Day 15 - Books
2020 April 01
Wednesday
10:13pm:
I cancelled April Fools Day — I’m just not in the mood this year. I wish this was just joke that someone had made up. Today has felt heavy — our PHU has updated our region’s numbers to 35 cases, with 2 dead. I’m worried about what tomorrow’s numbers will look like, as I know for every confirmed case there could be up to 10 more walking around in our community spreading the infection.
It’s a sobering thought, and a persistent one in the back of my mind every time I contemplate going to the store to stock up for the week. We’re out of salad greens and I need a couple things for the birthday supper planned for my youngest — she’s turning one, and her sisters have very definite ideas of what she should have to eat — but the thought of shopping for food makes me feel anxious. I could be bringing home more than fresh lemons, and I look around at my family and worry about if.. when.. they will fall ill.
I hope when it eventually hits our house, it’s mild. My “mama heart” frets about this and it keeps me awake at night.
Our curriculum workbooks arrived today. I’m unimpressed with Ontario’s distance learning program that was unveiled yesterday and today. I’m happy using some websites to reinforce stuff they’re learning on their own, but the format put forward by our provincial government isn’t a good fit for our family and my priority is keeping everyone as happy and stress-free through all of this as I can. Even when that person is me.
We sourced and had someone deliver 4 large food grade plastic barrels today — they dropped off in our front yard and everyone kept a safe distance. These are for our vining plants, like squash and zucchini, and possibly one for raspberries (to keep them from being as invasive as the sumac). We will be cutting the barrels in half to use as large containers in our “faux raised bed” garden. The sumac won’t stand a chance at invading our garden with these, and we’re going to source some large cubic ones to cut in half for the main part of the garden. Eventually, we will disguise them with cedar walls, but this will let us get started quickly.
Things are taking shape.
I misplaced our copy of Square Foot Gardening in the move last year — it’s the guide we used for our first shared garden, back in 1995 — so I put together a small book order to update our gardening library. I love books, so this is a luxury to which I can look forward. New books feel decadent these days, and stress has made it hard to lose myself in fiction — these will be something I can read in bed instead of compulsively checking to see if there is any new information about COVID-19 in my community.
On the way are:
And this one for my garden-loving, home-learning youngest kids:
I’m particularly looking forward to the permaculture book, as this is a gardening philosophy close to my heart. My last garden, evolved over 18 years, was an example of this before I even knew this was a “thing”, and I am intending to create the same inclusive garden experience here at our new house.
Our two curriculum books arrived today, too, as did a birthday parcel from Nova Scotia for the next couple birthdays. My mother tucked in a book she used to help me learn to read that was hers as a child — “On Cherry Street”. #Kid4 spent some time with the first story tonight practicing finding all the words she knows already. We will read some more tomorrow, and I will have her write down some of the words she recognizes.
And tomorrow I will try and track down the remaining garden seed we need online and place an order.