This is day 78 of our self-imposed saver at home undertaking.  Before today I’ve experienced by brain turning to mush several times and I’ve found myself making more emotional decisions versus well thought out rational decisions.
Several weeks ago I wanted to more the lawn for the first time this spring.  Last fall my reliable Briggs and Stratton hummed right along.  It all began with fighting with this new fangled overprotective plastic gas can.  In an effort to fill the lawnmower the gap was not on correctly and I spilled gas all over my hands, the lawnmower and the cement driveway.

I yanked the pull cord and nothing happened.  The cord didn’t move an inch – an inch mind you.  The motor or starter or something was frozen up tight.  During the winter months I fantasized over buying a new self-propelled electric lawnmower – it NEVER needs maintenance.  After several weeks of research I dropped the idea because of the expense.  I had a working lawnmower – no need to spend good money on a different gadget.
 
My wife heard my moaning and came outside to learn what was causing me such pain.  She did fix the gas can so I could fill the lawnmower but watched me yank on the cord with no results.  As a good wife would she reviewed the starting instructions on front of the mower and then gave the cord a good tug to make sure I followed all the appropriate procedures.  She had the same result. 

She looked and me and said – buy the electric lawnmower you want it doesn’t matter what you spend.
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More beautiful words were never spoken. 

Wednesday May 20th.

Before I get out of bed every day I think about the current day and date.  Without this little mental exercise I lost track of both the date and day.  Loosing the day and date I felt adrift in a timeless world and it wasn’t comfortable.
I grew up in a family where time was important.  We lived our lives by a schedule.  Monday was wash day.  Tuesday was iron day.  Saturday was home project day – like lawn mowing and garage cleaning.  Sunday was church day.  Repeat.

During our Wisconsin “Stay-at-Home Order” a new phase has leaked into my lexicon – “We’ve got time.”  We have been exploring county parks for a little exercise and often the access to our county parks is less than straight forward so I suggest we drive around to find it because “we’ve got time.”

Our regular walks and hikes have extended to 60 minutes because “we have time”.  Plotting our once a week forage to the grocery store is like planning the Normandy invasion.  The exact day and time must be carefully planned to minimize contact with other old codger shoppers.  Our local Costco has an intricate serpentine route outside the store where you pick up cart.  The store opens at 8:00 am for we seniors but it’s often too cold to be standing in line.  We could get sick just from standing out in the Wisconsin freezing mornings.  But “we’ve got time”.  I clocked our visit to Costco – about 55 minutes – a new world record.  Don’t know why I bothered to time the excursion because “we’ve got time.”

All in all I’m finding that I like living in a “we’re got time” world.  It can be relaxing and puts activities in perspective.  I think when all this is over and in our collective rear view mirror I’ll still live life as “we’ve got time”.
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Do you still have time?     

​“Comus”
 
Was I deceived? or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night.
John Milton 1634
 
The quote from John Milton’s poem Comus is believed to be the origin of the idiom:  every could has a silver lining.
 
I am an irrepressible optimist.  I began social distancing on March 11th with the World Health Organization’s announcement of a coronavirus pandemic.  Life has changed.  I am also gregarious so living at home is at best inconvenient but not a sacrifice.
I would like to share by yet incomplete list of things that have been a silver lining for me in our dark cloud of social isolation.
 
Learning to play virtual chess with my 9 year old grandson.
Learning to use zoom for virtual meetings.  What happened to skype?
Learning to raise succulents.
Having time to draft my fourth novel manuscript.
Birding
Playing ping pong with my cat, Ivy.
Reorganized the basement.
Reorganized the garage.
Having facetime with my family.
Starting plants in the basement for a spring victory garden.
Exploring county parks.
Daily walks.
Leading a virtual bookclub.
Experimenting with my insta pot.
Really taking one day at a time.
 
Thanks for letting me share.  What are your silver linings?
 

As ‘safer at home’ slogs on toward the end of May in Wisconsin I have noticed two things about my life.  First, I have developed a daily routine (more on that at another time).  Second, I am, with eyes wide open, adapting.
 
In the spring I often spend time outside birding.  I don’t recall how I became interested in birding but not I am hooked.  In years past I traveled to Ashland, Wisconsin for their annual birding festival.  The event was cancelled this year.  Rather than staying home we began making short birding trips within a 50 mile radius of home.  That was fine but it was not the great adventure we have become accustomed to.

My wife took the initiative to search for a cabin to rent in Iowa.  The Iowa rules differed from Wisconsin and allowed private lodging businesses to remain open if they could guarantee the six foot distancing rule.  She found a cabin (pictured) in McGregor, Iowa a short distance from the Mississippi.  The cabin had a kitchen, microwave, frig and all the regular stuff.  We took all our own food (which was, I admit, a minor hassle).

We arrived in mid-afternoon and sat on the deck.  From the deck we spotted 14 different species.  The most exciting was the red eyed vireo which doesn’t reside at home.  There was also a family of turkeys and deer who visited the cabin at dusk and early morning.  It was evident this was their regular schedule and our presence was not going to alter their routine.
 
We hiked in nearby Pike’s Peak State Park (not to be confused with the park of the same name in Colorado – Zebulon Pike got around and named everything he discovered after himself).  We also walked the city park in Prairie du Chien.
Not being at home was a great experience.  We had so much fun that we plan to take two of the grandkids back in July.
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Surviving ‘safer at home’ physically and mentally requires each of us to learn to adapt.  I recently watched a Smithsonian Channel program that demonstrated we homo sapiens have a brain designed to adapt which explains why we are here and not the Neanderthal’s.