We are into the 3rd week of the Covid-19 pandemic on Earth. It is remarkable how the whole world is united by this virus and all are experiencing the same disruptions of daily life. My hope is that once we get past this we will remain in crisis mode and work on mitigating climate change as the biggest obstacle to it has been the argument that it will be too hard to disrupt our lives to make the changes we need. Well Covid-19 has proven that disrupting our daily lives is possible and why not re-start them with Climate Change protocals taking precedence.
Here in Vermont schools, restaurants and bars were shut two weeks ago, then last week all non essential business were shut and people were told to shelter in place; Stay Home Stay Safe. On Thursday the Governor announced that schools would remain shut for the remainder of the term and that districts had to have a remote learning plan in place by April 13th.
We are washing our hands, maintaining social distance when we are out which is rarely. My work is busier than ever, we have maxed out at 1200 customers and have a waiting list with 700 people on it. We are scrambling to implement safe practices and deal with the increased volume of orders and have added 2 extra days to the pick; Mondays to stock and Wednesdays to spread the pick out over two days. Last week in Boston was the busiest I have ever been at the pick up sites. We had long lines of customers 6′ apart the whole time and extra site hosts to deal with returns and handing the orders out. We developed a system where no one gets within 6′ of each other. People are so grateful to be getting food and it feels good what we are doing.
At home the girls keeping busy reading, drawing, talking on the phone with friends. For my part I am enjoying not running around every day taking them to dance and gymnastics and art class but it is tempered by their disappointment in not being able to do those things. We are boiling sap and working on the tile work in the bathroom and finishing up the basement and sorting through totes that have been under the Long House for years deciding what to keep and what to trash. There is no shortage of projects to keep us occupied and with 3 days of intense work at FTY I do not feel isolated.
Colleen is using technology to continue to counsel her clients and we use the WiFi hot spot at Doty School to catch up on online stuff. The girls are cut off from Remote Learning but that is no big deal as they have been homeschooled all their lives and this is no different.
Construction Update
This weekend I tiled the tub wall in orange 4″ x 4″ tiles and cut a large circle in the middle. The inner circle is going to be a 18″ diameter tile that I will make and the outer ring will be a mosaic of tile and sea shells. We have also finally decided on black as the tile color for our kitchen back splash and will order it this week and get to work on it when it arrives integrating the tiles we each made into it.
