Wednesday, April 8, 2020

COVID-19 Diary, Part 4

Early April is a very popular time to have a birthday at Paradigm Farms. Carter has already celebrated his birthday and he was in good company over the past week as Hemi, Blu and Rey have all had birthdays as well.  Carter had a video call with his two best friends on his birthday. Lots of people sang happy birthday to him over the phone, some of whom would have normally done so in person. BC - before coronavirus - birthdays are more fun than WC - with coronavirus - birthdays.

Jason has spent much of his "free" time attempting to get grocery deliveries arranged. Of course we can't get deliveries to the farm, so we have our orders sent to my mom's house. These days I think the odds of winning the lottery are higher than locking in a grocery delivery time. Often Instacart won't even allow us to place an order they are so overwhelmed, so Jason has to try for a few days in a row before getting lucky and nabbing a delivery day about seven days out. I remember the good old days of February when we used to just go to the grocery store without worries about deathly illness. I feel very lucky that we even have a way to have groceries delivered. I know many people still just go to the store, but Jason and I take our jobs of running this farm and caring for all of the living creatures on it very seriously. We are doing our best to not only help flatten the curve, but to keep ourselves healthy. We'd prefer to just go to the store, it would be a lot easier, cheaper, and much less time consuming. If we were only responsible for ourselves we would be handling this pandemic slightly differently.

Spring grooming is happening in full force. My hands are blistered and calloused from so much time spent using a shedding blade. We're grooming and bathing horses for a few hours each day. We've had absolutely glorious weather in which to do all of the grooming and bathing. It's been sunny and warm and exceptionally pleasant. We're having the type of weather where everyone with an office job wishes they worked on a farm.

I hope all of you are staying safe, healthy and finding new normals in this abnormal time.

Indy, Ascot and B-Rad

B-Rad, Lighty, Blu and Ascot

Paramount and Digby

Lotus and Romeo

Sebastian

Elf and Bear

Happy, Sam, Johnny, Taco and Quigly

Indy, Elf, Ascot and Digby

George and Lotus

Cocomo

Fendi and Doni

Gibson, Moses and Donneur

Silver and Gus

Donneur and Moses

4 comments:

Tucson Truby said...

Happy birthday, Carter! (And everyone else!)
We celebrated my husbands birthday yesterday, and I was lucky enough to go to the store and get an ice cream cake. Much of the frozen foods are still wiped out, but the ice cream section was fully stocked.
That...is probably information I didn't need to know :P

lytha said...

I'm jealous of people who have the option of grocery delivery - it hasn't caught on in Germany yet. Supposedly I can get dry goods delivered but that means I'll still have to go to the store for fresh food, so what's the point.

Nancy J said...

I had never thought that grocery shopping in reality was such a delight. We are in lockdown, you can drive to a supermarket, dairy, or the doctor or medical appointment, that is all. As we are in the over 70 age group ( well and truly) the advice is do not go out at all. A friend has been valiantly braving the queues to get our supplies, along with their own, and I have been trying for days to get a time slot for a " Click and collect ", do the order online, pay online, then it is done for you, placed in bags in a secure outside chilled huge locker, you are sent the code, and can collect at the given time. 4 times, with only 3 slots per time, for a day exactly 7 days in advance. Well, I won the jackpot, was online, logged in, all my list was in the trolley, had gone to checkout, and bingo, I have a time. What utter joy. This Easter already some silly people have tried to drive out of their own small area, and have been stopped at checkpoints and sent back home, some were a few hundred kilometres on their hopeful journey. So glad to see so far you are all well, and MANY Happy Birthday greetings to the ones who will be having the strangest celebration they will remember for a long time. Fondest greetings to you all from a cold 6 Celsius morning down here in New Zealand.

Calm, Forward, Straight said...

Feeling where you and Jason are coming from these days. Two humans, three cats, one dog, one horse and 13 (soon to be 23) chickens are depending on me to bring home the bacon (landscaping is considered essential!) and keep up with the chores (seemingly endless). Minimizing risks and flattening curves...

Happy birthday to Carter!!!