Coronavirus! What Else Can We Say?!?!
What an odd time it has been since Daddy has left! Things in our household went from “full speed ahead” … up before dawn to get farm chores done just to run around like crazy all day to get kids to school, pick kids up from school, attend school events, get more farm chores done, pick up feed, get groceries, go to work, get home from work, get the kids dinner, baths, prep lunches for school, homework, spelling tests, “hurry up and go to bed, it’s getting late!”. And the cycle would repeat itself the very next day.
Our weekends were equally as packed! We spent an entire weekend in March at the county fairgrounds to attend Emily’s 4H Fair! Her chickens (Henry Jr and Steve won ribbons and Emily competed in the goat agility course and earned a ribbon there too!).
We crammed in local events and activities to keep us all busy … enjoying strawberry picking, the Santa Fe planetarium, playing with baby goats and even took a tour of Carsen Springs Wildlife Foundation!
We were Go, Go, Go! Hurry, Hurry, Hurry! all day, everyday … until … one day, everything literally came to a screeching HALT due to the coronavirus pandemic. School stopped, work stopped, all extracurricular activities stopped. Parks closed, stores closed and life as we know it … simply stopped. Now, we have all been staying home for weeks on end with absolutely no where to go, no schedule to keep, no real obligations - other than to stay healthy, stay sane and remain productive in some form or fashion. It’s a complete 360 from what we were doing just a few weeks ago! I imagine even Daddy Bear is missing our outings as he’s been stuck at home now too!
Now, our days involve morning and evening farm chores. This does get tedious and mundane - the same thing twice a day … every.single.day! But we have also been planting flower and veggie gardens and riding the horses.
The kids spend hours on end playing in the tree house, jumping on the trampoline and swimming in their pool. They play hide and seek, dance to their Kidz Bop music station, do art projects, and I work outside all day - doing yard work, working in the garden and looking after the animals.
For the past few weeks, we have been eating dinners together each evening (I even sit down!!) and more often than not, we eat dinner outside while we actually talk to each other. At night, we watch movies together and eat popcorn. We read books and spend more time with the animals. We stay up late to watch the moon rise over the trees. We cook breakfasts each morning, we bake goodies for no good reason and the kids help to plan and prepare their meals in the evenings. We do household chores together and chip away at little projects here and there that have been on lists for ages. We ride the golf cart down to the mailbox in the evenings and we laugh at the bumpy road. And we pull out old party decorations that have been stored for years just to make a rainy day a little more festive.
As an added precaution, we now have groceries delivered (I may actually not give this up once life returns to “normal”. SO CONVENIENT!!) We utilize curbside pick up for feed purchases (also gonna be really sad to see this service go!) And like everyone else, we buy toilet paper whenever we happen to see a few rolls available :) We’ve even traded chicken eggs for t-paper!!!
It’s not all sunshine and roses though! This momma completely looses her mind at least a dozen times a day. This is no joke and no lie. We are very very fortunate to be in a position where I can stay home with the kids and critters during this time of such uncertainty. It’s a privilege to be in my position, really! But man!!! The momma juice is a’flowin’ …
The kids get sick of eachother too - and they definitely get sick of me! They get tired of having to help with chores and don’t always sleep well at night - probably just due to feeling somewhat unsettled given the weird world we live in right now. We are all honest and real and frustrated at times. What else can we really do??
It’s such an odd and crazy time, for sure. And while we’re all eager for life to go back to our so-called “normal” … I don’t recall a time in our lives when our days were so unstructured and non-chaotic. I find myself hoping that even when life does “go back to normal” … we can still enjoy some aspects of this unstructured, non-chaotic, crazy, wonderfully simple lifestyle.
