Monday, Monday

Mondays are grocery shopping days for us. I headed out to a local store, Fareway, located in Cresco. Cresco is about 25 miles from Elma.

The store is not large but carries most of the basics we need. However, “exotic” items, such as agave liquid sweetener and witch hazel, are not part of the product mix. We alternate between this store and the HyVee store in Charles City, which carries a wider range of products. Next Monday will be a HyVee trip.

Given the COVID-19 situation, I can take advantage of “Senior Shopping Hours” that run from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM every morning. Best part for me is no kids running up and down the aisles!

Quite a few of the shoppers were wearing face coverings so I may need to find one or dig out my ATV dust mask for future use. Masks are not mandated but are picking up in popularity.

Paper towels are still a scarce item, but I did find some hand sanitizer. (Last week HyVee had TP so we are OK there.) Other items are still rationed; a limit of 4 “water items” was posted, along with limits on some paper products.

All told it was a mostly successful shopping trip. What I did not get this time will go on the list for next week’s trip to Charles City.

Around the house, work continues on a couple different fronts. Pam continues to paint and I work on projects mentioned in previous posts such as lawn clean-up and moving boxes out of our storage unit into the garage.

I did take the snow blade off the John Deere tractor and put on the mowing deck and grass bagger. I ran the mower over the yard to even out the grass and pick up leaves that had blown in from surrounding yards. I raked out several corners around the house, dog run, and along the garage and finished mulching the “heavy” winter accumulation of leaves. The lawn mowing, combined with sidewalk edging and leaf mulching, has the yard looking pretty good.

Given the number of trees in the yard it is no surprise that there are a lot of small branches and twigs on the lawn. These will have to be raked up as they are too heavy for the mower deck or lawn vac to handle.

I continue to work on my web pages; my galleries now have an “Auto Play” button on them which will start the chosen gallery to run as a slide show. I find this more convenient than clicking on each photo to go through an entire gallery but that option is still there for those who want it. Combining the Auto Play with the Full Screen mode makes for a nice way to view these collections.

Life goes on despite the COVID-19 restrictions. We are keeping busy with outside projects on nicer days and inside projects on the (many) dreary days. There is still paperwork coming through regarding my retirement; Medicare just sent us a multi-month billing and I had to call them to remove my former private insurance coverage as primary. (Former coverage ended at the end of February this year.) Pretty soon, though, I will have to find an open barbershop and we both should set up dentist appointments for routine cleaning (when dentists are operational again). Nothing critical, though I do miss open library hours. Overall we are doing OK.

Archive

Here is photo of me from 2007. We had visited a museum in Reno, Nevada as part of a longer trip.

The sign below was made for us by our good friend Hank when we lived in Colorado in the late 1970s.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents:

It’s been a month since the unexpected gall bladder removal surgery. Supposedly I can now start to lift items weighing more than ten pounds, although my torso incisions frequently object to heavier weights.

Our sheltering in place continues. Although Iowa’s governor has not issued a formal “stay safe at home” order, we’re finding local businesses are on reduced hours and/or reduced public interaction, if not downright closed period. Neighbors are maintaining a social distance when speaking to us, as are potential service providers who arrive for quotes (electrician, foundation spray company owner, handyman).

I’ve been surprised by the catio cat population. I assumed that, once given the freedom to come-and-go at will, there would be considerably more wandering about than is presently occurring. I guess they are “sheltering in place” where the food, water, and heated beds are. No dummies.

Happy (future) Trails.