How Quarantine is Maximizing Our Time and Connections
Corona. Quarantine. Now they’re predicting this hurricane season to be worse than expected and start earlier than usual. It’s been a crazy year friends but I’m not about to let it weigh me down. There’s nothing I can do about it anyway, so I just roll with the punches and try my best to work them for our favor.
I can’t lie though. I am not-so-patiently waiting for summer break to roll in. The kids are getting bored with work at home and the weather is so nice! We just want to be outside. We’re still pretty much staying home for our own safety because of the risk factors for people with asthma and respiratory issues, but we still want to be outside. Doing anything but homework! Here’s what we’ve been busy with.
Quarantine: Season 1
We’ve spent all our time on outside projects since quarantine started. There were several. I’m honestly not quite sure we’re finished yet, even though the stay at home orders have loosened. We’re still home so we’re still project-ing it up over here. Only time will tell how much we have left.
Episode 1: The Garden
We built a raised garden bed and filled it with tiny plants that have now overtaken all the empty space we left. Nothing is dead yet, which is pretty amazing because my track record with plants is the worst. (Just call me the plant assasin.) But there are actual vegetables growing and we’ve already gotten to eat tomatoes off our more mature plant. Ugh! So much better than store bought!
**Update: People have asked what type of dirt we filled the garden bed with so I’ll link them up. We used this to start filling. This is what we used to top it off. And we’ve also been using some of this to feed our tomatoes.
Episode 2: The Chickens
We got baby chicks and ducks in late March and now they look grown. The ducks grew so much faster than the chicks and were 3 times their size just a few weeks in. We read that if ducks and chickens are together from an early age they’ll get along and we won’t have much of a problem with them.
But the problem is that we have ducks who apparently think they’re chickens. When the chickens are inside the run, the ducks are hanging out right outside. They won’t leave the run even though we won’t let them in. Not even for a swim. And when we let the chickens out to roam the yard, they just follow the ducks everywhere. Birds are weird.
Episode 3: The Coop
We spent 4 weekends (and some weekdays) building a chicken coop my husband deemed too boujie for chickens, but one that should definitely keep all the predators out. It is an airtight (not literally), Fort Knox for chickens. I can actually say that it turned out exactly like I wanted it, even though there were some bumps along the way. Right now I’m adding the finishing touches so it can match Russell’s description of it. Ha! Big reveal coming soon.
Episode 4: The Patio
I’ve had my eye on sprucing up the patio for a while now. Last summer I bought some patio furniture and a rug on end-of-season clearance from Target. But it still lokked pretty empty. The raised bed on the patio helped fill some of that space and I added some planters with vertical beams cemented in the bottom to hang the lights I kept asking for. And for Mother’s Day I got my lights! I’d actually like to have more lights (and more plants now that I’m sort of on a roll), but I can wait. I’m loving the patio vibe.
We want summer break! Quarantine or not!
All the things we did during this season of quarantine were also worked around homeschool for the kids. Luckily, there isn’t so much work that they can’t finish it in just a couple hours a day (sometimes an hour or less). They could do their schoolwork, I could help them with what they needed, and we still had time to do fun stuff together.
But it’ll be so much easier, and more fun, when there is NO school work to do. Nothing for me to take pictures of and email. No Google Classroom to check to make sure the kids remembered to press the submit button.
Quarantine: Season 2?
I hope not! I like being at home. But I like seeing my friends. I like being with people. And I miss face-to-face interactions. Here’s to hoping that everyone takes the proper precautions to stop the spread so there’s not another spike and another shutdown. If there is, Quarantine: Season 2 is going to be a doozy. In the meantime, we might just make some ice cream.
Have a great week friends!
This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:24