We Continue to Stay at Home Due To Covid-19, April 18 - 25, 2020

While out walking with Patty, I was remembering that 14 years ago, Patty and I spent six weeks together exploring Europe in our new Volvo.  This was after she had retired from full time work.  It was the first time in our marriage that we had spent six weeks alone together, 24/7, without any relatives or friends with us.  And here we are doing the same alone together, 24/7, without any relatives or friends with us - thank you Covid-19 pandemic.  I liked the 2006 version much more.

One thing we are doing now is virtual meetings, via Zoom, Cisco Webex and other digital platforms - weekly meetings with the Desert Botanical Garden Tuesday Docents, with the extended Ware/Boudreau family, with the McNamaras, with my NVU students, with the Madrid Friday Night English Speaking Group, with Wine Wednesday group at the Carlyle Condos, with the monthly HOA board meetings, etc.

We have been hiking more.  We found a couple of loops that connects the end of the Bow and Arrow Trail with the Duck Pond at the junction of the Sinclair Wash Trail and the Arizona Trail.

Paulie loves being in the back yard, both on the concrete and the astroturf.

She gets very excited when we return from a hike.

Spring has sprung, so it is nice to have flowers inside.

We were not sure whether the tree in the front yard was alive (it had been damaged by supports that should have been removed), but blossoms show us it is fine.

People in Flagstaff have a weird sense of humor - it reminds me of the "Keep Portland Weird" signs we saw there.

And courtesy of the local nursery, Patty has started exercising her green thumb.

And we continue our time at home.  We have driven to parks to hike, and sometimes driven to just take a ride.  I filled the car with gas on March 20 - as of April 25, we still have a half tank of gas.  As bored, antsy and impatient as we are at times, we have to stop and smell the flowers and realize how fortunate we are.  There are way too many people either unemployed or who would like to stay home to avoid getting sick but who must work to survive.

Another Project Completed During Coronavirus Home Time, April 15 - 16, 2020

The kitchen and laundry room cabinets are made of oak and are very nice and solid - but none of the doors and drawers have knobs or pulls.

Wednesday we mounted knobs on all of the upper doors in the kitchen.  As we became more proficient, Thursday we did all the lower doors and drawers in the kitchen, and all the upper cabinets in the laundry room. In several cases, we switched doors from one side to the other so that we could have them open the way we wanted.

Following the stay at home orders for coronavirus does have the advantage of causing us to look for things we want done and can accomplish with materials delivered (in this case, from Home Depot).  And of course, we have to take breaks to walk Miss Paulie - here she is enjoying the morning sun at Arroyo Park.

Ten Days of Stay at Home under Coronavirus rules, April 5 - 14, 2020

As with much of the world, we are required to stay home except for essential travel and to maintain "social distancing" when we are out of our homes.  Most NAU students have gone home, so our neighborhood has been very quiet and walking the streets and trails have led to few encounters with others.  It has been very easy to avoid getting close to passersby.

On one of my walks, I revisited Sawmill Multicultural Art and Nature County Park.  In a previous blog post, I included a photo of this wall from the other side - I did not realize it had artwork on both sides.

Before the lock down, my usual Tuesday was spent at the Desert Botanical Garden as a volunteer Docent.  DBG Docents give tours and man stations to share information about desert plants.  Because of the lock down, the DBG is closed, but I felt a need for us to get together.  So each Tuesday, I host a Zoom session at lunchtime.  It is great to see and hear my fellow docents.  Here is a screen shot from Tuesday April 7.

On one of our walks, Patty and I went to the Duck Pond near the Arizona and Sinclair Wash Trails.  On the way back, we stopped for a photo of one of the signs.  Just as there are adopt-a-road programs, Flagstaff has an Adopt-A-FUTS program - Flagstaff Urban Trail System.  We thought that Virtuous Pagans was an interesting name for a group. 

Upon returning from one of our hikes, Paulie was very excited to see us.

At 70 years old, I am one of the younger Tuesday Docents at the DBG.  To help some of the other docents with the technology of Zoom, I have held private sessions with them.  Here is one with Beckie.

Whenever I am in Madrid, I join the Friday Night English Speaking Group, a.k.a. La Tienda de las Lanas.  They typically meet in a bar or cafe and a local person has activities for part of the evening, and then people just chat for the rest of the evening - all in English, all with the purpose of helping people practice and improve their spoken English.  They have continued to meet virtually since the lock down, and have tried a variety of online tools.  On Friday April 10, the group celebrated Richard's 70th birthday - Richard is a retired British seismologist who lives in Madrid and does private classes teaching English.  The used Cisco Webex for the online platform.  At one point, there were 26 people involved.  David was the emcee and had a quiz where we had to try to identify different works of art and different buildings.  The software produced really weird mutations of the art work - the second one is supposed to be the Mona Lisa.

The buildings were easier, as I could identify about half of them - the Eiffel Tower, Sydney Opera House, Empire State Building, etc.

On Saturday April 11, my morning walk took me where I had a great view of Mount Humphries and the adjacent San Francisco Mountains, as well as the stormy skies.

I figured out how to put virtual backgrounds into the picture when I am using Zoom.

On our Sunday walk, Patty and I saw this butterfly hanging on for dear life - I am sure the wind would have smashed him into something if he let go.

Although we were on the Sinclair Wash FUTS trail, the trail goes through the NAU campus, which is hilly and has many different styles of student housing.

We passed by this flowering tree on another walk, but could not identify it.

On Monday morning the 13th, Megan was out early for her walk and for 45 minutes we talked as she walked in sunny Phoenix and I walked in chilly Flagstaff with Paulie.  On Tuesday morning, it started snowing when I was out walking Paulie, big wet flakes falling on us - but it melted once it hit the ground.

Strangely, I even saw many earthworms out on the sidewalk - not as fat as the ones we used to see in Vermont, but they were about six inches long.

When I got back to the house, it was really snowing hard.

Later on Tuesday, I again hosted the Tuesday DBG Docents on Zoom - this time we had 17 people.

And so life continues with only going to the grocery store once per week.  We did have pizza delivered once and we did go to the Starbucks drive through once for lattes - but that is life under the stay at home, lock down rules.  It is our new normal since March 20, 2020.

Spring has Sprung in Flagstaff and Patty has a birthday, April 2 - 4, 2020

Thursday was a quiet day, sunny and warm, time to relax in the backyard.

Patty's bird feeder has guests.

I had a Zoom session with a couple of students in Vermont.  And Patty got this wonderful Love-Pop, a pop up card with an intricately made basket of flowers from Martha, Ben and Megan.

 

Friday, Patty and I hiked a part of the Sinclair Wash and a section of the Arizona trail.  We saw many pussy willows in bloom and knew we would need to come back to cut some for our house - spring has come.  Later in the day, we had a Zoom session with Helen and Phil in Massachusetts, their daughter Laura and friends in Virginia and Laura's friend Tammy in Pennsylvania.  Lots of laughter and good cheer.

Then we had Friday Fun via Zoom with Anne and Shawn in Prescott, and Jane, Meg, Lauren and Gardner in Phoenix.   More laughter and good cheer - a great way to end the week.

Saturday was Patty's birthday, so I got her a small chocolate cake.

A little before noon, we ventured out to hike on the Arizona Trail - this time with a razor blade knife to cut some of those pussy willows.  But first, we went to the Willowbend Environmental Center in the Sawmill Art and Nature County Park - this is where a large sawmill operated for many decades.  They have several small gardens.

Multiple warnings about covid-19 precautions.

They capture rainwater, store it and use it for watering the gardens.

They have educational signs on many of the plants.

They had multiple sculptures plus this area for artwork next to a playground.

Then it was through some of the dedicated open space back to the Arizona Trail.

We did get some pussy willow cuttings to bring home.  As we passed by the Flagstaff Boys and Girls Club, we stopped to take photos with one the last remaining snowbanks while holding a handful of the pussy willows.

Back home, we had a Zoom session with Martha, Ben and Megan to help Patty celebrate her birthday under stay at home orders for the state.  Later, when I walked the dog, I saw that our neighbor has daffodils starting to bloom.

Spring is in the air.