We’re getting closer to being completely moved in…having made pretty good progress last week…not percentage wise but actual work wise.

After arriving back home a week ago Monday…we spent Tuesday unloading the truck and returned it Wednesday. Thursday we had designs of cleaning the rig but Connie didn’t feel well with a headache so we blew that off and instead mounted our sound bar on the wall over the TV and finished hooking up all our devices, neat nicking up the cables and unpacking pictures…they’re not hung yet but we did get them all unpacked.

Friday we made it over to the rig and spent most of the day doing a deep clean for sale and making sure that we have everything out of it except the stuff that will go with the rig. We also talked to the office at Seminole about shifting to a storage vice living site…Kaitlyn will get back to us this week after she talks to Bryan to get the details.

We continued to get a bunch of headaches over the weekend…then this morning just before we went over to vote we figured out why…somehow the bag of coffee we been drinking since Tuesday after we got back is unleaded…and no caffeine means headaches ya know. Neil solved that by mixing the last 1/3 of a bag with another high test bag so that problem is solved. After we voted…Connie headed out to get nails done…I did this post, Neil dragged in a few boxes to unload the kitchen stuff this afternoon, and he’ll do our ad on rvtrader.com to get the rig and Big Red on the market.

Saturday last we headed out to the Elk Lodge for the St. Paddy’s Day bbq dinner…it was pretty tasty although we came home early with headaches as that was before we discovered the coffee mistake. Sunday we went to Mass…very sparsely attended due to the corona and because the bishop waived the obligation to attend Mass on Sunday for the duration of the crisis.

Speaking of the corona…we’re well situated. Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, food, disinfectant wipes are all on hand…we made a run to Costco and Walmart yesterday to get meat as that was pretty much out so we needed more anyway. Choir practice has been suspended until further notice…and with the latest guidance to avoid groups and not eat out or go to bars we’ll pretty much be homebodies for awhile I guess. Connie is watching carefully and as long as there is no community spread in this area we’ll continue to visit the Elks Lodge for Happy Hour and events…unless they give up and shut down as well and only until there is more in this area. So far…Lee County only has a few cases and all were either folks who traveled to the seriously affected regions or family members or other people who had close contact with them.

I keep seeing more and more panic inciting headlines…this morning there was an article that said 2 million people would die in the US. When you actually read the article…it said that if one assumed the most pessimistic value for all variables and that nobody observed the social distancing recommended that there could be up to that many deaths…but the article in no way suggested that as an actual estimate, just as an upper bound for why we need to be cautious. I’m not saying that this is a non event…it certainly is not…but it’s not as bad as the media would have you believe…and the number of deaths is far below the number of people that die every flu season anyway. Most of what you read on the web is either from people who don’t know what they’re talking about or is designed to get clicks and thereby increase ad revenue for the site. We see death percentages that are likely far higher than the actual number will be because the fatality ratio is the number of deaths divided by the number of cases…and we have no idea what the denominator of that fraction is because so few people have been tested. Despite what you read in the news…it is not the President’s fault that there has been only limited testing so far…the reason for limited testing is that…(Connie could explain this better but she’s not here)…it’s a complicated test that requires a clean room, takes 24-48 hours for the lab to complete the test, and there are very few labs in the country that have the facilities to perform these tests. Testing developed by other countries uses less precise but faster testing techniques which explains the number of tests done in South Korea for example compared to the US…it is not because the President has directed that the tests be hoarded or any of the other horror stories you read on the news. While our response has not been perfect…in reality Public Health is a state issue to handle until the President issues an executive order and takes it over. I’m sure he is hesitant to do that…because his political opponents…yeah, the same ones that are convinced he will refuse to leave office if he loses reelection…will scream that he has appointed himself President for Life if he does that. They’re already accusing him of racism because he called it a Chinese virus…despite the fact that it most definitely originated in China just like SARS and MERS did…China has a culture of open air live markets where animals are displayed live, you pick the one you want, and they slaughter it for you and hand it to you. This particular virus apparently transferred to humans from bats via pangolins (an armadillo like mammal)…both are sold and slaughtered in these markets in unknown but dubious sanitary conditions with no regulation. But apparently…the President is racist for calling a spade a spade and saying the truth. He’s certainly not done everything right…but it’s neither the complete disaster that Bernie and his ilk are spouting or the best-est ever pandemic response that he says it is.

So folks…be smart, wash your hands, don’t go buy up all the toilet paper in sight…and things will be just fine. Some people will get this virus…and even some of them will die…but people die from the flu every winter already and we don’t panic about those illnesses nearly this bad. Corona is not good…but it’s not quite the coronapocalypse either.

A few images we gots this week…

A new visitor…a Tricolor or Louisiana Heron, supposedly common but mainly in Louisiana I guess, they’re a pretty uncommon sight in southern FL.

You can see the small yellowish breeding plumage at the back of the head…making this a male.

Ragnar in his usual spot…we also spotted a second smaller gator in the pond as well this week.

Great Blue Heron…or GBH as we call ‘em.

The Snowy Egret was over on our side as well one morning…sorry about the soft focus on this one but it was right outside our lanai so Neil had to take the shot through the screen…with breeding plumage on the back of his head.

Interesting things found on the net.

Ya know…birds are mostly feathers. This one illustrates it…the one on the right is what you see perched on the branch and the left side shows the actual body of this Great Grey Owl.

Appropriate for corona.

Explanation of the cycle of life.

Cyas.