Stay at Home Orders

While this has already happened in other areas of the country, today was the first day that my town of Mount Holly and my county of Gaston issued Stay at Home Orders due to COVID-19. Basically we are not to go anywhere except to the grocery store, doctor's office or hospital if needed, pick up restaurant food, and go to work if your employment is one that is "essential". Most people who can have already been working from home for a week or more. We are allowed and encouraged to go outdoors as long as we keep 6 feet away from others and don't congregate in groups of more than 10 people.

We had already been minimizing the amount of trips we make to the grocery store, and at any rate they still don't have any disinfecting supplies, antibacterial liquid soaps or toilet paper. (And none of those items are available online at any price.) Jim found a small meat market that is selling TP by the roll, so we purchased a few of them. That is a great way to keep people from hoarding it. We had to pick up some building supplies for the house yesterday, so we went ahead and bought some flowers and vegetable along with potting soil. The day may come when they don't even allow us to go out for those kind of things.

Today we went to our community garden plot to plant the tomatoes, peppers and marigolds. We are allowed to tend to the garden because it is a) agricultural and b) a community service garden where 10% of each plot's bounty is donated to the food pantry and Meals on Wheels. So they definitely want to make sure that we get our gardens up and running. We just have to wear gloves, use our own tools, and keep the 6 foot distance between us and others. It was no problem as there was only one other person there at the same time as us. It is a little early to plant, even for this area, but the temperatures will be in the 80s for the next few days, followed by a couple rainy days. Hopefully there will not be a late frost.

Mount Holly Community Garden

One of our neighbors had the idea to place inspirational messages on sidewalks using chalk. She has chalk packages on her front porch for anyone who is interested. What a fun idea, and then people walk through the neighborhood reading the messages. Of course we wanted to participate, and we used Pooh and Eeyore for our quotes. I just love the creative souls around here.

Chalk the Walk

To say things are strange right now is certainly an understatement. Charles Dickens had it right when he wrote, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."