At this time of great lifestyle change for most Americans... curfews, quarantines, stay at home orders.... no bars, restaurants or venues... no IRL entertainment  (In Real Life)... we are being trained to accept a virtual world, a virtual future.  Couples and families forced to spend their full days together are struggling to deal with each others addiction cycles and other habits both good and bad with no escape.  Online gaming, shopping and commutes fill the time.  Wearing masks in public, recently outlawed at protests, is now common place even in rural America.   It's a weird time to live.  This pandemic will bring at least as much change to the world as 911 did. 

Here On The Farm Very Little Has Changed Day To Day. 
We normally stay at home.  Our work is here, the only need to leave is to sell things or buy things; and that is becoming less necessary each day.  We're not couped up in a room or an apartment with others all day.   We are on a 40 acre lock down with some family, isolating ourselves from the world and each other for a couple weeks.   Our farm routines are all unchanged.  Seeds still need sown, mulch moved, chickens fed, plants started, trees potted, wood chopped.  The only difference we encounter in isolation is the mail intake.   We have 6 cardboard boxes to receive mail in.  They are labeled Monday - Saturday.  Mail and packages are deposited directly into the box and the following week, when we need the box again, we open the packages, sanitize the contents and then open.

 

7 years ago I strongly felt that we had 5 years before some great tragedy threatened life as we know it.  5 years to prepare for self reliance and sustainable living.  5 years to grow food and medicine and establish an off grid base of operations.  Unfortunately 4 years into the plan we were forced to start over on new land.  We were lost for most of 1 year before finding our new homestead. So after 7 years of our 5 year plan we have about 2 years of work to show for our foresight.    However we had the benefit of 4 years of experience, so I think we got about 4 years of work done here in these 2 years.

 

We will all likely get this Covid thing someday, until there's a vaccine.... that's trustworthy.  If we all get it at the same time there will be a lot of unnecessary death due to the lack of hospital beds, ventilators, staff.  Until there is a cure or a vaccine there will be waves of random outbreaks so I feel that "Normal Life" will be a long time comin'.  Today Covid19 surpassed the death toll of 911.  A tragedy that immediately affected life in NYC but whose ramifications on the rest of us would come in waves of shock and slowly, through legislation, pychological and endless warfare.  This time we all go through it together IRT (In Real Time) and it's not a 1 day event.

 

Moments Like This Require Hyper Local Mutual Aid. 
Unlike politicians who have taken this BiPartisan opportunity to load a Pandemic Relief Stimulus Plan with 75% PORK;  we believe in putting People Over Profit.  We might not be attending the Farmers Markets this year.  We are small scale growers; far from the city folk who can pay top dollar for our produce and frankly, this year, we don't wish to expose ourselves to the far away larger markets.  We have neighbors, right here that might prefer to not "have to" go to Wal-Mart.  The local markets we have attended are still 30 minutes away from us.   The garden is just getting started so we have at least a month to decide but if things don't get a lot more normal; we've got space for a farm stand next to the road where we can share our excess produce with our immediate neighbors on a take what you need and pay what you can basis. 
Safe Ways To Help Your Neighbors During Covid

 

We feel blessed to able to live so normally while social distancing.

Some Wild Art Farm Research

• Covid19 is a flu that attaches 1st to your sinus and back of the throat
• Flu attaches itself to you with little hooks/spikes.  It's confirmed that covid19 has the little spikes
• Elderberry breaks off the hooks of normal flu bugs,  it might work for this too. 
  take daily, double up for 1 day if you feel "under the weather". Stop taking if symptoms persist. 
  It is to be considered preventative.  If you have or develop a Covid19 flu, continuing to use it may complicate things..
• The medical system may become overwhelmed, like in Italy, short staffed, under supplied and you might not be able to rely on the the doctors at that point.
• Reports by a well known herbalist suggest that a few non pharmaceutical items may help, including Dan Shen leaf, Kudzu root, Japanese Knotweed and Cordyceps Mushrooms. 
• We are developing an herbal flu seasoning pack for ourselves that includes these items and others.  We're still waiting for delivery of some of the ingredients.
• If you can get a hold of the herb Spilanthes its an amazing plant.  It is anti-bacterial, anti-viral, antiseptic and anti-fungal.  When we "have to" go out in public, we are using it as a nose wipe with qTips and a gargle for the back of the throat.