Friday, March 13th: It Begins
My pregnant wife and I drove to Kroger but we couldn’t find a place to park so I dropped her off at the door. Our one year-old son and I idled the car until a spot opened up. “It’s early afternoon, shouldn’t all these people be at work?” I asked myself. My wife finally finished shopping and said there were no buggies, no dried beans or rice, little bread and the entire meat refrigerator was almost empty despite daytime stockers working overtime.
Our experience at the grocery store prompted me to visit Sam’s Club. The wholesaler was a madhouse and being emptied out right before my eyes. I stocked up on the usual stuff, plus loads of canned goods, more baby food, formula, diapers for both our son and our expectant daughter. I went to two other grocery stores, Target and Tom Thumb, one woman strangely commented, “still no toilet paper” as the food disappeared right in front of her. I located two large packages of ground beef that my wife later separated out into 1 lb segments.
In the evening, I texted my extended family and friends to give them a heads-up. Many thought this might happen when they saw the toilet paper disappear over a week ago. Fortunately, being witness to that prompted me to get plenty of disposable rubber gloves, paper towels, diapers, formula and get all of our prescriptions filled before all of this chaos began.
Over the last few days, it seems most, if not all, professional sports, coliseums, arenas, and even Disney announced their closing. At least for us, this wasn’t frightened panic buying, but instead stocking up while we still can, so as not to leave the house later and risk infection. Since it’s not a supply problem, I do suspect most stuff will likely return to the stores after everyone stockpiles. But, will I even want to go out to risk our unborn baby in an ever expanding world-wide pandemic?
Saturday, March 14th: Diverse People = Conflicting Opinions
I stocked up on more baby food at Target and Tom Thumb, the meat and bread sections were all but empty. A black woman in the parking lot said this was all a Trump conspiracy to solve the problem and then steal the November election by deceit. In the evening, I talked with several friends and family members and most viewed it as a pandemic to collapse the economy so that Democrats would win the upcoming election. Many understood it to be the last presidential election that the GOP could win due to the massive demographic replacement of the founding population. It’s interesting to witness the conflicting political perspectives of diverse people on an upfront and personal level. It’s not hard to imagine the expanding radical positions of the government once there’s non-ending, one-party rule without pushback.
Sunday, March 15th: Farmer’s Market Type Stores Remain Stocked
I visited a local niche grocery store called Sprouts and was surprised to find it almost completely stocked. The only things that were missing were meats, but I found a package of chicken innards – livers, hearts, gizzard and a ham hock for beans. In retrospect, wholesalers like Costco and Sam’s Club were the first to run out, then major grocery stores and, finally, smaller whole foods/farmer’s market type stores. So, it seems Sprouts will be our official store until this whole mess is over.
That evening, I bottled a gallon of mead and an equal amount of hard apple cider. The taste of each is similar except the cider is a bit sweeter and more smooth. Then, I began a new 2.5 gallon batch of cider. My recipe is as follows:
-2 cups sugar
-9 cans apple concentrate (preferably, one with less types of acid/preservatives)
-Filtered water to fill my 2.5 gallon glass container 3/4 full
-Left over Turbo yeast from the previous batch.
Mix it all together and stir it 3x daily, if possible. I don’t use airlocks, instead simply put on the glass lid because the type of high alcohol yeast I use requires a lot of oxygen. Of course, rack it at the end of the process for a month. If possible, let it sit another month and rack it again to remove more of the yeast taste. This recipe will create an enjoyable, but very strong alcoholic cider.
Monday, March 16th: “Release the Convicts!”
My wife has a liberal Facebook friend who has formed a solution to any possible lack of hospital space: “release the illegal and criminal prison populations now!” Therefore, in a time of limited food in the stores and a soon-to-be crashing economy, the thought process of your average leftist is to allow thousands and thousands of criminals to roam the streets and potentially victimize people. Crazy.
Tuesday, March 17th: Gardening
Since last Friday I’ve attempted bonding with all of my immediate neighbors. An older neighbor and I talked gardening. He’s in his 70’s with a number of health problems and my wife is pregnant. Naturally, we both have a unified concern not to get the virus. The shipment of my tiller from Amazon has been delayed for a few days, so he let me borrow his and gave advice to break the thick Texas clay, “first go over it with the tiller, then churn the clay with a fork, then till it again.” I completed a 10 ft section of the coming 20′ x 10′ garden. In the quick trip to the store I noticed the gardening section was completely in stock and bought a fork and large bag of fertilizer. Later in the day, I visited with two other immediate neighbors. The one across the street brought us dozen home-raised eggs from their chickens. In turn, I filled one of his containers of gas. The Mexicans and I chatted in a friendly manner, while I strongly recommended for them to plant a garden.
Wednesday, March 18th: The Virus is Here, Shopping and Gardening
The mayor announced community-spread cases of the Chinese Coronavirus into our own town. He’s an old friend and lives close to us, I know there’s no BS from him. For the first time, I started wearing a N95 mask and rubber gloves when going out and I seem to be the only one with an N95 mask. Looks like about 1 in 20 people have a surgical-type mask, while the remainder remain completely bare. We made our front porch and entry room into a decontamination zone to clean up and take off shoes/clothes and wipe down.
All of the grocery stores have been picked down to the bone, but I did locate a couple 1 lb packages of ground beef. I borrowed the neighbor’s tiller one final time and completed the first step of tilling the clay soil. Upon returning his tiller, I gave his wife a small, potted fruit tree. We now have enough food stockpiled to last until the garden is ready, so we can avoid the stores and not risk infection, except the occasional quick visit for perishables like milk, eggs and fresh greens.
Thursday, March 19th: Governor Closes Bars, Restaurants, Schools Plus Planting
I planted 75 okra plants, about 6-8 seeds per hole about a foot apart. I put a tarp over the future garden area to keep out some of the massive rains we’ve been having lately. I ordered 100 pots online for the production of fruit trees and our first tiller should arrive on Monday.
Hopefully, in a few months the summer will burn this virus off like it tends to do with the flu. Things seems to be returning to normal in China but can they really be trusted to tell the truth? Regardless, Governor Abbott announced the closing of all bars, restaurants and schools within the state. The economic effects of everyone being shut-in, and everything essentially shut-down, are going to be massive and drastic.
Stay safe.
-By Rex Stetson
O I’m a good old rebel, now that’s just what I am. For this “fair land of freedom” I do not care at all. I’m glad I fit against it, I only wish we’d won, And I don’t want no pardon for anything I done.
They love announcing unproven and anonymous cases of Balognavirus in small towns. They’ve got to keep the dangerous rednecks from working together and committing Thought Crime. Especially after closing their churches by government decree.
I was inoculated against this panic back in 2012, when absolutely nothing whatsoever happened but dire prognostications were made. During that run up I took tons of survival classes and spent tons of time out in the woods camping. Which meant I just ended up spending more time outdoors than usual.
Knowing that I had been had I vowed to myself never to let that happen again. So, I went back to school and finished out most of my pre-med degree and started looking into D.O. programs. I didn’t complete the program, but became a volunteer fireman instead.
What dire actually looks like is when reasonable people start saying “fuck it.” When feminism drives men out of firefighting. When white samaritans become callous because they’ve been burned by diversity too many times and they grow to despise volunteering.
Speaking from spending time in various labs and rotations in the emergency room this alleged virus is much adoo about nothing. It is malingering “frequent fliers” and Munchausen syndrome neurotics who have contracted the condition du jour. God breathed the spark of Creation into you, the divine Pneuma. Rest assured, faith in the infallible system designed by God is more than enough to maintain its’ continuity.
Anima Sana in Corpore Sano.
Did you not have a relationship with your neighbours before this?
The boys and I ‘threw up’ an ‘impenetrable barrier’ yesterday (I.e., a fence) to keep the goats out of my wife’s garden. Her garden all of a sudden grew to pre-1980s proportions with this “coronavirus” nonsense. I put a tape to it yesterday just out of sheer curiosity; the dimensions are right around 60’x225′, give or take. That is about three times the size of her normal garden @ around 13,500 Sq ft. To put that in perspective, it’s right around a full third of an acre. Add to it her smaller rendition next to the house here, and you have very nearly half an acre of garden stuff all told.
When I was a kid growing up, my father always planted a fairly sizeable garden. We kids always thought it was ‘too big,’ but we also worked at the dairy nearby milking cows, when we weren’t doing other sorts of farm work. Working our father’s garden was one of our least favorite things to do back then, and I’m still not especially inclined to ‘like’ gardening per se. I sure like eating the product thereof, though; so I guess this year, with a little extra ‘free time’ on my hands, I’ll reluctantly help the wife and the kids with the garden. If nature is kind to us, should be a pretty good haul!
Gus, one benefit to all of this is the push to get to know our neighbors better but our neighborhood is less than 50% white. I do like most Mexicans on an individual level but a large amount of diversity does lead to distrust and less community socializing- they tend to fiesta among themselves.
A second benefit to this pandemic has been my push to grow a garden. I haven’t since I was a child and have already learned so much! I already grow and sell fruit trees for extra spending money but it’s about time I restart the tradition of a garden. I hope our readers join me in this regard….
I wanted to emphasize that my concern about the pandemic was for the health of our unborn baby as high temperature during pregnancy could be detrimental. If I was single, especially without a growing family, it wouldn’t be a concern.