CoronaVirus Pandemonium

[titrisol]

Hope everyone stays safe during the Pandemonium created by this Virus

[PFMcFarland]

I missed the first wave. I was planning on making a trip last week, and had let my pantry levels get down, waiting to restock on my return. By the time I was able to make it to the stores many items had been cleared out, so I've had to make more small trips to get what I can to build up a supply again. Just inexcusable what some folks loaded up on.

PF

[titrisol]

Agree, I wanted to cook some chicken on the grill last night and I couldnt find a single piece!
Other than that I still don;t get the toilet paper bit.. some plumbers are going to be rich in a few weeks
We normally stock household items every 2-3 months (even though teenagers inhale toilet paper) so we should be fine

I missed the first wave. I was planning on making a trip last week, and had let my pantry levels get down, waiting to restock on my return. By the time I was able to make it to the stores many items had been cleared out, so I've had to make more small trips to get what I can to build up a supply again. Just inexcusable what some folks loaded up on.

PF

[P C Headland]

People's behaviour makes me despair! I mean, how many bog rolls does one need?!

Even here, now the borders have been closed, many people seem to have lost all reason and gone on panic buying sprees. Even for fresh food which won't keep and which will keep being supplied. We won't run out of milk here. Or water, yet people have cleared out the bottled water. Madness. In a week or so's time, the supermarkets will be overflowing with stuff since most people will have no more room to store things...

Still, not total lockdown here, schools are still open (for now), though workplaces are being encouraged to have people work from home from this week. Places are still open but you need to give details so you can be traced if necessary.

For once, being a long way away from anywhere has its advantages.

Anyway, take care everyone wherever you are.

[alexvaras]

Here in Moscow is a tense calm... schools will be closed from tomorrow and rumours of locking down the city are being spread plus hundreds of what medicines work and which one don't.
Impossible to find many simple things.
Myself I moved from my flat near school (online lessons) to my girls in the city but I would love to be in a very distant place out of this craziness.
I have tons of stuff to upload and I guess I will start during the week... mainly repairs and my recent trip to Armenia.

Take care you all and let's keep us safe.

[titrisol]

We had a few visitors that tested positive in my work place, so I've been home 2 wks already.
Luckily I was at a client in TX so haven't had contact with anyone there

I was surprised on Friday, as I was attending a tele-conf of the food producer association and while we were discussing steps to maintain the supply of food to urban areas the VP stopped and talked to us. I guess he is making the rounds

[PFMcFarland]

The pandemonium buying is interesting to see, in a way. It seems that once they cleared the shelves of paper products and water, they went after the canned goods next, along with the meats. Then it was dairy products and eggs. Now they are hoarding snack foods (can't find my favorite PopTarts flavor). Every day it's like they need to have a load of something when they leave the store. I went to the local grocery yesterday about a half hour after they opened at 7:00am, and already there were a dozen folks waiting in the checkout lanes with carts overflowing from all sorts of things. And they weren't stacked like someone using a list, just tossed in until it was full. My total haul fit in two hand bags, and that's just because I separated the frozen goods from the rest of it.

One thing I'm doing is practicing better portion control when I cook. I've already dropped a little weight.

PF

[P C Headland]

Well, things changed pretty quickly here today. No unnecessary travel tomorrow (Tuesday) then lockdown on Wednesday for four weeks. We'll only be allowed out for food and pharmacy shopping, medical treatment and exercise.

At least it might give the supermarkets a chance to re-stock. There's no shortages of anything, they just can't get goods onto the shelves quick enough.

[Philip]

Here in St John's, the eastern-most city of Canada, the shutdown has been slowly coming into effect for a couple of weeks. The first runs on toilet paper were nearly two weeks ago. There've been scattered shortages, none very long-lasting since then.

Stores are still open and, although I had booked my neighbourhood garage this morning to have the car's oil changed, I called and cancelled. The owner told me he disinfected the whole place on Sunday and has now closed it to customers. He's taking jobs through the mail slot in the front door now. I said I'll see him on the other side of the case curve.

We're allowed, even encouraged, to get out and walk (alone, in pairs, but not groups). I'm trying to do that each day. And take some pictures.

I hope all hands get washed, and all hands stay safe.

Philip

[scott]

Gov Wolf is expected to issue a statewide shelter-in-place order for PA today. We've mostly been doing that already for a week, though I was just released from work EOD last Thursday. Braedan started online classes today; Maddie starts next Monday. Learning curve for everyone, but the schools are putting in a good effort getting the infrastructure and teachers ready for something completely foreign to them.

Some of you know through Flickr, but I've been making wine for a few years now. So a large part of my zombie apocalypse activity is wine production. To wit: Yesterday I (actually we - Maddie helped) bottled a blueberry port I started in November:
Blueberry Port 2019 by Scott, on Flickr

This one was a lot of fun, and turned out nicely. Had a batch of blueberry going and decided to split it and fortify half. Let it sit on Hungarian oak for not quite 2.5 months. My wife's a port drinker, and she seems happy. It needs a while to sit in bottle and integrate all the flavors, but I ended up with one bottle about 3/4 full. We'll drink that with some chocolate soon, and the rest will sit for a l-o-n-g time. This is about 20% ABV, should age for a decade or longer.

I have another 3 gallons of straight blueberry to deal with yet - that will get filtered and sweetened. We're not really sweet wine drinkers, but my experience with fruit wines is they need a little sweetness to bring the fruit forward to something akin to what is expected flavor-wise. Then, I have 6 gallons of cabernet franc that I need to fine and bottle. I have 6 gallons of carmenere juice and 6 gallons of syrah juice on order, though I don't know if I should expect delivery on it now. Due beginning of May. Those will get made into wine, then blended at the end, probably a year or so down the road.

Anyway, hope you're all healthy, and finding something to pass the time.
Scott