It has been a wild ride for us, hasn’t it? Countries on lockdown, travel restricted, people out of work and forced onto unemployment in record numbers. None of it is ideal, but it’s what you have to do in the face of a pandemic where we have no real treatment and no vaccine. So, now that we’re locked down and at home more than we might like to be, what can we do? We can regain control of our lives by being productive.
There are two main ways we can do this: Set fitness goals, and start a garden.
The first, setting fitness goals, will of course vary greatly from person to person. Many of my goals won’t be suitable for some, while for others, they would be perfect. Each of us have to assess our level of fitness and set reasonable goals. Small stepping stones we can reach day by day or every other day, and it’ll boost our morale and give a sense that we are moving forward. For me, I like to walk, or hike, and since I can’t go to a national park and hike my favorite trails, I have to make do with local bike trails. I kept seeing these ads on Facebook for The Conqueror and My Virtual Challenge and liked that they send you a medal for hitting your goals. A one person marathon with leaderboards of others doing the same sounds great. So far, it’s fun, and help’s remind me to get out and hit some miles. Though, sometimes, I’ll just have my phone on me to track the miles I hit while working on my second way of being productive: Starting a garden.
Start a garden.
We saw what happened early on in March, when people in the US became aware of the external threat. The Epidemic in Wuhan was obvious for anyone who worked in matters that concerned China and the health risks, but for the general public, they had a media telling them it was just racism and it was just the flu, and a president that repeated the same line of thought. We missed our window of time, 3 months, to prepare and prevent a public panic. What happened? People went out and bought all the toilet paper. Not because they thought the virus would have them on the toilet for days, which by the way, it kept me on there for 24 straight hours. People were buying the toilet paper because we get almost 100% of our toilet paper from China, and China wasn’t producing or shipping out anything. The concern had merit, the public just acted too late. You don’t prep for doom when the doom hits, you prepare when things are calm and normal.
So now that we’re past the run on toilet paper, and stores are slowly getting the shelves restocked, it’s time to look a couple months ahead.
The conditions in the market are volatile to say the least. The day to day meter on stocks are looking green, but the underlying conditions are worsening by the hour. The same voices who told you the epidemic in Wuhan China was just a flu in China and would never arrive in the US, are now the voices that tell you the markets are rebounding and things are stabilizing. This of course is nonsense, and is meant to do only one thing: Crowd management.
The best thing we can do with our new free time, is to start a garden. The threat of food shortages in the fall are very real, even if, by good luck, it doesn’t materialize. Your garden can be in buckets, pots, old drawers, or even old bed sheets you don’t use. Mix some top soil, peat moss, and dirt in and throw down some seed. I opted for the Hugelkultur approach, because thats what I grew up doing, and I like keeping family traditions going. You can try one out, while also doing some of the less labor intensive approaches. Whatever you do, just grow some food.
I’ll write a post in depth on Hugelkultur and why its a great way to garden.
More coming.
Nomad Advocate 