Pre-COVID, I was already used to spending limits, being on a fixed low income; quarantine has further limited access to garden supplies and plants I was accustomed to obtaining.  Thus, I find myself appreciating details of each and every flower and plant that come back or appear for the first time, and my photos reflect that.  There’s always a new angle or stage of life to rediscover in commonplace, overlooked nature right around you.  I find it all cathartic, and recommend it.  There are worse things one could focus on right now.  So please enjoy my humble efforts to share what beauty I find at home in quarantine.

Thus here are yet more shots of irises and columbines starting to bloom, and even some little white thyme flowers.  Not pictured (yet) are the many species of birds and animals I see moving in closer every day, attracted by all the plants and foods I’ve provided.  The raven gang practically lives under my office window now, but they’re still quite skittish.  I’m working on those sneaky photo techniques.  Please bear with me and stay tuned.

Today we did one of our semi-monthly missions into the danger zone of Kroger.  Of course we had our “armor” on, and I was glad to see many others did, too, and were maintaining distance.  I was also astounded to observe a mountain of TP!  It’s been a while since I’ve gazed upon such a sight!  IKR?  There were still some major shortages of other necessities, but it seems some restocking is finally happening.  We also noticed many new hires.  Lately this is one of our only glimpses of other humans, which is pretty sad.  I just hope people will be smart and keep up the precautions, despite the crap our conspirator-in-chief and accomplices keep spewing.

We watched the quarantine episode of SNL hosted by Tom Hanks (who has survived the virus), and featuring many of the regulars doing remote sketches from home.  Only in a severe crisis like this could such an unheard of event take place.  It was oddly reassuring to see celebs spoofing much the same strange and awkward situations many of us find ourselves in, and finding the humor in it.  It was also sad to see their tribute to their professional and family members who have died of COVID-19.

In other boring quarantine news, some of my favorite flowers are coming into bloom–multi-colored irises, bleeding hearts, and assorted columbines.  If I seem redundant, it’s because one can never get tired of these masterpieces of nature, surpassing what human engineers and artists can even conceive of.  Although if someone could come up with the COVID-19 vaccine, that would be pretty impressive.

During these abnormal times, every small return to some semblance of normalcy means more.  In this case, it’s getting back to eating chametz (bourbon, beer, bread, beans, and other non-Pesach b’s)!  Man, was that bourbon good!  Today (erev) even stale challah tastes better.

I felt another rant coming on, but f–k that.  It’s all been said by smarter people than myself, and it’s all exhausting.  Here instead are the latest flowers, including (finally!) some bleeding heart buds.  Speaking of exhaustion, here is one droopy cat, after rampaging around crashing into things.  Some catnip may have been applied to the situation.

Is Freedom of Stupidity in the Constitution?  Those morons out protesting the lockdown, with assault weapons and trump signs–seriously, we’ve come to this?  They want the freedom to die of a deadly virus, and pass it on to all the rest of us while they’re at it.  That’s the kind of inspiring “leadership” we have, modeling destructive, selfish behavior.  It feels like rational people are on their own, surviving any way they can, with whatever help they can scrape together.  OK, I’ve said my piece.

Yesterday we got to have another pleasant conversation (outside, six feet away, with a fence between us) with our nice new neighbor.  She seems pretty aware and informed of the current situation, unlike so many around here.  We talked gardening and home maintenance, interests we share, as well as adapting to the new normal.  They seem very keen on making this their permanent home, and fixing it up, which makes their landlord (and us) happy.  It’s so unusual and therapeutic to get to speak to outside people these days.

Tonight I’m looking forward to drinking some real booze again, as Pesach ends.  Ravens are outside my office window gobbling up stale matzah–I hope they don’t end up belly up.  If nothing else, it makes good mulch.

And now back to pretty flowers.

Yesterday we worked outside, E mowing (after I mowed my small areas), and I gardening.  I planted two kinds of corn, two kinds of pole beans, two kinds of zucchini, and cucumbers, all heirlooms.  Now I just have a few more warm-weather seeds to plant, and all my homegrown tomato, pepper, and eggplant transplants.  The latter have been sitting on the back porch, getting blasted by weather extremes for about a week.  I have additional herb and flower seedlings coming along under lights, in peat pots made from TP rolls and seed starter mix.  The white flower is dill.

You learn all kinds of sustainable gardening behaviors when you’re quarantined during a plague.  I can’t just run out to Lowes for garden amendments, so I have to make do with what little I’ve generated myself.  I raided the compost pile to add organic material into my latest veg bed, and mulching is a thing of the past, other than all the leaves I’ve left in place.  I can’t go buy trees and plants, so I’m just working with naturally occurring ones.  E’s home repairs generate plenty of scrap lumber for bed dividers and stakes.  And so on.

These gorgeous irises, which came with the property, keep spreading, which is fine by me.  These native columbines volunteered from one little plant I grew from seed, which self-seeded all over my shade garden, which I’m very pleased about.  You can never have too many of all the above.

After that extreme storm last night, I’m feeling fortunate.  We still have a roof over our heads, and can keep paying for it.  Many states just south of us got slammed with tornadoes and flooding, on top of being in economic hardship in lockdown.

Some places already had long lines for food banks, like in some developing nation, whereas we have adequate supplies for now.  In fact, we just got one of those one-time IRS stimulus/relief deposits, which will go straight to savings.  We’re retired, so we get our small monthly fixed income, which pays the bills.

We’re still symptom-free, and intend to stay that way, unlike some.  Other than emergency runs every few weeks, we can stay at home and stay busy.  Things that would have seemed like a big inconvenience before, now seem manageable.  We’re your basic introvert loners, so we’re used to not socializing.  It is doable.

Sometimes the anxiety and surreality get to me.  I imagine the worst, and not being able to go deal with it.  I see our inept, negligent “leaders” denying reality and science, having no intention of serving the needs of their constituents.  I know in the long run, history will expose their self-serving crimes, but maybe not in my lifetime.  I see the extremes of disaster and loss it takes to shake people out of their complacency and delusional thinking.  More immediately, I miss my son and wonder if/when I’ll see him or my grandkids again.

So, I just throw myself more into facilitating natural beauty and habitats around me.  I watch as more of my native wildflowers and trees come up and thrive with some help.  Surreal as it is, the natural world just goes on creating, with or without us.  We can choose to live with science, or die in denial.  Maybe when we get too self-destructive, nature has to reset the balance of things.  I like to think in my minuscule way I’m helping to restore some balance.

Anyway, here are flowers.  The last photo is the “R&B” dogwood, courtesy of “the Bobs”, which happily bloomed for the first time this year.

For all you easter celebrators in lockdown (which you should be), I did these for E, from natural edible dyes–blue curaçao, red grenadine, and yellow turmeric (all items I normally stock).  Just something whimsical and cheery on a dark, rainy holiday during a plague.

It’s threatening floods, t-storms, and even tornadoes tonight.  Hopefully we’ll survive this, too.  Here are some flowers in the rain.  They seem so unfazed.

Between all the matzah this and matzah that, I feel like a ton of cannonballs are piled up in my nether region.  Plus the constant news dirge is a real drag, too.  Thus I’ve finally dragged myself to my blahg to catch up.

Here is the supermoon setting the other morning.  And here are some of my famous (no two alike) radish flowers, and our erev meal yesterday, complete with matzah cannonballs.  Not bad for a siege.

Outside, flowers are going crazier.  It was actually cold and frosty this morning, but now back to pleasant and sunny, which means we’re about to get a scary weather front across the south, featuring lots of rain, wind, and possibly worse things.  Time to batten down again.  But we’re already doing that.  When it’s over, I’ll plant all the rest of my warm weather veggies and flowers.

It’s erev seder #2, featuring the usual pyramid construction materials, cheap wine, many leftovers, and…salmon!  (Frozen, but still.)  Thinking outside the pyramid!  One gets creative during a pandemic.  We’re not starving, unlike some, for which I’m thankful.

Somewhere nearby, the plague is taking its toll of stupid peasants and their innocent victims.  This sadist-in-chief needs to go.  Where’s real justice when you need it?  I have to believe it will catch up with him soon.

Still, nature unconcernedly proceeds in rainbow colors.  Early this morning I caught the blush-yellow supermoon just setting behind the treetops.  My camera couldn’t do it justice.  The lavender and yellow irises have multiplied since yesterday.  There are more than enough flowers for bouquets to keep some of the melancholy at bay.

It’s a strange Passover, with its very own new plague, but one tries to make the most of it.  I was pretty resourceful with the limited raw materials at my disposal.  So what if the “lamb shank” is really chicken bones–my charoset is still the best, I grew my own parsley, and I had even obtained a horseradish root before this all got going.  I made a traditional apple matzah kugel, and did not neglect the small details like radish flowers.  I managed to score fresh asparagus, and a rare commodity these days, some chicken.  My afflicted ancestors in bondage would be proud.

Last night there was an impressive supermoon, which I caught to the best of my camera’s ability.  This morning the lovely lavender bearded irises were in bloom.  Up north I used to scavenge and scrape together a bouquet for Pesach, but down here that’s one thing not in short supply this time of year.  It’s a big deal to be surrounded by natural beauty, when the rest of your world is in chaos.