Pestilence, thunderstorm, and a locust

I was tempted to comment on how the surging global pandemic plays into biblical prophecies - water to blood, frogs, boils, locusts, pestilence, etc. That, however, would be in poor taste under the circumstances, and likely brand me a Bible-based conspiracy theorist.
The coming storm, however, has “DISASTER MANAGEMENT TEAMS ON HIGH ALERT AS INTENSE COLD FRONT SET TO AFFECT PARTS OF KZN.”

KZN MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Sipho Hlomuka has placed disaster management teams on alert across the province following a warning from the South African Weather Service. The warning indicates that an intense cold front could hit parts of the province on Thursday going into the weekend.
The cold front is expected to bring the possibility of heavy rains, flooding, gale-force winds and snowfall in high-lying areas. Hlomuka has urged residents across the province to exercise caution as the expected change in weather conditions could pose a serious risk to human life.
“We are appealing to residents to take this warning seriously and to put in place the necessary measures to protect themselves and their families. Teachers and parents are requested to ensure that learners utilise safe routes on their commute to and back from school,” said Hlomuka.
"As a province, we take this weather alert seriously and we will be monitoring the situation, especially in areas that we know are prone to localised flooding. We are urging all motorists to be extra vigilant as roads can become slippery. We call for extra caution when crossing bridges, especially in low-lying areas, and we also urge residents to avoid crossing rivers. Those residing in low-lying areas are urged to seek shelter on higher ground”.

Meanwhile, the country struggles to keep up with Covid cases  … and the occasional locust flitting about in this garden gives one pause. (Perhaps these are stragglers from the devasting locust swarms plaguing East Africa?)

Covid-19 has the upper hand, with confirmed cases soaring:

• July 9 - worldwide: 12,041,500 confirmed infections; 549,470 deaths
       July 2 - worldwide: 10,729,340 confirmed infections; 517,055 deaths
• July 9 – US: 3,054,800 infections; 132,300 deaths
       July 2 – US: 2,688,250 infections; 128,104 deaths
• July 9 - SA: 224,665 infections; 3,602 deaths
       July 2 - SA: 159,333 infections; 2,749 deaths

[Predictions suggest] that Gauteng, a province of 15 million people, will overtake the southern tip of the country as the centre of the crisis. Numbers here are now set to breach total infections of 70,000, and the epidemic has reached the point where almost everyone knows someone who has Covid-19.
Total official deaths are still low at 403, but doctors have told Daily Maverick that classification of deaths may mean the numbers are higher, as this Medical Research Council report revealed at the end of June.
And within the province, the Covid-19 centre in Johannesburg had a total of almost 32,000 cases by 7 July, with recoveries at about one in three. Both Soweto and the inner city are chalking up big numbers of infections, showing that the coronavirus has moved from suburb to township.

Doctor says, “There are no more beds…”

We have probably by this week run out of capacity to treat people. And it makes you feel useless as a doctor to have to say that to someone. But there’s nothing else we can do. … What you can do as an individual is protect your neighbour, friends and colleagues by staying away from them, keeping your mask on and washing your hands. There’s not much else you can do other than that, really.

News blues…

The US is tearing apart with Trump versus health scientists , US surpassing records with 59,000 confirmed Covid cases in one day

Map to track coronavirus’ global spread 

***

The Lincoln Project’s new ad, Names  names names…. Their promo:

Don’t ever forget who enabled Donald Trump.
Donald Trump wrecked the Republican Party and then he wrecked this nation.
Most Republican senators stood by and said nothing while he did it. Many of them enabled it. Some of them made it worse.
Remember their names: Mitch McConnell. Lindsey Graham. Thom Tillis. Cory Gardner. Martha McSally. Ted Cruz. Joni Ernst. Marco Rubio. Susan Collins. John Cornyn. Jim Inhofe. Mike Rounds. Steve Daines. Tom Cotton.
For The Lincoln Project, stopping Trump is just half the battle.
Any of these Republicans could have stepped up. They could have held the President accountable. They could have spoken the truth. They could have voted for his removal.
But, every time they had a choice between America or Trump: they chose Trump.
We’re never going to forget it. We know you won’t, either.
They too must be defeated.
We’re putting this ad up in their home states, so their voters know their cowardice and betrayals.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Setting up a new security system provides unexpected opportunities to gauge one’s new service provider.
After the new provider’s technician switched the hardware yesterday, I forgot to test the system. After nightfall, upon attempting to arm the security system, we discovered the exterior system was disconnected. The technician had switched the interior but not the exterior system.
I called the new provider and we discussed, first, setting two guards on the property overnight. That, however, would provoke anxiety in my elderly mother who has access to the CCTV monitor. (She’d see unfamiliar faces and be unsure if they’d were guards or potential perps.)
Ultimately, we agreed the guards would patrol outside property as part of their regular neighborhood duties.
This resulted in regular security vehicle drivebys with bright white zig zag lights flashing and an even brighter spotlight raking the property at regular intervals.
Hmmm.
Moreover, my mother was too anxious to sleep. She reports staying awake all night, eyes glued to the CCTV.
The new security provider arrived early this morning to connect the exterior system.
As of now, all appears well.

Read   Week 1 |   Week 2   |  Week 3  |  Week 4 |  Week 5  | Week 6  |  Week 7  |  Week 8  |  Week 9  |  Week 10   |   Week 11  |   Week 12  |  Week 13 | Week 14 | Week  15

See photos  Spying on Garden Creatures 

Watch  Videos of Garden Creatures

A cold wind gonna blow

South Africans brace for an onslaught of cold and wet weather – potentially “the most eventful winter weekend in Southern Africa in many years.”
It’s expected sometime tomorrow although temperatures have already dropped – albeit not yet low enough to cover plants overnight.

News blues…

Whispers, the latest Lincoln Project ad targets Donald Trump’s core vulnerabilities: his narcissistic paranoia, fear of not being adored, and his obsession with sycophantic displays of loyalty. The Lincoln Project’s promotional material for Whispers:

Donald Trump is sinking in the polls. He's tried to ignore COVID-19 and the Russian bounty scandal, but he can’t ignore the whispers.
Now the sharks are circling and his staff keeps leaking to the press about how mentally weak and physically weak he is, how he can’t focus, and why he hides in a bunker when it matters most.
Their whispers are only going to get bolder and louder before November.
This is just what a few of them would say on the record.

• "We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership.”
          —Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, The Atlantic, June 3, 2020
• “Remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House.”
            —Former National Security Advisor John Bolton, The Room Where it Happened
• “An idiot.”
             —Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House
• “A racist, misogynist, and bigot.”
              —Former Assistant to the President Omarosa Manigault Newman, Unhinged
• “A f***ing moron.”
              —Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, NBC News, Oct. 4, 2017

In an interview, Trump is asked how he responds to people “wounding” him. He explains, “I unwound myself.” 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I paid ZAR15 (US $0.88) to a roadside vendor for 20kgs of “kraal manure” to use as compost amendment. (FYI: a “kraal” is a traditional African enclosure for cattle, goats, and sheep.) A year ago, the last thing on my mind was poop…or a pandemic… or Lockdown.

***

What’s known as a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) in the US is known, in South Africa, as a Protection Order (of Section 2(1) of the Protection from Harassment Act).
Today, our newly hired security services provider team dropped by to process the paperwork, reconfigure the security system hardware, and help me fill out and prepare documentation to apply for a Protection Order against further death threats.
My impression is Protection Orders are not a slam dunk. Perhaps that explains why South Africa has “the highest number of cases of violence against women in the world… [and] one in four men [having] committed sexual crimes.”
I’ll approach the court on Friday, armed with Form 2 – 11 pages that include application, information regarding acts of harassment, particulars of respondent, and information regarding urgency of application – along with a description of the episode and my email correspondence with the US Consulate in SA.
The Consulate can’t/won’t do much as “it is a civil matter” but suggests I file a police report and “insist on opening charges against your abuser.”
The use of “insist” is instructive.
I doubt more insistence would have moved either the police or the former security services provider any closer toward warning, never mind charging, my abuser.
Both gave the impression they couldn’t have cared less – and intended to spend no time on trivial threats of death and great bodily harm.

Read   Week 1 |   Week 2   |  Week 3  |  Week 4 |  Week 5  | Week 6  |  Week 7  |  Week 8  |  Week 9  |  Week 10   |   Week 11  |   Week 12  |  Week 13 | Week 14 | Week  15

See photos  Spying on Garden Creatures 

Watch  Videos of Garden Creatures

How did we get here?*

Covid-19 has the world in turmoil. How did we get to almost half a million dead and 12 million infected - and the world’s wealthiest country racking up a quarter of those cases, 3 million?
The strangest part?
While running errands today, I noticed that most people on the streets don’t wear masks - not even “chin covers”!

News blues…

I began following the work of The Lincoln Project last May when I wrote:

To the extent that I appreciate The Lincoln Project’s sense of humor, dedication to principle, and growing list of succinct ads, I declare myself an “Honorary” Lincoln Project Republican. (Read the post about the context of “honorary.”) 

Some views presented in The Lincoln Project’s ads are antithetical to my views and I don’t post them. Politico, however, published a thoughtful article by Joanna Weiss, “What the Lincoln Project Ad Makers Get About Voters (and What Dems Don’t)”. Excerpts:

…How has one renegade super PAC managed to trigger Trump and his allies so thoroughly? Part of it is surely frustration that a group of Republicans would issue a full-throated endorsement of Joe Biden. Part of it is skill: the Lincoln Project ads are slick, quick and filled with damning quotes and unflattering photos. But part of it might just be that Republicans are better at this than Democrats. Trump may sense that these ads are especially dangerous because they pack an emotional punch, using imagery designed to provoke anxiety, anger and fear—aimed at the very voters who were driven to him by those same feelings in 2016. And history, even science, suggests that might in fact be the case—that Republicans have a knack for scaring the hell out of people, and that makes for some potent ads.
…Research shows there’s a reason these ads could be effective with Republicans voters: Conservatives are an especially fear-prone group. In a 2008 paper in the journal Science, researchers subjected a group of adults with strong political beliefs to a set of startling noises and graphic images. Those with the strongest physical reactions were more likely to support capital punishment, defense spending and the war in Iraq. A 2011 paper in the journal Cell found a correlation between conservative leanings and the size of the right amygdala, the portion of the brain that processes emotions in response to fearful stimuli. In her book Irony and Outrage, University of Delaware professor Dannagal Young points out that liberals and conservatives respond differently to entertainment rhetoric: Liberals have a higher tolerance for open-ended ambiguity, while conservatives look for closure and want problems to be solved.

Read Joanna Weiss’thoughtful article.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Yesterday’s post addressed obsessions one can develop during Lockdown. I also described someone else’s obsession: to snuff me out! 
Amazed at the lack of effective action by our private security company and the police, I penned an article about the experience for a local weekly newspaper that will be published in next week’s (print) edition:

Justice, South African style
I was recently verbally abused, and life and limb threatened, by my 87-year-old mother’s domestic worker’s son, a 40-year-old child-man. This, because, drunk again, he acted out his anger at being legally dislodged, two years ago, from mother’s Merrivale property. He’d squatted there for six months, drunk, unemployed, rent-free, and with full board, lodging, and laundry service.
He stood outside the upper gate and I recorded on my cell phone his obscenity- and death threat-laden harangue while I waited for our private security services provider and SAPS.
Both arrived within half an hour of my call. Then things got interesting. Both were a sharp contrast to what occurs in my home state, California.
For the last several years, I have spent several months each year in Merrivale caring for my fragile mother. This year, I was due to return to California on 21 May, four days before George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis.
Lockdown prevents me from returning to the US where, concurrent with the pandemic, massive protests rage against police violence.
Police violence, and protesting police violence, is nothing new in the US. I’ve experienced several convulsive protests: Rodney King (1991), Oscar Grant (2009), Eric Garner (2014), and too many similar killings – few of which have resulted in police officer convictions. America, the can-do country, armed to the teeth, believes in going beyond the call of law-enforcement’s duty to crack down on resisting arrest, civil dissent, or, depending on the color of your skin, on nothing much at all.
I am more anarchist than law-and-order uber alles. Nevertheless, words, deeds, and actions contrary to a human’s and a society’s rights must be recognized effectively.
A drunk, abusive, and life-threatening perpetrator should be listened to as intently as a sober victim. Should not the benefit of the doubt, however, be afforded the victim when the abuser, a convicted rapist, publicly threatens rape, mayhem, even murder?
Apparently not in this section of KwaZulu Natal.
Both security service provider and SAPS listened to my abuser, encouraged him to pull up his britches, then prepared to drive away with nary a word to me. I had to wave them down to learn that 1) I could make a police report if I wished – at the police station, but 2) “Covid”, the officer implied, prevented the generation of a police report.
Then, both private security and SAPS drove off, leaving my abuser to continue his foul harangue outside my gate.
Would I have preferred he was physically beaten, handcuffed, a knee held to this neck?
Not at all. But perhaps he could have been placed in a vehicle – or a cell – until he sobered up?
Instead, at sunset, he returned, even more drunk, to the lower gate – opposite my bedroom window – and began a more graphic series of threats (also recorded on my cell phone).
I’ve heard nothing further from the private security firm nor SAPS.
I have, however, cancelled my account with that private security firm. I‘ve engaged a more proactive team that is working with me to apply for a restraining order.
Do I expect a miracle? No. But recognition of my rights as a human would be nice.

Thoughts? (email raisingsandradio – at – gmail.com)

* Listen to Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime. 

Read   Week 1 |   Week 2   |  Week 3  |  Week 4 |  Week 5  | Week 6  |  Week 7  |  Week 8  |  Week 9  |  Week 10   |   Week 11  |   Week 12  |  Week 13 | Week 14 | Week  15

See photos  Spying on Garden Creatures 

Watch  Videos of Garden Creatures

Obsessions, cont’d

Obsessions have their place during a pandemic. I've addressed a smattering of mine in earlier posts. Some obsessions have lessened (battery charge level graphs), some are lessening (making compost), and one is in the first stages of development.
I admit a growing obession with my personal safety.
This, because someone else’s growing obsession is to “shoot” me, “kill” me, and perpetrate great bodily harm.
More on this below, but first – a developing, harmless, obsession:

• June 25: sunrise 6:52am; sunset 5:08pm
• June 30: sunrise: 6:53am; sunset: 5:10pm
• July 1: sunrise: 6:53am; sunset: 5:11pm
• July 5: sunrise: 6:53am; sunset: 5:12 pm
• July 6: sunrise: 6:53am; sunset: 5:12 pm

Every few days we add a minute more of daylight yet sunrise time remains constant.
Why?
Broad explanation: Instead of a perfectly-circular orbit, Earth's orbit around the Sun is slightly elliptical… The combination of Earth's elliptical orbit and the tilt of its axis results in the Sun taking different paths across the sky at slightly different speeds each day. This gives us different sunrise and sunset times each day.
In the southern hemisphere,

“We may have reached our shortest day, but unfortunately it will be a few more weeks before our mornings get any brighter. In fact, sunrise will shift slightly later (by a couple of minutes) and it won’t be until well into July that the trend will shift. (See a deeper explanation with illustration.) 

News blues…

Nothing much new happening in the news. Infection rates go up. Income and employment rates go down.
Trump and other leaders appear as confused as ever – to the chagrin of health workers and scientists agog but seemingly powerless.

The Lincoln Project continues to churn out ads: Historic 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Context: My mother owned/ran a country hotel for 60 years. She was forced to sell when industry moved in. She purchased a large house 50 miles away (much higher elevation) and brought along two long-term domestic workers.
One domestic worker has a 40-year-old ne’er-do-well son who, in the past, was convicted of and served prison time for rape.
Two years ago, while I was in California, that domestic worker persuaded my mother to allow the son to move onto the property.
My mother agreed.
He’d been here six months – lounging around, drinking, not working - when I arrived from California.
One morning, he was so drunk by 11am that he had to sidle along the walls of the house to stay upright.
Next day, I told him to leave.
It took a lawyer’s letter and several days to evict him (while the domestic worker repeatedly asked my mother to reconsider).

Fast forward: Last week, as I mixed compost outside, a drunk passed along the road, shouting obscenities directed at me by name.
I figured it was the son, still smarting over his ouster. Still jobless. Still supported by his mother (he’s fathered children he does not support).

Yesterday morning, the drunk showed up outside the upper gate. For more than an hour he stood there and harangued: “you Susan, you’re in danger: I’m going to shoot you; I’m going to [perform lewd sex acts upon] you” … on and on. I recorded much of it on my cell phone.
Even my usually passive mother paid attention, albeit wishy-washy.
I called our security services provider and the police.
Both arrived (a miracle the police actually arrived).
Neither did anything beyond suggest he stop yelling.
Police said they couldn’t do anything about the incident because of “Covid”.
Security services took my name.
Both drove away, leaving the perp still shouting.

On advice of a friend, I called a different security services provider that also runs a citizens’ task force in the neighborhood. We discussed how to get a restraining order. It’s tough: Lockdown affects courts’ open hours.

Last night, dark, 5:45pm, the drunk showed up again, this time at the lower gate that’s opposite my bedroom.
Yet more, and more explicit, threatens against my life and limb. All recorded.

A woman came from the local shebeen and chased him back there (his antics call attention to, therefore endanger, her business).
(A shebeen is an illegal “bush” pub that sells cheap, potent alcoholic bevs.)
The new security service put two watchmen in the neighborhood. Apparently, my incident is one of several, most of which involve invasion of property and crop and animal theft.
The next few days will be… interesting….

Read   Week 1 |   Week 2   |  Week 3  |  Week 4 |  Week 5  | Week 6  |  Week 7  |  Week 8  |  Week 9  |  Week 10   |   Week 11  |   Week 12  |  Week 13 | Week 14 | Week  15

See photos  Spying on Garden Creatures 

Watch  Videos of Garden Creatures

Day of rest

Fifteen Sundays and counting....
Late summer, to autumn/fall, into winter and Lockdown continues….
According to President Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa “won't be moving back to Levels 4 or 5 of the lockdown despite the rapid increase of COVID-19 infections. [Instead, he’s] calling on South Africans to protect themselves through social distancing, washing of hands and wearing masks.”

News blues…

• Watch President Ramaphosa assess Mpumalanga’s response to Covid-19 (11:00 mins)
• South Africa on Saturday reported more than 10,000 new coronavirus infections, the highest daily jump on record for the country [so far]. … [Gauteng] health ministry showed 10,853 new confirmed COVID-19 cases, taking the cumulative tally since March when the virus first arrived in the country to 187,977.  (Gauteng will soon surpass 50,000 COVID-19 infections; death toll at 282. "By the end of the weekend, we would have passed 50,000 going towards 60,000.")
• In the Land of the Free and “exceptional” US, Trump,
  ...delivered another deeply divisive speech to mark Independence Day… comparing the US's fight against Nazis and terrorists to his efforts to defeat "the radical left" in the US and accusing social justice protesters of trying to destroy America. 

Same old Trump.
And same old cronyism comorbid with the other virus raging through the White House – denial, lying, deflection  – as Trump’s trade adviser and Whackjob Peter Navarro rants Whackadoodle-itude.

***

• The Lincoln Project’s new: Gettysburg 
• Jimmy Kimmel’s “… Donald Trump Added to Mount Rushmore”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Ah, Sunday. A day of rest.
I’ll take it!
And I'll mix more compost!

Read   Week 1 |   Week 2   |  Week 3  |  Week 4 |  Week 5  | Week 6  |  Week 7  |  Week 8  |  Week 9  |  Week 10   |   Week 11  |   Week 12  |  Week 13 | Week 14 |  Week  15

See photos  Spying on Garden Creatures 

Watch  Videos of Garden Creatures

Handed trash? Make compost!

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo 

demonstrates how to wear a mask.

© CBSNew York 

Click to enlarge

These days of surging pandemic, even America and Americans see the value of face masks in reducing the risk of contracting Covid-19.

News blues...

Formerly resistant mask-deniers now urge their use. (Texas; Republicans;  Ohio;  California; even Trump-sycophant Pence.)
Donald Trump?
Not so much. “Trump Trip to Mt. Rushmore, Masks & Social Distancing Not Required”
This, while the US leads the world in number of infections: closing in on 3 million.
Trump, the “stable genius,” focuses on what’s really important: lying, obfuscation, and ignorant division:

… [Trump made] an impassioned appeal to his base while in the shadow of Mount Rushmore [and] instead of striking a unifying tone, railing against what he called a "merciless campaign" by his political foes to erase history by removing monuments some say are symbols of racial oppression.
"As we meet here tonight there is a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought so hard for," Trump warned.
"Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children." 

Many Native Americans would agree with Trump about “a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children.”
Unfortunately, Trump is ignorant of history – and irony – and fails to recognize how apt is his summary of Native American history since the first boatload of Pilgrims set foot in North America.

For many Native Americans, the 79-year-old Mount Rushmore, with four white faces carved into the granite, is a symbol of similar oppression, especially offensive because it's located in South Dakota's Black Hills, which they regard with reverence. 

Trump is a 19th century throwback longing for the good old days when the rabble knew its place and could be/was abused at whim and will.
He’s Cecil John Rhodes without the horse - or the self-made wealth. (FYI: Rhodes apparently was frightened of horses and loathed horse riding. Sickly as a youth and never robust, he was depicted on horseback because it made him look tall and manly.)
Who will have the last laugh?
Good question.
We, the People – and I mean the people around the world – must come together to stand up to Trumpism and the laissez-faire attitude of politicians (looking at you Republicans and Democrats). If we don’t, we are – and democracy is - sunk . Already struggling, We, the People could easily be back in the position of rabble abused at whim and will…
Consider the latest direction of US federal regulators who,

... quietly shredded the most significant banking reform enacted after the 2008 financial crisis last month. When they were done, they patted banks on the back for continuing to shovel cash to their shareholders.
Not a single Democratic regulatory appointee voted for the measure to strip what was left of the Volcker Rule of its meaning. Congress approved the Volcker Rule in 2010 as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform package, which was meant to curb excessive risk-taking at the nation’s largest banks by barring them from making speculative bets in securities markets for their own benefit. The rule also forbade banks from holding a financial interest in hedge funds or private equity funds that were involved in such markets.
That principle has been under assault in the decade since. In a concession to Wall Street, the original law allowed big banks to invest up to 3% of their capital in hedge funds and other speculative vehicles and turned the issue over to regulators to hash out the details. The result was nearly 300 pages of loopholes and exemptions.
Last week, regulators at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) simply shredded what was left of the statute. Under the new interpretation, bank investments in venture capital funds are wholly exempted from the rule, as are investments in funds that focus on long-term debt investments. 

A significant problem, of course, is that Trumpies, "his base", anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, “the poorly-educated”, the “Basket of Deplorables”, you, me, Antifa, people whose views we dislike, etc., must be included and have a say in our collective future.
The world has had more than 2,020 years to figure out how to come together and live generatively. We’ve failed.
Can we do it now, under pressure?
To speak metaphorically: handed trash and bulls***, can we make compost?

***

Anti-Trump ads come so thick and fast these days it is hard to keep track. Moreover, how many times can We the People be shown the dismal failure of the Trump presidency without tuning out?
Overkill is real. One can see too much of a point of view.
Having said that, here are a couple of new ads/editorials:

• Alfred Hitchcock presents Trump 
• If you’ve missed Sarah Cooper’s Trump How to, voice-overs, here’s a compilation 
• The Lincoln Project : “Betrayed” 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Concrete mixer = a blessing for titrating compost ingredients.
Who knew the satisfaction of watching – and sniffing the healthy aroma of – compost as it tumbles in a concrete mixer?
Excellent compost is, of course, made around the world without fossil-fuel-energy-consuming mixers.
I, however, have limited physical strength and I find the recycled (free) mixer liberating.
Three bags full of compost await spreading to nourish seeds.
Naturally, Murphy’s Law is in play (summarized: what can go wrong, will go wrong). I spent half an hour troubleshooting why the elderly electric mixer wasn’t powering up, and another hour repairing the elderly three-prong plug – twice! – before mixing commenced.
All appears well; another day of composting awaits.

Read   Week 1 |   Week 2   |  Week 3  |  Week 4 |  Week 5  | Week 6  |  Week 7  |  Week 8  |  Week 9  |  Week 10   |   Week 11  |   Week 12  |  Week 13 | Week 14 |  Week 15  

See photos  Spying on Garden Creatures 

Watch  Videos of Garden Creatures

Flagging...

On the cusp of Day 100 (ironically also Independence Day in the US) I confess: I’m flagging.
I want to take a break from posting each day and I’m afraid that if I do, the discipline of posting each day will lead to an overall breakdown in Lockdown discipline.
Then what?
Sanity mostly intact, I’ve completed Lockdown Days 1 to 99 by gardening, scooping leaves from the pond, doing household chores (grocery shopping, etc.) cooking (vegetarian), reading and writing, walking the neighborhood and talking to neighborhood dogs, and isolated but communicating with faraway friends and family….
The next 100 days will bring us into mid-October.
What will happen between now and then?
Enquiring minds wanna know…

You can help. Email me info on how you’re coping and ideas you’d like to share: raisingsandradio at gmail.com.

News blues…

Dismal news on the Covid-19 front…

• …a new form of the coronavirus has spread from Europe to the US. The new mutation makes the virus more likely to infect people but does not seem to make them any sicker than earlier variations of the virus…. researchers call the new mutation G614, and they show that it has almost completely replaced the first version to spread in Europe and the US, one called D614.
• There have been at least 182,260 cases of coronavirus in Texas, according to a New York Times database.  As of Friday morning, at least 2,562 people had died. (My son and his family live near Houston. He works in a hospital and was unknowingly exposed to a Covid-positive patient this week.)
• The United States reported 55,220 new coronavirus cases Thursday, ... the largest daily increase for any state in the United States on Thursday. 

The end of this weekend will see more than 11 million infections worldwide. The US will continue to lead with at least 3 million infections anticipated by Sunday afternoon.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Located on the border of a suburban village and “farming area,” the road outside this house changes from (pot-holed) tar to dirt. It’s dry this time of year and each vehicle that passes raises clouds of dust.
Much of that dust appears to settle on my car.

In the US, I would either wash my car at a self-serve, coin operated facility or push coins into the slot of a fully automatic car wash.
In SA, everything at a petrol/gas station is conducted by attendants: drivers wait while attendants pump petrol/gas, check oil and water, and clean windows.

After months of dust accumulating on my car, I elected, for the first time, to use a local car wash.
What I could see of the car wash facility as I waited in line appeared fully automatic.
An attendant with an official-looking receipt book showed me a menu of options - wash only; wash and dry; wash, dry, wax; interiors detailed, etc.
I selected wash and dry.
At the attendant’s signal, I moved my car into the facility.
Surprise! The entire process is manual: two workers (including the menu-wielding attendant) hand wash, hand dry, and, I assume, hand wax, all vehicles!
Manual washing makes sense in a country where employees vastly outnumber employment.
Cost for wash and dry? ZAR 85 - US$ 5.00 (That’s cheaper than a coin operated self-serve car wash in California – with drying-by-driving option.)

***

Another day to ponder the pandemic while making compost with a concrete mixer (and brewig compost tea/fertilizer).

Read   Week 1 |   Week 2   |  Week 3  |  Week 4 |  Week 5  | Week 6  |  Week 7  |  Week 8  |  Week 9  |  Week 10   |   Week 11  |   Week 12  |  Week 13 | Week 14 | 

See photos  Spying on Garden Creatures 

Watch  Videos of Garden Creatures