I was wrong on the timing – the 10 millionth confirmed case happened six hours later than my prediction – but my emotional turmoil continued.
How could the United States of America – one of the world’s leading countries, powerful, wealthy beyond comprehension, technologically advanced – display such incompetence and poor management?
How could the US be in this predicament?
How did this pandemic get so out of hand?
Where’s the leadership?
And, why is Donald Trump still in nominal charge?
It’s a nightmare.
Unreal.
But too real.
Isolated in South Africa, locked down with housemates uninterested in Covid-19 goings-on (“it’s not very nice, is it?”), and lacking person-to-person intellectual stimulation, I phoned American friends to commiserate.
We repeated our disbelief, anger, fear. We insisted on our pet theories. We conjectured. Back and forth, back and forth, our voices sounded out words of outrage, shock, disbelief.
Talking soothes.
For now.
News blues…
A growing number of Americans of both political parties believe the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is over, even as the number of daily new cases is rapidly increasing nationwide.Denial is a river in Egypt.
A new survey from the Pew Research Center found that 40 percent of Americans now believe the worst of Covid-19 is in the past, up from 26 percent in early April. That number includes the majority of Republicans, 61 percent of whom said the country has already suffered the worst of the pandemic.
Overall, the survey — taken June 16 to 22, featuring 4,708 American adults and a 1.8 percentage point margin of error — found a strikingly deep ideological divide between how Republicans and Democrats think about the continued threat of the virus.
***
A gleam of light at the end of the long, dark, tunnel of infection.Finally, a media personality, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, “Calls For Trump To Resign: 'Urgent Matter Of Public Health, Public Safety’
Hayes also addresses surging numbers
Other efforts:
Meidas Touch’s ads:
Lincoln Project’s ads:
- “Bounty”
Putin paid a bounty to kill American soldiers. @realDonaldTrump knew about it but did nothing. How can Trump lead America when he can’t even defend it? - “Truth”
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
Changing my morning routine helped stabilize my mood.Assuring myself that would-be muggers of women walking alone would still be asleep early Sunday morning, I walked my usual route, carrying my knobkerrie walking stick and pepper spray.
The sun was bright, the day warm, the assorted dogs quiet.
Soon after I returned home, a friend texted me photos of her veggie garden.
I was astonished that she was growing spinach, lettuce, cabbage, spring onions, beet (“beetroots”) pole beans and peas at this time of year.
These veggies are on my grow list, too, but I didn’t know I could plant in July!
Perhaps I can’t. Elevation here is 3,444 meters above sea level compared to my friend’s place at 764 meters.
While I’ve been mixing soil amendments for seedlings, I’d had no intention of planting until, well, August.
Two years ago, I’d recycled and modified a deep freezer/ice chest to use as a winter greenhouse/cold frame.
I’m usually not here in the winter and I’d actually forgotten that plan. (Lockdown makes this is the first winter I’ve been here in decades .)
I’ve been using the greenhouse/cold frame as a quasi-potting table/storage area.
Spurred on by my friend’s garden success, I visited the greenhouse - and was inspired.
I swept away layers of dust and explored.
The shelves I constructed from recycled plywood and lined with recycled plastic as moisture barrier are in good shape.
The hooks I designed and made from recycled wire still attach the shelves to the wood frame I built.
The sheets of recycled plastic I stapled to a bamboo frame (bamboo grown in the garden) still allow sunlight into the greenhouse.
The greenhouse is in good working order.
I love beating ‘the system’ – capitalism – and take pride that, barring peat and vermiculite, everything in, on, and around the greenhouse is recycled.
I’ve seeds left over from last year, too - beets, pole beans, peas, basil, Rockette, “mixed greens,” and marigolds (for pest control).
I’ll start these seeds in recycled 6-pack seedling trays.
I’ll purchase spring onion sets from the local agri-store.
Potatoes grow beautifully from kitchen peelings.
I don’t grow tomatoes: KZN’s hot, wet summers encourage tomato disease and bugs.
Cutworms are my nemesis. They love hot, wet summer weather, and they attack tender plant stems as they erupt from the earth.
My anti-cutworm innovation is to plant seedlings in toilet roll cardboard. I use the roll ‘as is’ or cut in half, fill with soil, and plant the seed. Once the seedling erupts, I place it in the garden with the cardboard acting as a collar to prevent cutworms from attacking the stems.
I visited my productive compost pile located near the stream at the back of the garden.
Here, composting consists of 4 containers and 4 steps:
Stage 1 container: covered and stored outside the kitchen to collect household organic waste
Stage 2 container: semi-covered, and stored near the mature compost pile
Stage 3: mature compost pile
Stage 4 container with mature, usable compost.
Steps to making compost:
Step 1: carry stage 1 container with household organic waste from the kitchen to the composting area
Step 2: remove mature compost from the pile and store in Stage 4 container, ready for garden use
Step 3: move the semi-composted organic waste from stage 2 container to the compost pile
Step 3: pour the household organic waste into stage 2 container, add a handful of sawdust, wood ash, and dried leaves, mix, and secure the lid
Step 4: rinse stage 1 container in the stream before returning to the kitchen to collect more organic waste.
The compost is gorgeous: dark, organic, clean smell, and full of earthworms.
The pandemic rages “out there” while we humans plug away at life!
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