Together, we watched them settle in the same tree where a swarm had settled last year. Such a cool neighbor to be open to the process.

Here's what it looked like about five minutes after the queen landed on the tree:

It turns out that the next person who answered her phone on the the Sonoma County Beekeepers Association (South Cluster) Needs Bees list (yes, there is such a thing) is the same person who got last year's swarm from the same location. Unfortunately, that swarm didn't overwinter. Perhaps this one will.

While I'd waited for her to come, I inspected, and expanded, the smaller hive and gardened more. In between all these activities, I paused now and then to read and eat. I also drank lots of water and listened a little to an audiobook by Tara Brach. So it could be argued that it has been a healthy and productive day. I am feeling so strangely content while the nation and the world grapple with SARS-CoV-2. Selfish behavior? Coping mechanism? Or just living in the moment, appreciating what I can? Maybe a little of all three.

Here's a video of the bees starting to go into their swarm box, exposing their Nasonov's glands by sticking their bottoms in the air and then fanning. This gland produces a pheromone to tell the others to come home, where the queen is. Notice the bees marching right into the nuc from the tree. This was the easiest swarm I've ever captured. I got the queen in the box with the first scoop of bees.