Housebound - March 26, 2020

If you've judged me for all the whining and complaining I do on this blog, it may surprise you to know that I really am a person who regularly counts my blessings.

* I have a job, and my boss is a really great person who puts family and health above all else.
* The Husband has a job that is stable, even in these uncertain times.
* My children have good jobs in industries that are considered essential.
* My grandchildren are smart and healthy.
* We live in a rural community, surrounded by family, where our every-day dangers are generally not all that life-threatening.

But this virus thing . . . .

This is a scary time, for sure, but I recognize - every day - that it is not nearly as scary for me as it is for some of you.  Healthcare workers.  Small business owners and their employees who depend on foot traffic to survive.  Scary times, indeed.

My family and I are doing our part to help stop the spread of this virus.  We are staying home, cooking our own meals, sanitizing like crazy, hoping it will be enough to spare us from illness.  And praying.  Lots of prayers, for ourselves, for you, for the whole country, for the whole world.

Staying at home is not a chore for me.  I'd rather be here than anywhere (though, frankly, I do miss our Friday night dinners out).  My stash of craft supplies should last me for the rest of my life, even if it's a long life.  I've got plenty to keep me occupied.

Take yesterday, for example, which will require a bit of back-story.

My cousin sent me a text last Thursday.  She was in a panic.  Her daughter's wedding was 2 days away, on Saturday.  The original wedding venue plans had been nixed by the virus-related restriction on crowd gatherings, and the wedding location (and guest list) had to be modified at the last minute.  My cousin asked me for ideas on how to decorate the small country church we all attended as children.  Given more time and freedom to move around, I might have been able to come up with something "simple but pretty," as she had requested.  As it was, the best I could do was offer her the beat-up, rusted, (we'll call it "shabby-chic") walk-under arch from my yard and a access to my ribbon stash.

She and her husband came to get the arch Friday evening.  It had been raining here for days and days.  As we walked across my front yard to the side yard where the arch was located, we marred up to our ankles in mud, thanks to a multitude of mole tunnels hidden by the spring weeds.  I vowed then that as soon as I could, I would mow down the weeds to reveal the mole trails, stomp down the hills, and set a trap for the disgusting little critters when they resumed their digging.

Yesterday, I was sent home from work early.  It was not raining, so I put on my mud boots, dragged the push-mower out of the shed, and filled the tank with gas.  Miraculously, it cranked on the second pull.  This was meant to happen, I thought.

It didn't happen easily.  The mower marred up in the mole tunnels, and it required all the effort I had to push it.  Remembering that horses pull wagons instead of pushing them, I resorted to pulling the mower behind me, which was only slightly less exhausting that pushing it ahead of me.  Finally, finally, I managed to cut the grass and weeds from the area where the mole(s?) had been busy.  It positively scalped the yard down to the dirt in many places, and there are deep footprints everywhere.  I'm not sure I will be able to distinguish new mole diggings from the trenches left by my feet and the mower.  We'll see.

My 12-year-old grandson has been here for almost two straight weeks.  The schools have been closed, but luckily his dad's crazy work schedule combined with my modified work schedule have allowed one of us to be here with him all week.  Poor kid has been bored out of his mind.  Ordinarily, I would have protested his constant video-game playing and internet surfing, but these are crazy times, and I've just let him do his thing.  But since it wasn't raining yesterday, I mustered the troops (him and his dad) and enlisted their help in the yard.  Once the mowing and weed-eating and leaf-blowing were done, the grandson said, "Hey, Grandmama, can I wash the Jeep?"  It needed it, and it was a physical activity, one that didn't involve electronics, so I gave him the thumbs up.

Letting (or forcing) and teaching a kid to do a chore is sometimes harder than doing it, yourself.  He had tried to help me mow, but he had never used a push-mower, and I was afraid that he would slip in the mud and cut his leg off.  Car-washing seemed like a safe enough activity, one that wouldn't require much assistance from me.  Still, I helped him find a bucket.  I dragged the water hose out for him.  When he asked where he could find a rag to do the scrubbing, I sent him to the kitchen to get a rag from the basket where I throw the dirty dish rags and hand towels.  I did not pay attention to which dirty rag he had chosen until I heard my son say, "Boy, you need a rag that'll scrub a little better than that one."  I raised up from picking up yard debris and discovered that he had chosen one of my white, embroidered, flour-sack dish towels and had already used it to scrub off road grime and tree sap.

*sigh*

It's just a dish towel, right?  In the grand scheme of things, it's a small matter.  Maybe it'll come clean with bleach.