Yes, it finally caught up with us. Moments after the gov’t. announced that the Pandemic was Over, Larry set out to prove them wrong. How he accomplished this feat is unknown at this time, but sometime before Friday, May 5, he apparently touched, breathed, swallowed a sample of the virus, and here we are.

May 5, is, of course, Cinco de Mayo, as well as our anniversary. Don’t ask or try to figure out which, it’s practically triple digits. Obviously our celebratory dinner has been put on hold.

We settled him into one of the upstairs bedrooms and he proceeded to sleep for the next 72 hours. Okay, I’m making that up, but for a long time. Fortunately, he seems to have a light case, and when I came home with the Paxlovid on Sunday, he declined to take it. This on consideration of the warnings administered by the pharmacist to the wife. As he didn’t feel particularly sick, why choke down those huge horse pills . . .

I just took this photo minutes ago to assure you that you don’t need to feel too sorry for us. Cows grazing in the tall grass, evening sunshine, light clouds. Ah, May in Oregon.

So what did I do while we quarantined? I was going to title this post TO BEE or . . . before being shamed by one of my readers. Cute, but I guess not cute enough. This refers to the fact that Larry has decided to engage in bee keeping. More about which later, but for now, it meant that I climbed up on my high horse about the possibility of spraying the weeds in our driveway. We can’t spray if we have bees!

And what this has about my quarantine activities is that I decided to weed the driveway. Here’s what I’m talking about:

This is a before and after shot. Weeds in the top half, weeds pulled from the bottom half.

Yes, I weeded the whole thing. Four days of quarantine. Just took out my little garden stool, sat down, and started pulling. What else was I going to do?

Anyway, here we are on Day 5. This afternoon, we saddled up the SUV, donned our masks, and drove to Eugene. I wanted to talk to the people in the Hult Center box office about some tickets we have for next weekend, and I wanted to visit Nordstrom Rack about a white, short-sleeved T-shirt. This is about a hundred mile round trip, really inexcusable for the reasons I’ve cited, but we were about to go house mad, so we went.

BTW, I’ve been testing myself — negative again this morning, so fingers crossed.

Now, about the bees. Here’s their prospective home:

Looks a mess. Larry has immersed himself in bee know-how, read three or four books, consulted with the bee lady at Shonnards nursery and, more important, with Alan, the former bee master and builder of this hive. The bees and a queen have been ordered, to be delivered in about two weeks. I’m sure there will be more to tell, stay tuned.

Meanwhile, here’s his latest toy:

I don’t know if the thing has a name, but it’s a wheeled, motor-driven, weed-whacker. This should be endlessly useful, and, once again, Larry has chosen to acquire a tool that is beyond my skill-level and physical capacity with which to help out. Damn. Kidding. Seriously?

And now it’s dinner time. I found a couple of chicken pot pies in the grab and go rack of our super market, discovered that they had no operating instructions what so ever. So they’re heating in the oven, and I’m hoping that’s adequate. Tomorrow I may start cooking again.