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COVID-19 How We Are Coping with the Virus

Cathy Faust, Extension Agent III (Retired), Shelby County

When I retired from Extension last year, I was excited about traveling with my husband, Rick, on his hotel audits. The first ten months took us to Hawaii, California, New York, and Arizona. After working for thirty years, it was wonderful to not worry about performance appraisals, impact statements, mileage reports, and deadlines.

As we prepared to leave Phoenix in late February, we began hearing reports about the coronavirus. To be on the safe side, I stocked up on canned goods and enough food to last for two weeks. (No, I did not hoard toilet paper.)

Our travels came to an abrupt halt with the closing of the hotels Rick was auditing. I remarked, “There are three stages of retirement: go-go, slow-go, and no-go.” We had gone through all three in less than three months.

We have planted container gardens and are growing lettuce, tomatoes, squash, and zucchini. I bought a bread-maker, but it is impossible to find flour or yeast. Since March 12, I have prepared 126 meals, not counting breakfasts. (I love to cook, otherwise, we would be ordering take-out.)

We continue to “shelter-in-place,” and order groceries online every two to three weeks. Although the churches are re-opening, we will continue to view mass online and wait until July to see if the virus numbers subside.

Thank goodness for Facetime visits and social media to stay connected.

Cherry Lane Darken

After making lots of masks for non-medical essential workers in our county, I decided I needed a new project! For several years I had wished for some raised bed gardens . . . and decided I finally had time to tackle this wish.

I thought, and read, and planned for two beds close to my kitchen and the water source. I went to our local Fox Hardwoods and purchased the boards and enticed my neighbor to build the bed frames. Next, I got a load of “Holy Cow Soil” for gardens and several bales of peat moss.

Friends came and helped me fill the frames, and then I was ready to plant! I had so much fun selecting both seeds and plants! It had been a long time since I had planted seeds, and I have enjoyed looking every morning to see them poking through the soil.

I should have known I was going to have a small challenge when I realized that my four feline pets discovered that I had built two large litter boxes! As the seeds sprout, I am claiming my gardens by covering the beds with branches. Are there other recommended practices for this pesky situation?

I have already enjoyed the time I have spent on this project. Now I am imagining my bounty of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce, arugula, eggplant, beets, carrots, squash, as well as oregano, parsley, and dill.

I am hearing that lots of folks are planting veggie gardens in this quarantine year. I guess they are our versions of the old “victory gardens!” There is something very therapeutic about gardening; I would highly recommend it!

Roger and Linda Thackston

As I write these notes, the sun is shining and temperature is 64 degrees and on the way to near 80 today. What a welcome it is. It has not been a bad winter here on the Plateau, but it has been a long one and the virus has added misery to the cool rainy weeks and months of winter-spring. No golf, until recently, and no gardening, until this week (May 14, 2020). Frosts and freezes have kept us busy covering and uncovering our strawberries, but we have managed to save the blooms and are beginning to have the fruits of our labor.

Linda has been busy organizing the many photos of our children, grands, and trips we have made over the years. Many found their way to the dump while others will find their way to our children, when we can see them, for them to keep or throw away. She has organized clothes and thrown away things no longer used. I have done the same thing in my storage room in the garage. A weekly trip to the dump has been the norm during this down time. She has been ordering groceries online and I put on my N95 mask and gloves and make the pickup at the store. We wipe the food packages with sanitizing wipes or let them set in the garage for a few days before we bring them into the house. The microwave has gotten extra use as we give our mail and newspaper some rays to, maybe, kill the virus on those items.

Church has been the TV services from Knoxville and email messages from our pastor. Of course, one of the hardest things during our stay-at-home time has been not being able to see our children and the grandkids. Not getting and giving hugs has been tough, even though there has been almost daily phone calls and texts, and even a Skype from time to time. We have kept in touch with friends and neighbors more often and have made contact with old friends that we have neglected far too long. Oh, we have been sleeping longer and eating only two meals a day. Linda walks a lot in the house. She has a route she follows several times a day. We have made some drives around the county to parts that we have not visited in quite a while. We have enjoyed our birds more these months and have kept them well fed with sunflower seed and suet. Our resident bluebirds have been an added joy as we watch them feed their babies just outside our sunroom windows. We hope to see their babies leave the box as that is a special scene to watch.

With warmer and drier weather, hopefully this will give us more opportunities to get outside and enjoy the sunshine, the back porch, and a ride on the lake.

Everyone stay safe until we can see one another again.

John Allen

The last two months have been spent getting my house repaired from the March 3 tornado. My brother-in-law is my contractor and he has been great in bringing in the folks to put on a new roof, new windows, new doors, removing my garage, and bringing in a new storage building and carport and replacing my fence around the yard. All this happened over two months.

I have been busy finalizing the county fair book and planning for the quilt festival, both of which may not actually happen this summer. I make trips to the farm, about 5 miles away, every two or three days to see my brothers—always staying in my truck and visiting with them outside their homes. My sister stops by sometimes and eats with me, and occasionally we make a trip to a garden center or nursery. In the last week some restaurants have opened, and twice I have met for lunch my brother and sister who still work.

I haven’t missed a Sunday morning breakfast at my sister’s and seeing and hearing my pastor’s sermon on Facebook afterwards.

I reach out via email and phone to some of my friends to make sure they are staying safe and don’t need anything. I am happy to be at home. Publix brings me groceries or I stop at Walmart where they bring them out to me, load them, and sign for me.

I sit on my porch and watch traffic go by, watch a lot of TV, scroll through Facebook at least two or three times a day, and read several newspapers online to stay current on events and the news.

I have saved a ton of money on eating out and gas by cooking and staying home. Looking forward to a new normal whatever that may be.

Weakley County Farmer Named Tennessee Farmer of the Year

Honor Bestowed Annually by UT Extension

In a profession where the average age is fifty-eight, you might call Jay Yeargin of Greenfield, Tennessee, an upstart. Yet, this thirty-seven-year-old has been farming for more than sixteen years and is well known in the agricultural community. This year his reputation as a quality producer has jumped again. Yeargin has been named by UT Extension as the Tennessee Farmer of the Year for 2020.