Coronavirus Covid-19 Is it Affecting You and How?

[Baymule]

If it was full of duck weed, tilapia would eat it and thrive.

 

[Sheepshape]

That pond's a tad overgrown, Bunnylady. (I am too ashamed to take a pic of mine as it is almost solid with bullrushes and Canadian pond weed.....but that's not really a new problem).However the moorhens, coots and Canada geese love it and are using it as a breeding 'ground'.

As regards coronavirus, things still don't look too healthy over here. Most shops still all shut. Social distancing everywhere (I'm fine with it, think it's a good thing). Life at home has been very little different as we've been lambing and are always on 'self isolation' at this time.News of permanent closures of several large and small retail outlets and no sign of the end in sight.

Daughter due to get married in August, but not at all confident that will go ahead.

Strange, strange times.

There's a lot of good examples of people helping total strangers and community schemes being set up to help the isolated....so the crisis has had a positive effect on how folk interact. However, many, many sad stories in the news of people of all ages dying of/with coronavirus.

A once-in-a-lifetime experience we all hope.

 

[drstratton]

@Baymule and many others in this thread already know most of my story, but I'll share it here! My husband and I bought our 5 acres of land 30 years ago! We had purchased a starter home and renovated it 5 years prior, it was our stepping stone to where we live now! Anyway, we live in a land of sand, sagebrush, rocks and weeds, but the climate is quite moderate, so it is easy to throw water on something and get it to grow! We cleared about 2.5 acres of sagebrush, mostly with shovels, we didn't have a 4x4 at that time and our vehicles would have gotten stuck in the sand! We did everything ourselves, I have pictures and a toolbelt to prove it...lol! We've been married 35 years, raised 3 children, dogs, cats & chickens and we have done too many projects together to count!
How has Covid affected us...my husband will be retiring sometime in June/July, it was supposed to happen the end of May, then Covid! We were planning on not only his retirement from working a daily job, but to also retire from homesteading. We planned on spending most of the summers here at our home and doing some travel in the winter months. When the pandemic started to rear its ugly head we had to reassess our priorities and the direction we were heading! We decided that we needed to find and establish a steady supply of food, for ourselves and to help our children and their families, should the need arise! We will be planting a larger garden than normal, Dale always plants a large one! We now have 3 rabbits and 20 chickens and 4 piglets, two of those are being raised for a friend and his family, we will also be purchasing a 1/2 beef from a good friend! We had an existing coop & enclosed pen for the chickens, but the coop was built with Banty's in mind, so we moved the nesting boxes onto the outside of the coop and we are currently fencing in an area of 110'x48' so the chickens can free range in safety. We also had a double rabbit hutch that my husband built for our children's pet rabbits over 20 years ago. So we needed to build another hutch to accommodate our new breeding stock! We also built a rabbit tractor. How has Covid changed our lives, it changed our direction along with many unplanned new projects! Not where we wanted or planned to be, but we are thankful that God has given us the ability and the resources to adapt to a more self sustained life and I have found how to enjoy the journey, but I have to be honest, it's been bumpy and I have broken down in tears more than once, not just for myself, but for my family and for our country and those hurting around the world!
It is time to restart our economy, it should not have been shut down this long, I believe that we need to develop herd immunity in our country to this disease and that can't be done behind closed doors...I want my children and our brand new grandson to have a strong future, but as always I leave that in God's hands, he knows his plans for us and I know that it's better than any of mine!

 

[Baymule]

Well said @drstratton yes you had a change of plans, God has other things in store for you. I wouldn’t trade our farm life for 100 dream vacations. Days like today, watching the Loony Goonie Trio with 11 newly hatched guinea chicks can’t be matched by the finest hotel on an island in paradise. We have our paradise right here.

 

[drstratton]

Well said @drstratton yes you had a change of plans, God has other things in store for you. I wouldn’t trade our farm life for 100 dream vacations. Days like today, watching the Loony Goonie Trio with 11 newly hatched guinea chicks can’t be matched by the finest hotel on an island in paradise. We have our paradise right here.

Thank you.. the joy is in the Journey!

 

[Bunnylady]

I believe that we need to develop herd immunity in our country to this disease and that can't be done behind closed doors.

Maybe this is what's been going on . . . .

Social distancing and all the other stuff seems to have seriously slowed the rate of infection in NC; they have begun slowly unwrapping the layers of protections (for example, you can now go to many of the beaches, but you have to keep moving - no sitting or lying around on the sand allowed). A nearby county recently saw a spike of about 90 cases. According to officials there, coronavirus has invaded three nursing homes in spite of containment measures, but more than half of the new cases have nothing to do with that. Some people in the county have a sort of tradition of large family gatherings nearly every weekend, and they have continued to do it in spite of the stay-at-home orders. 39 of the cases have one birthday party as the probable point of exposure/infection (and remember, these are only the ones that were sick enough and nervy enough to seek medical attention and get tested).

I've been trying to decide whether these people are just stupidly ignoring the warnings, or maybe what they are doing is the modern-day equivalent of the "Chicken Pox Party" - a deliberate attempt to get the infection, endure the disease, and get on with their lives.

 

[drstratton]

Maybe this is what's been going on . . . .

Social distancing and all the other stuff seems to have seriously slowed the rate of infection in NC; they have begun slowly unwrapping the layers of protections (for example, you can now go to many of the beaches, but you have to keep moving - no sitting or lying around on the sand allowed). A nearby county recently saw a spike of about 90 cases. According to officials there, coronavirus has invaded three nursing homes in spite of containment measures, but more than half of the new cases have nothing to do with that. Some people in the county have a sort of tradition of large family gatherings nearly every weekend, and they have continued to do it in spite of the stay-at-home orders. 39 of the cases have one birthday party as the probable point of exposure/infection (and remember, these are only the ones that were sick enough and nervy enough to seek medical attention and get tested).

I've been trying to decide whether these people are just stupidly ignoring the warnings, or maybe what they are doing is the modern-day equivalent of the "Chicken Pox Party" - a deliberate attempt to get the infection, endure the disease, and get on with their lives.

That definitely could be the case!

We needed to keep things open and keep the healthy people working! I can see keeping those with underlying health issues quarantined, but not the healthy population. This is the first time in history that they've quarantined healthy people, it's crazy! Most people will only experience mild symptoms! I would rather take my chances of exposure than to see the economy ruined like it has been! We are destroying our children and grandchildren's future. I've done like they've asked with social distancing, but I don't wear a mask, my husband has to when he's at work!

 

[Bunnylady]

This is the first time in history that they've quarantined healthy people

People keep saying this, but it's not true. Locking down entire populations has been an approach to dealing with pestilence for centuries.

A couple of literary examples that came to mind:

In The Masque of the Red Death (written in 1842), Edgar Allan Poe created the story of a community in the throes of a fictitious epidemic known as the Red Death. The elite of the community decide to self-isolate in a sumptuous palace, and basically have one long house party until the plague burns itself out. This being a work by Poe, of course this didn't work; Death himself attends the party and everybody dies. While this is a work of fiction, I'm sure the situation was all too familiar to readers of his time.

In 1867, Mark Twain wrote a series of newspaper articles telling about a grand tour of Europe and the Holy Land, which were ultimately collected and published under the title of The Innocents Abroad. There are a number of cities that were originally on the itinerary, but to which the tour group is refused entry, either because there is cholera there, and the authorities are trying to contain it, or because there isn't cholera there, and they don't want to risk somebody bringing it in.

(amazing how much useless stuff is cluttering up my head, isn't it?)

During the 1918 flu pandemic, city-wide lock downs were common. Results varied; some of the things that played into the outcome were exactly when they were set in place, and when (and how) they were lifted.

 

[drstratton]

People keep saying this, but it's not true. Locking down entire populations has been an approach to dealing with pestilence for centuries.

A couple of literary examples that came to mind:

In The Masque of the Red Death (written in 1842), Edgar Allan Poe created the story of a community in the throes of a fictitious epidemic known as the Red Death. The elite of the community decide to self-isolate in a sumptuous palace, and basically have one long house party until the plague burns itself out. This being a work by Poe, of course this didn't work; Death himself attends the party and everybody dies. While this is a work of fiction, I'm sure the situation was all too familiar to readers of his time.

In 1867, Mark Twain wrote a series of newspaper articles telling about a grand tour of Europe and the Holy Land, which were ultimately collected and published under the title of The Innocents Abroad. There are a number of cities that were originally on the itinerary, but to which they are refused entry, either because there is cholera there, and they are trying to contain it, or because there isn't cholera there, and they don't want to risk somebody bringing it in.

(amazing how much useless stuff is cluttering up my head, isn't it?)

During the 1918 flu pandemic, city-wide lock downs were common. Results varied; some of the things that played into the outcome were exactly when they were set in place, and when (and how) they were lifted.

You're correct and I shouldn't have stated that, but I think they have gone overboard with this...because most people only have mild symptoms. Eventually everyone will probably catch it!

 

[Bunnylady]

. . and catch it, and catch it, and catch it again (probably).

Just out of curiosity, I looked up what has since become known as the Black Death. Apparently there were three waves of it, in fairly quick succession, each a bit less lethal than the previous one. There's a lot of speculation as to why this was; "herd immunity" is one thought, as is the possibility that it was mutating into less and less nasty forms.