By now I’m sure everyone has made their holiday plans, COVID or no, but if anyone out there is reading this and is hesitating, please stay home with the people you’re quarantining with, and keep yourself and your loved ones safe and alive another year.

There are now thousands of new deaths per day.  It’s tricky to know for sure if someone is currently negative, or a pre-/asymptomatic carrier, or at risk, or whom they’ve been around.  Masks and distancing can only go so far, especially indoors, even if everyone complies.  Hospitals and morgues are overwhelmed and turning people away.

Skipping a year is worth it if you all get to live to see each other again when this is over.  Do not take this dangerous virus lightly.  I know it’s hard; I’m a mother and grandmother myself.  Anyway, think about it.

Here we have: a couple of “cravens” on a birdbath, a view of the “prairie” work-in-progress, and some colorful maple saplings and grasses out there.