There are still no reported cases in our part of the state, but at least 20 people in this region are in isolation in the hospitals awaiting test results. After sequestering for a week, we made one last grocery run and hope that we have accumulated enough food and ingredients to last 8 weeks at home without having to go out again.
We both got emotional as we headed back to our rural farm with the idea that we will be socially isolated for an unknown period of time. The hardest part of this for me is not seeing my children or my grandchildren for an unknown period. I want to come out on the other side of this healthy so I can get all the hugs and snuggles then.
We have a treadmill and hand weights, a long hilly rural dead end road, and 30 acres to wander and get our exercise.
It will soon be full on garden season, so I can spend mornings and evenings planting, weeding, eventually harvesting and canning. The area is beginning to show signs of spring.
There are crafts to do, books to read, seed to plant, fields to wander.
Maybe I will try some natural dying with lichen collected from the many rock piles or the hulls of the hickory nuts gathered before the hay field gets too tall to walk. Yesterday that was my exercise of choice and I came home with two tiny deer ticks. I need to be sure to spray my pants legs and tuck them in my socks before I wander off the road. I certainly don’t need Lyme disease. I was treated for it once before after we bought this farm but before the house was built.