The end of April and hopefully Corona virus slow down.

Monday, April 20th.

Shopping day in Duncan for me. Yeah and outing.



 Left the house at 9 am and headed to Highway Rental and Sales to pick up our new pressure washer as mentioned in the last blog.



When you arrive, you have to call them and then they let you into the store briefly to show you their models of pressure washers. The two front desk staff all stay more than 6 feet apart and away from you. I paid, sanitized and then the pressure washer was loaded into the car.

Up next Home Depot, to pick up pellets for my Traeger Grill, floor cleaner and my summer planters for the sundeck. Again, strict rules about where you enter and exit the store and only one check out open in the Construction area. Back out of the store  enter the garden centre part and again, very limited people and strict rules how to check out. I did wear my N95 mask the whole time shopping today and majorly sanitizing after paying, my credit card included before touching my car.

Off to Superstore to pick up my online order. They are getting much busier so ended up waiting about 20 minutes before getting my order. Note to self ... get there at the beginning time of your time slot not the middle. Again, quite a few things missing. I drove by their outdoor garden centre but there was too many people in it so I drove off. I had been trying to get Gladiola bulbs for my front garden but have been unsuccessful. So my last stop was Walmart. I walked quickly through the store to the garden centre, picked up the bulbs and 2 pepper plants. In and out within probably less than 15 minutes with my N95 mask on. Checkout you leave your order, back up so it is scanned and then the cashier backs up behind the plexiglass screen so you can use the credit card machine ... again, I sanitized hands and credit card after I was done. There were not too many people in the store and no one in the garden area so I felt fairly safe. I now have most of the plants I need for this spring other than the 3 flower baskets that I will get from Costco later this week. Driving to Nanaimo for the senior time at 9am.

Half a block before getting to the gate for our subdivision, there was the female elk again. My first time seeing her and being so close to one. So nonchalant ... I stopped the car beside her, only 5 feet away and opened the passenger side window and snapped her picture. She didn't even concern herself with me, just kept eating the grass. I wonder where the rest of the herd is ... you usually don't see them by themselves.

Did not realize Elk have a mane like a horse.

While I was in Duncan, Ray called me ... he had a "little accident" in the shop. Probably needed stitches. Nothing urgent he said. Okay ... once I was back home and unloaded, I checked him out and yup ... you need to go to Duncan hospital for some stitches. Okay, new rules ... no working with equipment that can cut you while I am not in the house ....  We thought Emergency would be a short wait according to the news reports of empty ER's... Nope, what we call the "Ray" factor kicked in and he waited 2 hours.

While he was gone, I made a big batch of chili with the leftover Beef Brisket and ground beef. Of course I made way too much so shared a big pot of it with my neighbour Pat and Darryl. Ray ended up waiting 2 1/2 hours to get stitches before heading back home. I had a "stiff margarita" waiting for him.

The weather is going to start back to how April should be ... lots of rain showers so I will have to "baby" my plants for a few weeks.

Another reasonably good day ... Ray doesn't feel any pain at present ... we shall see tomorrow.

Tuesday I was out at 9 am trying out our new pressure washer I picked up yesterday. It worked fabulously. Wanted to finally finish up the last areas of our concrete, stairs, sidewalk and under the sundeck.  Two and a half hours later I was done. All in all the whole job took me 4 separate days and 9 hours. Glad to be finished. Not as young as I used to be lol.

Now into the hot tub and a couple of Ibuprofen and I should be good as new. lol The rest of the day spent relaxing other than making a batch of my Monkey Bread for Ray and I.

Wednesday a very wet morning as predicted. Great for the gardens and forests but not great if you want to go outside. A very wet dog comes back in. lol I think this will be a puttering around the house day with a bunch of TV watching. :) The rain finally quit around 4pm but the wind also came up with the clearing so we did not get to sit outside today. Freya was not impressed with the rainy day. She is used to being outside for most of the day and was like a little kid who was bored. lol

Thursday started out very cloudy but not raining. Time to get a couple of things done in the garden before the rain begins again tomorrow night. :) Have some bulbs to plant. Took a run into the Country Grocer here in Lake Cowichan for a few things and saw they had their baskets in ... so I managed to buy the 3 I need for the front of the house. Also noticed that they had Clematis vines so bought 3 of them for the fence. 2 hours later everything moved (my bay laurel tree) and planted. Clematis against the fence interspersed with Gladiolas and Stargazer Lilies. Should be a mass of colour this summer. So I think I have all the plants I need this spring. Nice to get them local. I will have to put the baskets with the tomato plants in the garage for the nights for the next few weeks until the weather gets warmer overnight. The strawberries in the tall planter and hanging basket strawberries are fine outside.

Coming along. The bulbs I planted should fill up the rest of the empty dirt nicely.

Last week I saw this "old timer RV" parked across the street from the Country Grocer. Looks like it is still going strong!

For dinner tonight I tried smoking chicken on the Traeger. Looks delicious, hopefully tastes as good as the turkey I did.

Still waiting for my elastic to be delivered from Canada Post that I purchased from Walmart online. I also ordered some from Amazon to see which comes first. lol The Walmart order was made April 8th and it still is not here. Emailed the seller and was told it was delivered to Canada Post and had cleared customs so Canada Post is backlogged. They are saying today that this is like Christmas Parcel time at Canada Post and they cannot keep up with everyone ordering online!

Friday, another cloudy morning but no rain. Should be an OK day with rain coming around 2 pm. I will put my baskets and tomatoes out this morning but put them back in the garage when the rain starts. Our gardener Cindy, swung by and gave our lawn a trimming. After fertilizing it last week it is growing quite quickly.

The Province of BC is looking at relaxing some of the Covid 19 restrictions by mid-May, but social distancing will remain in place until there is a vaccine. Our "New Normal" will be somewhat different that what was last December. It will be nice to see family again in person though. New cases are remaining steady at this time but they are going to do more testing. I am sure the numbers are significantly higher than reported with the limited amount of current testing. Ray and I are heeding the advice and staying close to home and only shopping when necessary with our masks on and major hand sanitization. People here are definitely working hard to stop the spread. You meet someone in the grocery aisle and we all turn our heads facing the shelves as we pass to not infect the other person.  Most of the time people are courteous and wait for you to finish picking your item, although Ray had a few words with a gentleman at the meat counter at our Country Grocer last week, who budged in close to him. Ray had waited the few minutes for the person in front of him to finish picking her meat and then this guy moved in 3' beside him. Ray told him to back off 6 feet! "I waited and now it is my turn".

At all times you are watching where everyone is in relation to where you are. Kinda like a deer in the forest, always staying on alert for danger. No wonder shopping now is exhausting. I decided to do most of my shopping here in Lake Cowichan if I can. After stocking up my pantry and freezers most things can be purchased here at our little store. Ordering groceries online is frustrating when you only get some of your order and usually the things you want the most are missing ... our little store has usually something of everything with limits on it so a better deal. However some things will be still have to be purchased online so maybe a grocery order from Duncan every 2 weeks.

Ray spent the morning in his shop and I spent my time with housework. Yuck! I did make a chicken casserole for lunch though.

Saturday, boy is it raining. Teaming down out there. Got the pork shoulder on the Traeger grill after injecting it with apple juice and spices at 7:30 am. It should take about 9 hours.... I don't really have to do anything with it for 6 hours or so ... my phone will tell me when it gets to temp to do "part 2" and then it goes for about another 3 hours. lol  Don't have to go outside. They really stress with a smoker, that if you peek it does not cook as you lower the temp and it takes awhile to get back to temperature again. That is hard for me not to do. :) I have however, checked out the temperature probe temperature against a digital one, several times over the last few "cooks" and it seems to be right on so less peeking to confirm.

Busied myself making the "sides" for dinner, cornbread muffins, (also for breakfast, lol) and macaroni salad. So when the pork finally comes off, the rest is ready to eat. This way my kitchen is clean and most of the dishes are done. This pork cooked faster than suggested. Not as much fat on this piece as it was well-trimmed. With online shopping though ... you get what you get with your order!  It came off the smoker at 2:30 so we had a very early dinner. :) The flavour was amazing. Love my new cooking method.

Tonight we decided to have movie night and as we ate so early, we each had a bowl of homemade popcorn. Managed to stay up to 10 pm on a Saturday night. lol

On one of Ray's walks over at the park he noticed this "conk".  Never seen as many on one stump, usually it's one or two. It really shows how wet it was this past winter.

Sunday morning woke up to clouds with a few sprinkles but no wind. Hard to believe another week has gone by. Time is certainly not dragging being in self-isolation. Kristi popped by this afternoon to drop off some parcels for us that were delivered to her house. Sometimes just having a PO Box is a problem with certain items being shipped. It did not rain so we were able to at least sit outside for a bit with her. Freya was happy to see her other packmates, Zeus and Athena for the visit.

Dinner tonight was Pork Chow Mein, using the leftover pork from the smoker. Delicious.

That was our week.