We’re in a mild, rainy streak now.  I’m hoping this is the year some of my native wildflower seeds will finally decide to germinate.  I need some personal good news.

Here’s a cat posing as a bottle of wine.

My tropicals have turned into a mushroom farm.

Lots of grape hyacinth are blooming among the daffs.  They’re taking over the world.

Here is my experience so far trying to sign up for a vaccine.  (I’m 65+.)

Our local Kroger pharmacy is one of many in the area that has not received the vaccine as of yet, so I’ll keep checking the status, but not holding my breath.

Over a week ago I searched for and found the Knoxville gov online site to register to get on the waiting list to be notified to schedule an appointment when vaccines become available in this area.  The site said demand greatly outpaces the supply, so it would take time.  The form includes your phone number and email address.

Yesterday I missed a phone text giving me a four hour window to make an appointment, if any were still available, on one specific day, at one of only a couple of vaccine sites somewhere not nearby.  They did not send me an email, which I had more chance of noticing.  It said if I missed the deadline, I’d be removed from the waitlist, and have to reapply.  Which I did today, after I saw the expired message.  So I’ll keep on waiting until I get it right, I guess.

If I were the average non-tech-savvy and non-mobile old person, I probably wouldn’t even have known where to find the appropriate site online, let alone gotten the text in time to make an appointment, or have the mobility or ability to access some unfamiliar far away location.  Or if I made it there, I might experience what many others here have reported, arriving in time for their appointment only to find they ran out of vaccines, and have to start the process all over.  Or, less at-risk people barge in line and receive limited supplies meant for eligible people with appointments.  They don’t make it easy in indifferent red states like ours.

Fortunately, we now have a competent, proactive president who is expediting the vaccine process, doubling the supply to all states, and making it accessible to all adults sooner, so it’s conceivable we might be able to get vaccinated some time this year.  The “next normal” is not even a thing I can anticipate any time soon.

While I’m waiting, here are some flowers, and a blueberry-strawberry-lemon pie by E., for instant gratification.

Today it’s headed for the 70s again, so  I got out early to do my MDQ (minimum daily quota) of ditch-digging.  If nothing else, it’s good exercise.

It’s now a year since the virus was declared a pandemic and precautions were put in place, and it’s by no means over yet, mostly thanks to repubs and their blind followers doing nothing to end it.  Over 530,000 deaths and counting is a high price to pay for their selfish negligence.  I hope I live to see the backside of COVID and its perpetuators.

Here are some flowers and “weeds” blooming.

We’re headed for 74°, and new flowers are opening every five minutes.  Here are a few.  I guess I have no excuse to put off ditch-digging for my future water hole.  I dug my daily minimum quota of “digs”.  At this rate, it will take all year, but I’m determined to have frogs.

We went to Kroger today with trepidation about COVID compliance, but we were relieved to see almost everyone masked and distancing.  Not only that, but they actually had their Passover section, albeit tiny, already set up, so I was able to stock up.  Living in a place like this, you really appreciate the little you can get.

Here is a beautiful strawberry cheesecake graham cracker crust pie by E.

It seems nothing is too depraved and reprehensible for Repubs.  Now they’re at it again with more anti-transgender  bills, aimed at denying trans youth their basic human rights.  Why??   How are trans kids hurting them or anyone?

Repugs have nothing better to do than crusade against, oh I don’t know, actual ethical values?!  Or healthcare security for all Americans?  Hopefully compassion and justice will prevail with this new admin, but if it’s up to bigoted, phobic red states like ours, medieval times are here to stay.

I know firsthand how cruel and dangerous this discrimination can be for already-marginalized people who never chose to be born this way, and depend on essential medical care and prohibitive procedures to restore them to their correct biological gender.  It’s not a choice, orientation, or mental issue.  But try explaining that to brainless bigots who don’t accept science, and worship a diabolical golden swine.

Sorry, I try not to rant too often, but this one’s close to home.  The number of people involved represents such a tiny fraction of the population, considering the huge fuss repubs make over it, but their inhumane treatment is very real.  They are family, neighbors, students, proud military service people, hard workers, government servants, and average citizens.  They deserve the same rights and healthcare as anyone else.  They need allies, not bashers.

And now back to non-controversial flowers.

Here are some blooming flowers, weeds, and trees on this 64° day.

It’s tempting to get out there and ravage (“clean up”) the landscape, as Americans are brainwashed to do by the hort industry, i.e. make it “neighbor-friendly”.  It’s harder to use restraint and keep on allowing all the little beneficial creatures and plants to survive under winter’s cover and protection until they’re ready to emerge.  But be patient I must, as it will go a long way toward restoring the natural balance.  Which is what we’re all about, here at L42’s Almanac.

Processing a big change has many layers and facets.  It will take me a while just to absorb and accept the part about my son moving on, and to all intents and purposes, out of reach.  But wait, there’s more.

And now to the next level–I won’t get to see my grandkids even after the pandemic, as they’ll be visiting my son and eventually living with him hundreds of miles away.  It’s not as easy for me/us to just up and travel and stay there, even for brief visits.  One more way the pandemic disrupted and interrupted the little time left I would have had with them.  By now I’m probably fading to a dim memory of better times gone by.  Maybe it’s better for them that way!

It’s a good example of why each of us must seize and treasure moments with loved ones while we can, because there are no guarantees.  Never assume anything.  It’s a hard lesson to learn, even after a lifetime.  Best laid plans, and all that…

I can’t really talk, because I did my share of moving on and out of loved ones’ lives in my younger days, and maybe karma is coming full circle.  Or maybe we’re just living in an increasingly mobile, mercurial, mutating world that can change in an instant.  You either adapt, or die.

So I guess I’ll learn to accept, if not embrace, this too.  I know somewhere out there, my son and gkids will be living and thriving, which is itself a comfort not to be taken for granted, especially in this century of deadly viruses and manmade disasters.  Coming from a history of holocausts (Nazi, nuclear, etc.), and the nightmares they still generate, I’m constantly aware of how good I have it right now, and how in an instant it can all be destroyed.  Seriously, that’s how my mind works.  It sounds morbid, but it helps me keep perspective.

I can’t change the past, and the future is unknowable, so I’ll continue to live and learn in the present, doing my tiny part to restore our parcel of the earth to a more wildlife-friendly environment, and try not to add harm to the world.

I’ll be here growing things, if anyone needs me.

Photo uploads are back!  Thanks to my tech support son!  Here are some belated flowers, E’s recent nice batch of challah, and a silly cat face.  I know the little blue flowers are a non-native invasive speedwell, but they still form pretty drifts all over the lawn.

Today I started stratifying five kinds of native tree and shrub seeds in the fridge: pawpaw, persimmon, witch hazel, serviceberry, and elderberry.  Now I just wait months until they’re ready to germinate, sprout, and get transplanted to pots.  Eventually they will vastly improve the quality of life of native critters, plus us.

The other day I sowed my first veg seeds of the year outdoors: snow peas, sugar snap peas, spinach, and radishes.  Daffodils are really starting to bloom en masse.

Also, my son and I got to catch up by phone, always a welcome, reassuring occasion.  Except for the sad (for me, not him) fact that he probably found a buyer for his house “as is”, and a rental house in St. Louis, and it’s all coming to a finale some time next month.  So that’s that.  I’ll have to put my pandemic practice to good use and continue to miss him after it’s behind us.  I wish him all the best.  We’ll still be here, holding down the TN fort for whenever it’s safe to come out again.

IF the pandemic is ever behind us.  At the rate these stupid repub governors are going, lifting all COVID mandates (if they ever had them to begin with), we’ll be right back where we started, with hundreds of thousands more deaths, just as things were starting to improve.  It’s like they live in some alternate world where somehow magically everything goes back to normal, while the rest of us are up against even greater risk of infection and death.  Insanity.

But life goes on, as it must.  I’ll continue restoring a more natural habitat, even as surrounding properties tear down trees and plant ugly houses.  All the more incentive to keep trying.  Soon we’ll be this wildlife refuge island in the middle of a nature desert.  At least that’s the plan.  I do what I can.

I’m having some (server?) tech difficulties uploading photos to my site, so you’ll have to just imagine flowers for now, until I can correct it.

Yesterday was unseasonably warm (70s), so I got busy.  I wasn’t the only one; the first chorus of peepers and tree frogs were out in force nearby, always my favorite time.  Hoping to attract frogs and others to a water feature some day, I started to dig out a hole (not pictured) for the larger pond liner, out in the “prairie”.  Simultaneously, I used the soil to reconstruct the boardwalk, redirecting it between trees.  It was hard work, in my winter flab condition, so after a few hours I left some for another day.  No sense having a heart attack in the middle of my project.

Another exciting sign of spring was the first blooming of daffodils and hyacinth.  I brought the first cut flowers inside.  It’s just the beginning of the flower extravaganza to follow.  I have no idea how so many hundreds of bulbs mysteriously migrate to all over the property.  I spotted a fat young groundhog checking out the garden, making plans!  I suspect it’s the little one that visited our front porch last year, only bigger.  I wasn’t able to get a photo, unfortunately.  Overhead, a couple of hawks were soaring and screaming, while down below, herds of squirrels were getting manically frisky.  Not me, though; I collapsed in a heap of exhaustion, being not as “springy” as I used to be!