For many of us, summer is a very active time. This year, however, many of our normal activities have been canceled. So what are your summer plans, when your normal plans can’t happen?
Travel is one of the most common activities of the warmer months. Perhaps you like to vacation in exotic destinations. Or maybe you want to visit family that lives far away. But travel, no matter by method, is severely restricted.
Other summer activities are social by nature. Going to a friend’s cookout, attending a baseball game, or watching the fireworks displays are all typical things that will be drastically curtailed this year, if they happen at all.
Or perhaps nature is your thing. But National Parks are closed. And trails that are not are busy, so physical distancing is a challenge. Campsites and resorts are closed as well.
What if you want to get away? Is it safe to visit a hotel or a B&B? What kinds of cleaning and disinfecting is happening, and is it sufficient to stop the spread of the virus? Uncertainty abounds.
So we all need to be creative with activities for the summer months. Are there any plans of yours that have survived? What kinds of new activities will you do? What are your summer plans?
Related questions: How do you plan for the future? How would you spend your time during self-quarantine? What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? What do you think about when out for a walk?
Before the pandemic, I had four major summer plans:
1. A long, early-summer trip to Portugal with Rebecca
2. A shorter, late-summer trip by myself to Iceland
3. Tending to my garden and preserving some food for the cooler/colder months
4. Maintaining my blog, Dissident Potato.
Current travel restrictions and a canceled flight have erased the Portugal trip. And while I still have a little hope the later summer trip will be possible, my doubts are increasing. So, I kind of want the Iceland Air to cancel the flight.
So my plans have changed somewhat:
1. Regarding vacation time, I plan to figure out when I can start planning for an at-home or closer to home escape.
2. Tending to my garden and preserving food remains.
3. I want to spend more time devoted to my blog: (a) reading about best heirloom-gardening practices; (b) learning more about real food and its health benefits; (c) drafting a slew of blog entries for Dissident Potato that can be used for when my seasonal garden exploits are no longer.
4. Politics have likely extended the amount of time I can/must fight for tenant protections at the Minnesota State Legislature into June (at least).
Yesterday, Marsha and I spent the day planning out a summer garden. This included cleaning our various containers, and making an inventory of pots, potting soil, and compost. It also involved doing some online shopping at a local garden supply store (shop local when you can!) and arranging a no-contact pickup of seedlings and potting soil.
We don’t normally do much gardening, because we are often too busy. Weeding, watering, pruning, and harvesting all take time, and if we miss too much of it because we have a weekend away, or are gone to a cookout, or have travel plans, or whatever, the garden suffers.
That’s no longer a problem, as all of our existing summer plans have been canceled, and most of our regular daily summer activities that haven’t yet been scheduled seem unlikely to happen. So we have nothing but time. In addition, it seems to us that working in the soil and being the steward for green, living, growing things will help replenish our spirits.
We also did some thinking about, and placed some orders for, a new outdoor portable porch. It would allow us to enjoy more time in our green garden, as well as creating a space where we could potentially have some friends visit without requiring they enter our house, and allow us to converse comfortably while maintaining all physical-distancing norms, recommendations, and regulations.
In addition, we are considering beefing up our indoor (and outdoor?) wi-fi to enhance our ability to be online from various areas of our home. With the Internet as our primary conduit to our friends and family, not to mention employment opportunities current or future, we want to make sure it is as stable and usable as possible.
We have an annual family camping trip that usually takes place in August. We usually take a couple of mini road trips, too, generally to historical sites or interesting places around Washington state. I don’t know how, or if, these plans will be affected.
The other focus of summer is the garden. It’s larger than ever this year and that means more planning, planting, harvesting and preserving.