Thread by @jaycurrie

Hibernation Day #407 | What a fabulous day. Sunny, windless (which is a big deal as I live by the ocean), warm but not hot in the direct sun. I took the day away from screens and phone. Putting the garden to bed. Half done. 1/

Whether you are hibernating or out in the hurley burley, the fact is we all need to take breaks. The internet is filled with passionately crazy people. Twitter worst of all. They call it "doom scrolling" for a reason. 2/

Spending a day in the Fall sun doing the bed clearing which is what gardening in Victoria actually entails - everything grows, all the time, fast. What you plant, weeds, volunteers all need to be cut back. 3/

My sweet Susan says that for me gardening is about how high a pile of trimmings, weeds, leaves and pine cones I can make. She is not wrong. But now that I have cleared the beds it is time for daffodils and deer pleasing tulips. 4/

I at one point co-published a gardening magazine and got tips from Master Gardeners and people like Thomas Hobbs (instagram.com/hobbs_thomasva…) I fear that all I really learned was that more was more in gardens. My brown thumb remains. 5/

While my beds are not terrifically well done I have manage to clear them and amend the soil a bit so the poor plants have a chance despite having been unlucky enough to be stuck in my garden. My crocusmia did quite well behind the deer fence. 6/

But the point about puttering around in a garden in very strange times is that it refreshes your brain. Dirt under your nails. Reshaping the lavender mounds and thinking about how best to fertilize the things. Trimming a bit of shape into a couple of shrubs. 7/

Most my life and work is very much in my head. Which is what I enjoy; but it is really very narrow and humans are not meant to live in their heads all the time. Our deck farm was a failure. Wrong plants, lack of water...But the concept was not wrong. 8/

We'll try again next spring. We've "done our own research" (and what a lot there is about growing veg in small containers) and we'll do starts from seed inside. It would be nice to have more than five tiny tomatoes to show for the "farm" but now we know more. 9/

Humans learn things. We are learning machines. We try one thing and if it does not work, we try another. We fail when we keep playing the same losing game. You always change a losing game. Always. 10/

Sadly, PHOs seem to want to keep playing the masking game despite two years of failure. #COVIDIsAirborne, ventilation will help the vid and the other respiratory viruses floating about. PHOs are paid well to "figure it the fuck out". They are failing. 11/

Pulling out the pine needles, leaves and weeds I could think for a while about what might work. Hibernating, which amounts to staying home,shopping off peak, avoiding crowds looks like a better strategy than "masking up" and hitting the mall. 12/

My own sense is that #CovidIsOver but that does not mean the problem is solved. There are other viruses out there and the jabs seem to leave people wide open to whatever is floating around. Hospitals are always overwhelmed this time of year, this year more so. 13/

Stocking up and hibernating seem to be good options. I'm very lucky, I can do both without a big shift in my life. But simply putting a few meals worth of food away in a cupboard and shifting your shopping time could be the thing which keeps you safe. 14/

Most importantly, find stuff which takes your mind away from "the current thing". Mental downtime is a huge piece of mental health. Fall is here, Winter is coming...Spring is a long way off and just around the corner. 15/15