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

[electrycmonk]

A) thank you
B) IT SUUUUCKS oh my god. She wears her mask and so do the grandparents, but not when they're around each other, and I'm like YOU GUYS THAT'S THE POINT.
C) highs of 50s, lows in the 20s-30s here for the next few days. I personally am not happy about it.
D) I don't have a water de-icer, which is what I'm most concerned about. Plus we don't have an outdoor power outlet that I can see, so I'm not 100% sure how I'm gonna deal with that. My plan for the time being is dump their water in the morning and refill it from the kitchen sink before work, and look in to other options, I guess.

How did you/have you winterize(d) your coop?

Well, here our coop build thread.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/our-coop-run-in-north-texas.1342255/

I wasn't able to get the conduit trenched and run out to the coop this summer.... So the extension cord is gonna run a 2nd winter to the coop.

The water in the coop had not frozen last winter but, the outside hanging units would crsut over during the night. So looks like I'll be switching my water freshening to morning over the next week....

 

[Folly's place]

We have electricity and water out at the coop, wonderful for us older folks who are tired of carrying everything out there!
Those black rubber pans do work for winter water; get two, at least, so if it's hard to get the ice out of one, the other will be ready to go. Not here, thank God!
Our DD and her family all flew to visit an out of state family over Thanksgiving, because 'everyone feels fine, so it's okay'! Words can't express how I feel about their idiocy.
Things will not be good in the USA this winter, for sure...
Mary

 

[ChocolateMouse]

I need to cull my flock down for the winter but I'm trying to bring some pullets into lay first. :T I also gotta muck the coop out at least most of the way and redo my deep litter/bedding for the year. I do like to put off the coop cleaning as much as possible to avoid the mud coming in during the fall but I'm running out of time.

Thanksgiving was delicious. But while we were wrapping up making dinner we got another COVID case announcement from my partners work. We're up to about 10 cases this month. Which is not great. I worry it will get worse before it gets better.

G had an interview with a medical supply company for a remote sales position. It's the final interview - he went through the others 8 months ago before the pandemic, then the position closed without being filled because of the pandemic. now they're opening it up again and contacted him. Not only would it be a major salary increase with serious career potential it would be a small team that's mostly remote work - which would mean our household COVID risk would drop. And that'd be great.
Then we just need D into a similar position and we'd all be much safer. XD

 

[MROO]

Well, Thanksgiving was quiet, but really nice ... at least until the dishes got cleared. Then today, the hits started right back up where they left off. I said Good Bye to my father, today. He wasn't particularly sick, other than the usual chronic issues of an 84 year old man with a heart condition, so it was a surprise. Covid had nothing to do with it, except to make my family, including my distraught stepmother, wait out in the parking lot for over an hour before they determined that there was nothing more they could do and they could just let us all in, anyway. At least I was able to be with him when he passed. Small comfort ... but comfort, nonetheless.
Tonight is hard. Like so many others, these days, I am ready for the pain and craziness that has been 2020 to be done.

 

[Folly's place]

More to do outside tomorrow and Sunday, before winter arrives. Some coop cleaning, tree trimming, and a tiny bit of deck trim staining. just barely okay temps predicted for that, so maybe.
Another example of the craziness of 2020: We want to donate two steers to a local food bank, for umpteen pounds of ground beef, and a useful end for them. Had no idea the all the packing plants within 90+ minutes of here are booked until 2022!!!
Possibly there's one, only an hour away, that may fit them in early 2021, maybe. It's nuts! Like this spring when chicks were sold out, and the poultry processing plants are booked solid, and no TP at the grocery store. Nuts!
Mary

 

[Folly's place]

I'm so sorry, @MROO. At least you could be there together.
Mary

 

[electrycmonk]

Okay, I'm mixed up.... Did I read this article from this thread?

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03284-3

It was a very, very cool article...I look forward to seeing more like this in the months to come....

 

[ChocolateMouse]

@Folly's place
Same thing here. People tryna get their animals processed can't. Reason being packing/processing plants are TERRIBLE places. Everyone is crowded, it's humid, you're working long hours, many packing plants push their employees so hard they do illegal things like deny them bathroom breaks. They hire illegal immigrants and abuse those people and face no penalties because those people can't report inhuman working conditions. This is mostly true at companies like Tyson who are huge.
But when the pandemic started those places (nor surprise) became COVID hotspots. I'm talking hundreds of cases right off the bat. They were the first to go down. That's WHY we had food shortages in the spring in groceries - because packing plants moved to half-staff or shut down all over.
And with less packing/butchering plant capacity the companies basically started making the farmers eat the cost of the chickens and cows they couldn't butcher anymore, so those farmers started going to smaller packing plants and hiring FDA inspectors for their own properties. Now all the small packing/butchering plants are booked with those orders instead of the usual small farm-to-table orders they typically service.
Now small farms aren't able to get their orders in and there's nothing to be done about it and the big companies just keep profiting. :T

In Ohio we can butcher 1000 chicken per year and as many rabbits as we want farm to table without inspection. So I'm not effected - I've always butchered at home and sold to individuals. But I know tons of folks who are.

 

[Folly's place]

We can't handle butchering our steers at home, and for food bank donations, they need to go through an inspected plant anyway. And there are a fair number of small facilities around, but all full. What you said does make sense, trickled down because the huge plants aren't in operation. UGH!
Mary

 

[ChocolateMouse]

There's also an aluminum shortage from the pandemic effecting canned goods availability and canning jar lid availability, in case that's relevant to anyone.