Recovery, adapting

As Mama, Victoria, and I recover, we are all a bit lethargic. My symptoms have reduced to an occasional cough, but not the loud, bone shaking cough I have with a bronchial infection. Mama is still feeling flu-ish and seems to have a low-grade fever with the associated body aches, but she is more active and lucid than she was Wednesday. Victoria’s cough has subsided but not disappeared, and her voice is returning to normal. She still keeps to her bed for most of the day, but it is clear she is better. With all three of us in or current stated of recovery the biggest challenge is figuring out what to eat. Nothing particular “sounds good” to Mama and what does spark an interest for either Mama or Victoria is not the healthiest fare available, but at least there is a genuine interest in eating. That is a good sign. The problem is that when either of them starts to eat, they are quickly nauseated – regardless of the fare. So, in meal preparation, I just fix what is available to us from our supplies, try to keep it healthy and hope whatever is prepared will meet their needs. Soups and stir-fry mostly.

Things have been quite busy at work the past few days. I am not sure where the uptick in activity has come from, but my mornings have been engaged in a multitude of little queries that take time to answer as each involves solving a mini mystery. I have fun for the most part getting to the bottom of those searches, even if the outcome shows that I have overlooked or neglected to fulfill something I was assigned to do. When the records for over one thousand people are entered over the year, there are bound to be a few mistakes, but thankfully, those mistakes are easily found, easily corrected, and easily forgiven. In large part, all the issues of late have not been a part of my direct involvement in the entry or processing of records. Mostly we have been challenged by clients not fulfilling their obligation to us, but we always double check to ensure the fault is not on our part. That takes time., but it makes us all feel needed. Not being in proximity to one another adds to the time required for those searches, but it still gets done fairly quickly. Once resolved, we all go back to our mundane tasks and wait for the next crisis.

I am getting reports from different beekeeping sites that are a bit alarming. Most of the beekeepers are reporting that their bees are requiring far more feeding over this Winter that in years past. That is both good news and bad news. Good news in that the colonies are large and thriving. Bad news in that more feed has to be gotten into the hives in spite of the cold ambient temperatures. My concern is in cooling the hive as I tend to my bees, but I have to trust the bees to rewarm the hive after they are given the resources needed to survive the Winter and enter the Spring with enough pollen – supplied in pollen patties – to reproduce. Next month in our region, the queens will start to lay again, and the hives must have sufficient pollen to feed on as they attempt to raise brood. No pollen. No brood. No brood. No honey. Fortunately, I got my recent order of pollen patties yesterday and the afternoon temperature on Sunday is forecast to be 65°. That should give me the opportunity to insert the pollen patties into the sugar boards on the two hives without overly cooling the hives.

The temperature this morning was 16°, so all the water troughs were frozen solid. Because of that, I had to help Mama haul water to the coops and all the goat area to make sure they could have a drink with their breakfast. A very cold drink. I had limited the water in each container last night in anticipation of the hard freeze. Keeping the dishes almost empty overnight gives us more space to add fresh water in the morning. We will get into the forties by late afternoon, so some of the ice in the troughs will thaw, but what is left when I close the coops for the night will be poured out since the overnight temperatures will be in the twenties. This routine will pretty much continue through the middle of March. Not a hardship, just our way of adapting.

With Mama and Victoria still displaying obvious symptoms of our current illness, we will not be going to church Sunday. Pastor Horton and I were talking Tuesday and he told me there are at least ten families in the church that are sick with the same virus and knowing the level of fear in some people, Mama, Victoria, and I will limit our contact until we are much better.

Hopefully that will be very soon.