Enjoying the Wild Life

The wild life we are enjoying is the kind found outdoors - not our wild and crazy shelter in place life.  We continue to do a nice long walk each morning to get the blood flowing, escape our four walls for a bit, and get some fresh air.  As spring is slowly arriving we have been able to watch the birds and other wild life come out to play and do their spring things.  Today we hiked around the UW arboretum and actually managed a picture of a muskrat - remember we thought we saw one in Lake Mendota.  Also saw a beaver, sandhill crane (see last weeks post), baby ducks/geese, several turkeys, redwing blackbirds, cardinals, and a host of other small birds.  Quite the menagerie for just one walk.  As usual we discussed and debated all the problems in the world - especially whether nicotine inhalation is going to be added to the tools to fight the virus.  It would be especially ironic if inhaling nicotine from an inhaler suddenly becomes prescribed to offset the worst of the virus.

Other than that we have stayed remarkably busy inside with various stuff - including finally christening our pottery room by firing up our pug mill (pug mill = big extruder that mixes clay and water, then removes all the air and spits out nice, malleable clay for throwing pots).  So stay tuned and hopefully we start turning all that clay into something you'll find as a gift cluttering up your nice home.

Just in case it wasn't clear - we really liked the Buddha holding up the limb of the tree.  Not sure what came first - someone had a Buddha they needed to figure out what to do with, or someone had a drooping limb that they needed to figure out how to support.  Yes, that is the kind of things we are down to discussing during our walks - we have really run out of new topics (today's included: should corporations have first amendment free speech rights, is it arson if you burn down your own house but don't file for insurance and don't call the fire department, are there really beavers in Lake Wingra (yes, we checked when we got home), will there be fall sports at the University, and, of course, the afore mentioned nicotine use).

Another Week Sheltering, Another Puzzle

What's new to write about this week - frankly not much.  But that said, here's the excitement from Wisconsin.  We have been going out for a daily walk that have been slowly getting longer and longer.  We started out walking for about an hour and now we are routinely hitting two hours.  We even managed a three hour stroll last weekend.  I think it is a combination of wanting to get some exercise, since the gym is out, and just wanting to be outside for a bit.  So while the top half of us is getting ever softer from a lack of working out, our legs at least are in good walking shape.  During our walks we have enjoyed seeing everything starting to green up (well it was until this week when the powers that be decided it was time to remind us we live in Wisconsin where spring doesn't really take hold until late May, it was 20 degrees several mornings this week) and the animals start to come around for spring.  We have seen several sandhill cranes, a couple of bald eagles, a hawk of some kind (I'm going with a Cooper's hawk but I'm no hawk expert), and what we are calling a muskrat in Lake Mendota (not sure exactly what it is, but it is just off shore in the lake, it dives under the water, has a medium length tail, and isn't a duck or bird).

When we aren't out stretching our legs and avoiding other humans, we have kept ourselves fairly busy.  Jo has been working on  sewing face masks.  Well she was until the sewing machine decided it was time to break - to be fair it is a 35 year old machine that has spent most of its life in a bag being carted from home to home and promptly forgotten.  Fortunately, we could identify the missing part and with the beauty of the internet we could find it online.  After a bit of challenge finding a company who could get it quickly, we were able to get it installed and our old Singer is back up and running, at least until the next part gives out.

We, like most of the rest of the country apparently, have been working on jigsaw puzzles.  We just completed our second Escher themed puzzle and will probably start another puzzle this weekend.  Other than that, I have kept myself busy with computer games which are a wonderful time sink, reading, and driving Jo nuts - but I was doing that last one before the whole pandemic thingy so not sure if it counts.  That's it until next week and another invigorating summary of our walks and inside life.

Delivery in 2020

The University of Wisconsin purchased these cute little delivery robots about 6 to 8 months ago.  We have seen them tooling around the sidewalks as we have been out for walks prior to the whole "virus shutting down the world" thing.  But this is the first time we saw this many of them all lined up in a row next to one of UW's dining halls.  They were being loaded to make safe contact-less delivery around campus to those students who needed to still be on campus as well as to the health care providers at the University hospital.  Isn't technology just grand.

They navigate completely independently including moving across several really busy streets - how?  Not a clue, especially for a multi-lane road - they must be able to read street lights or something.  They are even able to steer around students trying to block them including being able to nicely say to the person - get out the way.

Too fun and made one of our morning walks enjoyable, plus gave us something to talk about that wasn't the virus.

Another Week - Still Virus Free

We managed to get through another week without exposing ourselves - or at least not catching it if we did - to the latest viral scourge that humans are having to fight.  It continues to amaze me what havoc a few strands of viral genetic stuff can do, especially its ability to turn our own cell machinery against us.  During our many recent walks we have come up with all sort of fun and goofy ways to combat the virus - fortunately, none that you will be seeing soon at a pharmacy, doctor, or hospital near you.  My personal favorite one is to create an inhaler with a chemical that irreversibly binds to the spikes on the virus (the ones the virus uses to bind to our cells) and thereby inactivate the binding mechanism.  Of course, that requires finding a chemical you can inhale when you are symptomatic and doesn't actually cause more lung problems than the virus.  Still some kinks to work out - but I'm working on it (without a lab, ability to conduct a clinical trial, or any true knowledge of the binding mechanism for the corona virus).

But anyway, we are trying to maintain a positive outlook and find things to occupy ourselves.  We have been getting out for a long walk everyday, since the gym is no longer an option, and have certainly enjoyed the first indications that spring is just around the corner.  From the daffodils starting to flower, the warmer temperatures producing some beautiful foggy mornings over the lake, or even the first tulips buds.  We are using our copious amounts of indoor time to continue to work on some of our favorite recipes, like deep dish pizza, as well as try a few new things - sourdough bread is up this week (which makes us like most of the rest of the world at least according to the Wall Street Journal, apparently everyone is trying to make bread all of a sudden).

Fortunately, we have long been big jigsaw puzzle fans so have a great collection to work our way through.  We did decide it was a good time to tackle some of our more difficult ones in our storage that came to us from my Mom as a result of Mom and Dad's relocation to Madison.  Many of these are Escher themed and certainly can occupy a lot of time, which is a good thing right now.

The weather also cooperated the last few days, being warm and relatively dry, that we were able this morning to get out and start preparing our community garden beds for some planting.  Didn't get anything planted yet, but it did feel good to be outside, working in the soil, and not feel like you are about to get infected.  Already dreaming of freezing some beans this summer.