Quarantine: May 2020
When I started doing weekly quarantine posts, I imagined it would be over in a month or so. I imagined by Summer we’d be back to normal and so providing a weekly glance into our “life in lockdown” doing puzzles and recipes and projects as we waited for the world to resume normality would be an interesting glimpse into a very weird time. Well, lockdown is now just our entire lives for the foreseeable future. So welcome to our new normal. Here’s how we’re coping…
THE POOL IS OPEN
Someone on Twitter recently said, “If you have a swimming pool, your quarantine doesn’t count.” We cannot argue that. We opened our pool this month, converted it to salt water, and now I have a daily exercise regimen to counterbalance all the stress, the stress-eating, and general malaise from being locked inside since March. This pool is life-saving right now.
When we purchased our dream home six months ago, we had no idea we’d be locked inside it every single day for months on end. That a house that was maybe a little too big for just two people would quickly become our entire world and the extra room would help preserve our mental health. And that the boundaries of our yard would be the only safe space to exist and breathe outside without a mask.
This house is now more than a home, it is our sanctuary. We are keenly aware that it is a massive privilege to live here, in a safe spacious bubble away from very real horrors that so many others cannot escape. To still have jobs and paychecks. To be able to afford to stay home. This is a very broken system we live in here in the US. I hope when we come out the other side from this pandemic, we begin to create a world in which a home, health insurance, and basic income is not a luxury, but a guarantee for everyone.
The Hummingbirds Return
In our last house, we discovered that we had a hummingbird who would visit our bee balm flowers for nectar. It was like discovering fairies exist. I knew hummingbirds were a thing, I have seen them on television and in museums, but neither of us had witnessed one in person before we lived there. So when we began seeing one in our yard, it was MAGICAL.
When we bought the new house, I was secretly sad that we would be leaving behind our bee balm garden and thus our hummingbird. But Io and behold, last summer I saw hummingbirds buzz past our Rose of Sharon trees! It was late summer, and they were probably prepping to migrate South, but I knew I could lure them back in the Spring with feeders. This year I put the bottle and some fresh nectar up May 1st and on the morning of May 4th, this little lady alighted on the perch!
The weather is pretty cool this time of year so I’ve been refiling the feeder every three days. And I’m please to say we have a whole roster of regulars flitting by every morning and evening. Although I have learned they do NOT like sharing. There’s literally a swimming pool-sized tank of food enough for two dozen birds but hell hath no fury like a hummingbird asked to split the meal. Here they are having mid-air face-sword fights:
Speaking of backyard birds, we have also been visited by a Northern Harrier Hawk. This guy has been seen dive-bombing little birds down our yard like a runway, chilling atop our gazebo (as pictured), and once perched upon the tailgate of our pickup truck.
You know those sunny Spring days when the sun is out and the weather would be perfect for a lazy weekend spent lying on a beach? Well it’s not happening this year because people can’t social distance to save their lives and apparently masks are a form of oppression. So we have to pretend the yard is a beach. Here is Mike modeling our fantastic pop-up beach tent. Perfect for creating shade on a hot beach day or just a cool place to have a post-lawn mowing nap.
Mike is an excellent landscaper and groundskeeper. I’d like to say I do the same quality housekeeping inside, but I just bought a Roomba to avoid ever having to vacuum again. I’m fine with robots taking some of my jobs.
I do think bordeom gets to us once in a while, because I recently decided to spend half an hour in line at Trader Joe’s to buy overpriced trail mix and crackers just to make cheese plates. I don’t even shop at Trader Joe’s. We don’t even need to make cheese plates. It was just something to occupy my mind for a day and an excuse to leave the house this month. This is the level of entertainment we are at now. Cracker-arranging.
That about wraps up the month of May for us. I’ll leave you with some gorgeous irises that are blooming around the edges of our yard, bringing color and life to our corner of the world.
