Coronavirus, Covid 19 Discussion and How It Has Affected Your Daily Life Chat Thread

[MROO]

Oh and @SnapdragonQ how do you still have so much gas left!?

My vehicle is currently getting three weeks to the gallon!

 

[ShrekDawg]

My vehicle is currently getting three weeks to the gallon!

Mine used to be like a month and now it’s like two weeks

 

[rosemarythyme]

I think a good practice now are stores wrapping baked goods and other items in the cases. I've always thought it unsanitary to have food items open, with flies and other airborne yuckies landing on everything.

Totally agree with this! The bakery section I'd frequent had glass doors, but every summer the fruit flies would show up - yuck! I skipped anything with fruit or sticky fillings in the summer because of that. Now I can pick up danishes fly free.

But ours is doing the prepackaged thing now too. Which kinda sucks because they had the best muffins they’ve now switched to some premade kind and/or make you buy 4 now.

Yeah mine stopped putting out scones - did for a few weeks but I guess maybe the supplier decided to shut down for time being.

Yeah a lot of stores here require it or certain towns do. I don’t think our TSC is one but my grocery store down the street is. My town and the town that grocery store is in both require masks now.

That said, our governor did just pass some thing a couple weeks ago about masks being required now so I wonder if people will follow it. I haven’t been to TSC since.

This is why you're going to see weird and random amounts of compliance. If it's state wide, then that should be that regardless of company polices. If it's not, then it's all over the place. My state has no requirement, I don't think any counties or towns have a requirement (yet). One island has a requirement but it only applies to tourists not residents? Meanwhile some rural counties are having restrictions lifted ahead of others. So .

Mine used to be like a month and now it’s like two weeks

Hubby used to refill 1-2x a week and now, he's refilling 1x a month! I drive less so I've refilled once and probably won't need more for 2-3 months.

 

[ShrekDawg]

Totally agree with this! The bakery section I'd frequent had glass doors, but every summer the fruit flies would show up - yuck! I skipped anything with fruit or sticky fillings in the summer because of that. Now I can pick up danishes fly free.



Yeah mine stopped putting out scones - did for a few weeks but I guess maybe the supplier decided to shut down for time being.



This is why you're going to see weird and random amounts of compliance. If it's state wide, then that should be that regardless of company polices. If it's not, then it's all over the place. My state has no requirement, I don't think any counties or towns have a requirement (yet). One island has a requirement but it only applies to tourists not residents? Meanwhile some rural counties are having restrictions lifted ahead of others. So .



Hubby used to refill 1-2x a week and now, he's refilling 1x a month! I drive less so I've refilled once and probably won't need more for 2-3 months.

That’s nasty!! Our bakery section is way away from the door tucked into a corner so pretty safe from bugs I think but idk.

Sorry about the scones being gone. I really miss my muffins from this place. They were HUGE and delicious. Now they’re tiny and taste premade/fake

Oh wow that really is all over the place lol ours is state wide now but hard to enforce so not everyone wears them. :/

Oh wow that’s a lot of refilling!! LOL and yours is so little.

When I drive I tend to drive all over the place just to listen to my music so I end up on back country roads or being gone for hours so use a lot of gas. Although I don’t do that too too often. The biggest gas burner I would say is either my need for speed lately or the fact I also sometimes tend to sit in parking lots with it running for a while.

 

[SnapdragonQ]

@MROO
I think I owe you some flower pictures, right? (If not I'm going to be embarrassed, but enjoy them anyway. To everyone else, just bear with me here, I LOVE English and antique roses.)

So, I think getting a box of baby roses in the mail is every bit as exciting as a box of chicks.
While the first pics are not of Zephy (Zephirine Drouhin, antique 1868) I got two of them and they were itty bitty box babies and about the same size. I grew them in large pots up north initially because I never figured out the best spot for them before I sold the farm. Thankfully. So they came with me and they LOVE it here.

The pics are from last year and this Zephy is a lot bigger now. For reference, she was about thigh high when I planted her. (I'm pretty short) The top of the cement part of the porch is about 6 1/2' high and to the top of the rail about 9 1/2' ish. It's a dozen steps behind her though you can only see about 6, the rest are cropped off.

She's almost twice this size and her canes reach to the roof and well beyond the full reach of the stairs. (She's thornless, thankfully) In the tall pic you can still see the lilac bush she is growing through, which is actually pretty large, and she likes to reach through the step rails to greet you with her beautiful scent.
As she's gotten older her flowers have more and more petals (a good thing IMO) and each year the scent also gets stronger, which is typical of maturing own root roses.

There was nothing in front of the house when I got it but weeds and grass, so it's a work in progress. Young climbers are sometimes best left to just grow, sprawl, and, mature so it will be another year or two before she can be shaped into something more well behaved. If ever. She's a rose that likes to do her own thing.

 

[SnapdragonQ]

I'll get better pictures as she and the newer roses really start blooming this year.

 

[MROO]

@MROO
I think I owe you some flower pictures, right? (If not I'm going to be embarrassed, but enjoy them anyway. To everyone else, just bear with me here, I LOVE English and antique roses.)

So, I think getting a box of baby roses in the mail is every bit as exciting as a box of chicks.
While the first pics are not of Zephy (Zephirine Drouhin, antique 1868) I got two of them and they were itty bitty box babies and about the same size. I grew them in large pots up north initially because I never figured out the best spot for them before I sold the farm. Thankfully. So they came with me and they LOVE it here.

The pics are from last year and this Zephy is a lot bigger now. For reference, she was about thigh high when I planted her. (I'm pretty short) The top of the cement part of the porch is about 6 1/2' high and to the top of the rail about 9 1/2' ish. It's a dozen steps behind her though you can only see about 6, the rest are cropped off.

She's almost twice this size and her canes reach to the roof and well beyond the full reach of the stairs. (She's thornless, thankfully) In the tall pic you can still see the lilac bush she is growing through, which is actually pretty large, and she likes to reach through the step rails to greet you with her beautiful scent.
As she's gotten older her flowers have more and more petals (a good thing IMO) and each year the scent also gets stronger, which is typical of maturing own root roses.

There was nothing in front of the house when I got it but weeds and grass, so it's a work in progress. Young climbers are sometimes best left to just grow, sprawl, and, mature so it will be another year or two before she can be shaped into something more well behaved. If ever. She's a rose that likes to do her own thing.

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OH! THANK YOU!!!!
Just thinking about the scent of those blooms brought tears to my eyes. And I mean that literally! My grandmother had amazing roses. So does my mother. Mom's are nothing like your Zephy, but my Gramma's were! Unfortunately, I did NOT inherit the rose-caretaker gene. I can't keep them alive for more than a year or two, at best. I'm in Maryland - on the border of Hardiness Zones 6 & 7. I LOVE climbers. I LOVE tea roses. I LOVE the "Old Rose" scent. I don't care about color, although I admit a partiality to pinks and peachy-oranges. Can you recommend a rose that will thrive on neglect in a zone that can freeze in the winter and broil in the summer? Or in the case of May, 2020, swing both directions within 48 hours?
{{ ... sigh ... }}

 

[MROO]

This was just posted on FB by a paramedic friend ...

 

[SnapdragonQ]

OH! THANK YOU!!!!
Just thinking about the scent of those blooms brought tears to my eyes. And I mean that literally! My grandmother had amazing roses. So does my mother. Mom's are nothing like your Zephy, but my Gramma's were! Unfortunately, I did NOT inherit the rose-caretaker gene. I can't keep them alive for more than a year or two, at best. I'm in Maryland - on the border of Hardiness Zones 6 & 7. I LOVE climbers. I LOVE tea roses. I LOVE the "Old Rose" scent. I don't care about color, although I admit a partiality to pinks and peachy-oranges. Can you recommend a rose that will thrive on neglect in a zone that can freeze in the winter and broil in the summer? Or in the case of May, 2020, swing both directions within 48 hours?
{{ ... sigh ... }}

Neither did I. No gardeners in the family tree either.
And trust me, there is a trail of murdered roses behind me as I have learned about the various classes of roses and realized that I was always picking the wrong ones to grow.
Believe it or not you are in a good growing zone both in place and temps. My fellow rose enthusiasts out in CA, TX, and FL would love to have your zone. Roses just bake there.

I started in zone 5a and the only thing I could grow were a few very hardy hybrid teas. Spindly things, stingy on flowers, and needing constant attention to survive. And my climbers never really got over 5 feet, even though I tried, because brutal cold and harsh winter winds are an uphill battle. Behind the house near my back porch was a small little protected area that roses could survive if I really babied them and covered them in protection for the winters. Bleh, too much work for only a handful of flowers. Especially since I was never gaga over roses to begin with. (until I met English and antique roses)

Here, I'm in zone 6b and I know exactly the temp swings you are speaking of. (I used to live in NOVA too) Roses are hardier than you think, if you get the right ones. That's the trick- learning the different types and which ones like which conditions. Teas will never really be rewarding unless they are pampered. Knock Outs and landscape roses can survive, but they really aren't all that pleasing and have no scent. Old roses though? The ones that have been around for hundreds of years...growing uncared for on highway hillsides, the back forty, and over that falling down shed out back? Yeah...stock that comes from those roses. And of course those English roses bred for chilly damp conditions in the UK.
Just like chickens, certain roses thrive in some places and are dismal failures in others.

Zephy is a girl who can do it for you. If the winters are mild enough here she'll keep leaves on her year round. She's one of the first to flower and without any pampering or spraying she'll give a big spring display then push out smaller flushes all summer and fall long. She had blooms on her last Thanksgiving.
Of course with minimal inputs she does better, but she's a no fuss girl. And there are plenty more like her in all kinds of colors.

I'll do some more digging, in the mean time tell me what are some roses you have tried. Bare roots from Walmart or home improvement stores? (It's ok, I still grow some of those too)
Potted up roses later in the spring at home improvement stores? Like hybrid teas?
Ordered roses through online places like Burpees, Jung Seeds, Spring Hill, etc...? (I've done that too.)
And tell me just a little bit about your soil. Sandy? Clay? Loamy? How do veggies grow for you? How far away is the coast (this affects micro-climate)

 

[SnapdragonQ]

And BTW, I'm on a dark red clay ridge. And I mean dark red!! Hard as cement when dry, slippery as snot when wet. Everywhere there is anything planted that is not crabgrass, thistles, or weeds, I've improved the soil.
I'm also a lazy no fuss gardener so that means lasagna gardening, or raised bed type improvements. I don't dig anything unless it's a hole to plant something in to, so there will be no tilling or fussy double digging ground improvement anything. Momma ain't got time for that.