Covid Journal, Day 36: Sad News for My County

42 this morning on the thermometer, but there was light frost in several places we could see on our land, so I assume it got colder during the night, then cloud cover moved in and warmed things up. As far as I can tell, there's no frost damage.

Yesterday's news for our county was sad indeed. Apparently the coronavirus ran unchecked through a nursing home here. One person had tested positive, but the nursing home did not test all the residents. Within a few days we went from 30 cases county wide to 100 cases today, with several deaths. Our population is about 28,000, so on the large scale I suppose the statistics aren't too bad, but now we are wondering how many more people were infected by nursing home staff who were carrying the virus when they left work--think of their families, the stores and gas stations they stopped at, etc.

I am not sure if there will be contact tracing but I hope so. I feel so sorry for the residents of the nursing home and their families--and for the workers too. I believe the National Guard is working with the nursing home now, which is a good thing. But it seems to me this outbreak could have been prevented with due diligence. I will wait for the facts to come out before rushing to judgment, however. It's too easy to jump to conclusions in situations like this.

Now there is even more reason to stay home, at least in this county. Tomorrow I must go out, to pick up a heart monitor so we can figure out what medication adjustments to make for this arrhythmia. But the cardiologist said to call from the parking lot, and a nurse will bring the monitor out to me. We'll be masked and gloved of course. And maybe a little drive will be nice. It takes an hour to get to this doctor's office, and we might just take the long way to get there.

Otherwise things are ticking on as usual. Some of the seeds we planted are coming up, and my little seedlings are looking healthy. As soon as I can cajole Larry into helping me put up the other small greenhouse I can transplant the rest of the tomatoes, the peppers and the late flat dutch cabbage plants. I can do it alone except that where we must put it means that it will need bracing so it won't blow over, so for that I need some help and more brain power. I did get some more herbs picked to dry.

I ordered Larry a new chainsaw online the other day. The things you can buy with a click of the mouse! My ebay sales paid for it, which was pretty nice. Glassware for a chainsaw--an odd but pretty cool trade.

And this box arrived yesterday. I was absolutely craving potato chips, as I seem to do every so often. We rarely buy them as they are not good for either of us, but I reasoned that since we are eating so well since we're home all the time we could afford a little splurge food. But ummm, 60 bags? Now they're only small individual size, but these will last us a long, long time, unless we got chip-crazy. I might have to give some away to remove the temptation.

Also in the mail: a 5-pound wheel of cheddar cheese. You can order that online too! We were out of cheese so this will hold us for quite a while, I hope.

One last bit of news: Larry's face mask. He's prepared for anything now, he says.

Time to go. Bread's in the oven, and the table I'm painting needs the center leaves painted. So ends Chapter 36 of this journal of these strange times.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.