Like much of the world, we have been 'sheltering in place,'
a curious term for quarantining. We don't
have to explain to you that it's boring. In fact, an
interesting unity results from everyone sheltering in place for the
COVID-19 Pandemic: Unlike every previous edition of our
Coordinates page over the past two decades,
this time ALL of our readers will have had experiences
similar to ours! We're sharing!
Unfortunately, because confinement is so limiting,
there is little news. Every day is like the last one. We do the same things over and over. One day, to break the
monotony, we took a picture of ourselves to illustrate our lives "in captivity".
Official Covid-19 Quarantine Portrait
Despite its insignificance, here's how we're filling time while our coordinates haven't been changing.
News & Notes
For the first time since 2010 we've stayed in Seattle for more than two months. It's kind of a nice place!
The beauty of the lockdown is all the free time to read!
There's been time to finish projects started before the lockdown. J completed another rug, though she hasn't decided which side she likes best.
L built new compost bins, though he hasn't decided which side ... you can guess the rest.
The lockdown offered ample and very enjoyable time to work in the garden. Normally, the "Spring Cleanup" is a victim of our habit of traveling in April and May, but this year it's done, and we're delighted!
Being home and out in the garden all the time, we realize how many creatures we share our garden with. A pair of Dark-eyed Junkos nested in the rock wall beneath the ivy. They were well hidden, and we avoided looking for the nest until after the three youngsters left. We have dozens of newts in the pond, the largest population ever. For mammals, we have chipmunks and rabbits. Too many rabbits, really. Voracious rabbits that are devouring our Serbian Spruce. So a dozen of them were relocated to Golden Gardens Park."
Cute, perhaps, but with an appetite for spruce
At the peak of Seattle's COVID-19 cases, which came earlier than elsewhere, we joined everyone on the block one Friday morning as our neighbor Kelly, a pulmonologist, returned home from the nightshift at the hospital. We cheered her and thanked her for her service and courage as a frontline ICU doc committed to fighting this terrible virus. Thanks again, Kelly!
Kelly, still in scrubs, after a night of keeping very sick people breathing
L has spent the lockdown learning how to bake bread, which is fragrant and tasty, but comes out in irregular shapes.
In addition to bread, pies have been a wide ranging quarantine interest. Not content with the classic rhubarb pie, we've worked out how to bake pizzas on the barbie! Now that's a development we can use even if the lockdown lasts to March 14!
Any day can be Pie Day
