Our little “prairie” is officially a micro-forest-in-the-making.  There are so many native trees coming up, I’m going to have to cull some, but they’ll all find a suitable home around here somewhere.  It’s not as if we don’t have the space.  I may not live to see the forest, but at least I’ve got free trees!  Nature just needed a little time and patience to start restoring order. Even this caterpillar, perhaps considered to be a “bad” sort, is busy playing a part, whatever that is.

In addition, it looks like almost all the native wildflowers I planted in the field last year are starting to come up!  I’m especially happy about all the various milkweed species for attracting pollinators.  Plus a lot of volunteers like goldenrod appear to be taking over.  Between those, and the native grasses, they may eventually crowd out the invasive honeysuckle vines.  It’s gratifying working with, not against, nature, and seeing the effort pay off.

My evil plan to lure ravens ever closer in is working.  I’m taking raven language lessons from them, which perplexes them no end!  I’m probably insulting their mother.  One day I’ll get it right.  Braak Nevermore!

Here are more perennials putting on a show.

It’s like sensational tabloids, every time trump opens his mouth–it’s unbelievable that anyone, let alone a president, could come up with such crap.  Why not inject himself with disinfectants, to demonstrate how that works!  Maybe his stupid followers will try it out.  Or not, because they’re too deep in denial about the virus.  It would be perfect standup material, if it weren’t so disturbing.  But enough of that.

These are some Indian-seasoned baked sweet potatoes I made.  They’re savory and spicy instead of sweet.  And here are some erev flowers.

Here’s what’s blooming right now.  And it’s raining again.  Yay rain!

Silviculture: the growing and cultivation of trees.  How is it I never knew this word?

Trees and flowers look so much better in the rain.  I’m especially happy to see my baby native trees thriving.  If you squint, you can imagine a forest.

Also, I can’t get enough of these columbines and other perennials that are finally taking over.  It pays to be patient.  I still have hope that my other native wildflowers will eventually germinate and spread.

The friends I’m talking to online are all rediscovering the “lost” arts of cooking and gardening along with us during this lockdown.  We’re all finding “new” (old) ways to live sustainably.  It’s like we’re all homesteading alone together.

Hopefully some of these positive habits will linger on long after this is over.  Now if we get to the point where we’re making homemade toilet paper, we’ll know we’ve gone off the deep end.  It could come to that, if we don’t continue to persevere with sheltering in place and social distancing.  Jobs and entertainment won’t help us if we’re all dead.

Speaking of culinary arts, here is E’s latest fabulous homemade-from-scratch pizza (dough and all).  It even had anchovies, which we both love!  Also fresh homegrown oregano.  Trust me, it was good.  Soon I hope to be providing all the veg components myself.

To that end, yesterday I planted my tomato transplants in the main veg bed and my newer bed, pictured here.  I’m growing beefsteak, homestead, san marzano, and cherry roma.  I knew it was going to be raining today, to help them along.  Next up will be my eggplants and peppers.  Farther south, they’re getting more tornadoes and severe weather, so once again we dodged that bullet.

And of course, here are your obligatory flowers.  It’s starting to look very cottage garden around the house, which is my evil plan.  You’ve probably gathered by now that “manicured” or “formal” are not in my vocabulary.  It goes against everything I believe in.  The wilder, the better.  Just be glad I don’t do selfies.

(It’s a rhetorical question.)  Quarantined with a rainbow of irises?  It turns out I’m no artist, and not much of a writer, but irises I’ve got!  I guess amateur photography will have to suffice.  And repetitious posts in praise of irises.  And all the other flowers.  I just planted sunflowers, so VG would approve.

I confess we braved no man’s land again (with our hazmat accessories on) to restock on (medicinal) booze and some other essentials to hold us (i.e. me) for the months ahead.  It was like a ghost town out there, with virus precautions in place at many businesses, but we still have a long way to go here to get on top of this.

If stupid people feel inconvenienced, they can go assist exhausted health workers dealing with COVID casualties, and see how liberated they feel.  Meanwhile all normal life as we knew it is collapsing due to the criminal negligence of our idiot-in-chief.  A fungus would do a better job of leadership.  Sorry, sometimes it just slips out.  😀

Hopefully another baby boom won’t come out of this lockdown, but certainly many reinventions of old recipes will!  Case in point–E tweaked her famous savory Italian pie into a new, improved version yesterday.  I can’t reveal all the secret ingredients, but not to worry–we haven’t resorted to road kill or soylent green–yet!  Actually, it was excellent as well as creative.

At the store the other day, I noticed the dry beans and rice section was almost wiped out, which indicates that people are having to relearn how to cook more cheaply and healthfully from scratch, after having gone through all the convenience foods.  Just another way this misfortune could have an upside.  Imagine, spoiled Americans having to learn to cook the way developing nations (or poor Americans) have been doing for millennia.  Speaking of rice and beans, I feel a Mexican meal coming on.

Meanwhile, the boss (Misu) has been creatively rediscovering more elevated lairs during her permanent lockdown.  Here she is looking down upon me from the printer paper box up on the file cabinet.  She has made a very amiable, if ornery, cellmate.

Last night we got almost an inch of rain, but fortunately not the violent tornadoes, hail, and t-storms that the deeper south got slammed with, a repeat of Easter Sunday.  This time the storm front mostly missed TN altogether.  Today it’s a beautiful spring day, with veggies popping up all over, and more to be planted in the next few days.  More on that later.

Pre-COVID, I was already used to spending limits, being on a fixed low income; quarantine has further limited access to garden supplies and plants I was accustomed to obtaining.  Thus, I find myself appreciating details of each and every flower and plant that come back or appear for the first time, and my photos reflect that.  There’s always a new angle or stage of life to rediscover in commonplace, overlooked nature right around you.  I find it all cathartic, and recommend it.  There are worse things one could focus on right now.  So please enjoy my humble efforts to share what beauty I find at home in quarantine.

Thus here are yet more shots of irises and columbines starting to bloom, and even some little white thyme flowers.  Not pictured (yet) are the many species of birds and animals I see moving in closer every day, attracted by all the plants and foods I’ve provided.  The raven gang practically lives under my office window now, but they’re still quite skittish.  I’m working on those sneaky photo techniques.  Please bear with me and stay tuned.

Today we did one of our semi-monthly missions into the danger zone of Kroger.  Of course we had our “armor” on, and I was glad to see many others did, too, and were maintaining distance.  I was also astounded to observe a mountain of TP!  It’s been a while since I’ve gazed upon such a sight!  IKR?  There were still some major shortages of other necessities, but it seems some restocking is finally happening.  We also noticed many new hires.  Lately this is one of our only glimpses of other humans, which is pretty sad.  I just hope people will be smart and keep up the precautions, despite the crap our conspirator-in-chief and accomplices keep spewing.

We watched the quarantine episode of SNL hosted by Tom Hanks (who has survived the virus), and featuring many of the regulars doing remote sketches from home.  Only in a severe crisis like this could such an unheard of event take place.  It was oddly reassuring to see celebs spoofing much the same strange and awkward situations many of us find ourselves in, and finding the humor in it.  It was also sad to see their tribute to their professional and family members who have died of COVID-19.

In other boring quarantine news, some of my favorite flowers are coming into bloom–multi-colored irises, bleeding hearts, and assorted columbines.  If I seem redundant, it’s because one can never get tired of these masterpieces of nature, surpassing what human engineers and artists can even conceive of.  Although if someone could come up with the COVID-19 vaccine, that would be pretty impressive.

During these abnormal times, every small return to some semblance of normalcy means more.  In this case, it’s getting back to eating chametz (bourbon, beer, bread, beans, and other non-Pesach b’s)!  Man, was that bourbon good!  Today (erev) even stale challah tastes better.

I felt another rant coming on, but f–k that.  It’s all been said by smarter people than myself, and it’s all exhausting.  Here instead are the latest flowers, including (finally!) some bleeding heart buds.  Speaking of exhaustion, here is one droopy cat, after rampaging around crashing into things.  Some catnip may have been applied to the situation.

Is Freedom of Stupidity in the Constitution?  Those morons out protesting the lockdown, with assault weapons and trump signs–seriously, we’ve come to this?  They want the freedom to die of a deadly virus, and pass it on to all the rest of us while they’re at it.  That’s the kind of inspiring “leadership” we have, modeling destructive, selfish behavior.  It feels like rational people are on their own, surviving any way they can, with whatever help they can scrape together.  OK, I’ve said my piece.

Yesterday we got to have another pleasant conversation (outside, six feet away, with a fence between us) with our nice new neighbor.  She seems pretty aware and informed of the current situation, unlike so many around here.  We talked gardening and home maintenance, interests we share, as well as adapting to the new normal.  They seem very keen on making this their permanent home, and fixing it up, which makes their landlord (and us) happy.  It’s so unusual and therapeutic to get to speak to outside people these days.

Tonight I’m looking forward to drinking some real booze again, as Pesach ends.  Ravens are outside my office window gobbling up stale matzah–I hope they don’t end up belly up.  If nothing else, it makes good mulch.

And now back to pretty flowers.