It’s been an *interesting* six days. We both felt somewhat stressed with the adjustment to the new reality, but are otherwise safe and ok. We’re doing some of what we need to and some of what we want to, including just kicking back. The spa is getting used most evenings if it’s not raining.

The weather has been quite cold with rain on and off, but I’ve made progress in the garden. Finished the first round of planting out plants in pots, finished pruning the apple trees and the blueberries, also a ‘Hot Lips’ salvia that had over grown an agapanthus (Lily of the Nile). Coming up is rose pruning, vegetable garden prep and the weeding of a couple of borders.

We’ve not gone anywhere since our trip to the Arcata coop before the official Shelter in Place Order was issued, so yesterday morning we drove into Eureka and went to Costco to stock up on a few things. We wore disposable gloves in the store, which wasn’t busy at all until we were on our way out. They seemed to have everything in stock. We got ibuprophen, three flats of peaches, three flats of my favorite Kirkland sparkling water (morale purchase), the one bag of dog kibble each customer was allowed, two bags of doggy duck jerky treats, one bottle of olive oil and one package of prawns. At the checkout line they’d put white tape on the floor to keep people properly spread out and even then the employee keeping an eye on things had to ask someone to move back. We finished up, loaded it all in the car, pulled our gloves off inside out and put them in a baggie.

Then it was off to have some fun at a big informal open space on Humboldt Bay, which is where the photos above and below were taken. Our two rough collies, as seen in the header image, Peregrin on the left and Hailey on the right, had their usual good time running around and sniffing.

After this refreshing break we went back to McKinleyville for a quick stop at Eureka Natural Foods. They’d put some sensible policies in place and, as one went in, there was an employee making sure that customers got a sanitized cart but, as you read will below it’s still a bit of a work in progress. OTOH, it’s barely been a week, so no complaints from me.

The store (which is often referred to as ENF) was also not busy so social distancing was easy. I had our own clean veg bags for the bulk buys of whole wheat flour (we have a breadmaker and know how to use it) and peanuts. Distance courtesy is clearly and quickly becoming the norm. Except for the few people like “That Guy” when I was checking out. Here’s the account I wrote for a Facebook post after we got home: “Then on to ENF in McK. Definitely room for improvement. No signage with their quite good policies, no enforcement of their checkout line policy. Big, well-dressed dude got in line behind me as I was checking out, barely 4′ away. I asked him to step back. His response was to push the mini-cart into me, lean forward and flip me off with some smart-ass talk. Clerk did nothing. In one of those, ‘darn it I wish I’d done “x” moments back home, I now wish I’d flipped him a peace sign and smiled.”

When we got home we put on another set of gloves and unloaded everything except perishables either onto the luggage rack on the back of David’s Jensen Healey or on the big recycle bin on the breezeway. Then those gloves went into the same baggie. It’s getting quite cold at night, low 40s predicting 37F tonight so everything should be ok by tomorrow for sure since the virus is estimated to only live 24 hours on cardboard and 2-3 days on plastic. But we need to reorganize the food storage shelves in the garage anyway and will do that over the weekend.

I made this tofu-veggy stirfry last night: Peanut oil, cashew bits, chopped onion and garlic, sliced brown mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, and pineapple, seasoned with a bit of salt, cayenne and finally Vietnamese coriander from the herb border. Garnished at the table with Thai chili paste. Washed down with Eureka Natural Food’s “house beer”.

Finally, I am also actually getting work done. I’ve recently uploaded three new coloring pages to my Fox Studio Etsy shop, along with three original pen and in drawings of corvids and my first tutorial! It’s an introduction to sketching for beginners, perfect for anyone who is now home a lot, maybe most of the time, and is interested in learning to sketch but didn’t know where to begin. Art is for everyone and sketching is fun!

That’s it for now. Next post will have some spring garden photos! I hope you, your family and friends are well and safe.