Positive and Negative

I love my extroverted friends, but I can tell that some of them are starting to feel the effects of social isolation. If they can’t socialize in person, they’ll do it through other channels. I must have gotten two dozen text messages, phone calls, or videos sent to me on Thursday. While I am happy to respond to close friends who need something, that level of social interaction—whether virtual or in person—makes me feel like I am being pecked to death by ducks.

[If you are a close friend or neighbor, I want to hear from you. If you are a casual Facebook friend who feels the need to send me links to every video you watched that day, please stop. Please.]

I do miss visiting with my neighbors. We’re so used to seeing each other and touching base every day or two that having to wave at each other from across the road feels weird. Elysian called last night and asked how we were doing. After a moment’s consideration, I said, “Nothing has really changed for us,” which is true. We don’t have little kids home from school (and DD#2 went home on Thursday because she had to go back to work), the husband is still working, I’m still working, and I haven’t had to go anywhere because we have everything we need. She laughed and said we were like the farmers during the Great Depression who weren’t aware that there was a depression happening.

Believe me, I am grateful for the consistency because I know not everyone has that luxury.

Work has been steady this week, but I think it may start to drop off soon. Many of the doctors are scheduling “chemo holidays” for their patients and suspending treatment for 6-8 weeks so that immunocompromised cancer patients don’t have to expose themselves needlessly. I would be okay with several days or even a few weeks off, especially now that gardening season is ramping up.

I got all my tomatoes planted on Thursday, as well as one variety of corn and two varieties of cowpeas. I am determined to figure out how to grow cowpeas here so that Cathy can make her favorite southern dishes. I didn’t get the seeds into the ground early enough last season and I’m hoping that starting seedlings inside will fool the plants into thinking they are in Georgia. The greenhouse is still a bit chilly unless the sun is shining, so we have the propane heater running.

I put all my beans in jars in the kitchen so I can admire them. I grew a lot of beans last year (those are half-gallon jars):

I plan to make another batch of masks today, but I spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon working on some quilt blocks. I really wanted to see how that positive/negative quilt block arrangement looked. It doesn’t bowl me over, but I think I like it enough to keep going:

This is the design based on the Pepper and Flax fabric line from Corey Yoder. (There is also some sage-y green in the line.) The two blocks are identical; they just swap print and background positions. I think what’s giving me trouble is the amount of white. I don’t generally do quilts with white in them because anything white doesn’t stay that way here for long. And I need to figure out a better production line method. Doing these one at a time is bit fiddly.

One of our employees came over after work last night to put his truck up on the lift and check out a strange noise. (Unfortunately, I did not get out there in time to get a picture.) He also brought me some bottles of homemade wine. I had given him grapes from our vines last fall and this is some of the wine he and his wife made with them. I am going to try it out with dinner tonight. Last year, they made some with currants and Italian plums that was amazing. I also got the binding made and attached to that latest Candy Coated quilt. It just needs to be sewn down, and that might be a good project for this evening.