Emmerson's Journey – As Portrayed by Mom and Dad

Covid-19 lifesytle

Well, a month ago we were wrapping up spring break and the news arrived that the virus has hit the US. This sent everything into a spirial of crazy. Spring break was extended a few days. Those few days became a few weeks of distance learning, those few weeks became the rest of the term and then the rest of summer term too. Mom and Dad have been busy crafting masks, which we have to wear in public now. There are long lines everywhere as you have to keep your distance, 6 feet, from others. The stores have arrows to allow one way flow. Toilet paper is the hot item. Apparently people use more when they are at home all the time. We are under quarantine, it’s been about 6 weeks and things are looking good for a slow open soon. We have taken lots of family walks at home and the parks. We stay home the rest of the time. Mom and Dad do all the shopping and wear masks and wash up when they get home. Restaurants are closed, except for takeout. A lot closed altogether. We still were able to get popcorn from Popical and crappy Chinese food. Pretty much everything is closed that isn’t “essential.”

Learning is all online now, well parts of it were before anyway. I had to do some Zoom meetings with FLVS for chemistry class and the lesson got Zoom bombed. That wasn’t fun. Mom does Zoom with 4-H and our clubs but it is all password protected. Our summer trips are canceled and summer camps are almost canceled.

This is almost like a really bad dystopian book. Thank goodness school is keeping me pretty busy so I haven’t really had much time to think about all of this. I passed the PERT for SPC 4 days before the school closed for the virus. So this summer I will start with a simple online computer skills class.

Some of these photos are just for reminders of what this was like so I can look back at it later.

Easter 2020 – Lockdown style

The lockdown continues. We figured it would be over by now but it isn’t too we have a household only Easter. We had a rice Krispy bunny cake, lots of junk food that Mom and Dad had been sneaking in and then fondu for dinner! All in all it wasn’t a bad day but we missed spending it with family that is outside of our house.

Yard Re-do

We took advantage of some spring break time and cooler weather to knock out a huge yard project. We ripped out half of the old play fort, cleaned up all the trees and raked everything out in the back. The front we killed what grass was left and then we started buying jeep loads of mulch. Mom was at 5 trips when we opted to rent a truck to get the last two pallets. They Dad decided we should mulch the back and side yard too which required 3 pallets and a delivery truck. It was a LOT of work but it came out awesome!

B and I worked had to plant a ton of new plants for the front yard and we are growing herbs in the back in hanging baskets now too.

End of February and start of March

We have been busy with 4-H lately. Our forest ecology team has been busy learning about plants and trees. B and I worked on the food drives for 4-H for SPC and Dunedin Cares. We collected over 600 pounds of food. For 4-H we also went out to Plant City and picked 100-2quart containers of strawberries for local food banks.

B had some extra credit things to do for SPC so I got to tag along. I loved the climate change talk at Weedon Island with Ms. Libby.

We had an impromptu bug club meeting when everyone crashed our house one day. Oh and I also got a new sun spider! It is so fluffy and yellow and loves to be held!

Late January and Early February Randomness

After the Insectathon I was inspired to write an entire presentation about getting a new tarantula. I worked really hard and put a lot of time into my presentation. Mom and Dad said I could get a new tarantula when we found one I was after.

We have been going to a lot of community events since B needed extra credit for this classes to have as a buffer. Moccasin Lake had a fun Fantastic Beast themed animal meet and great. I loved all the Harry Potter themed items.

We had a range clean up day at the Ochs for archery. I was in charge of raking as Steven weed-whipped down the tall grasses. It was a lot of hard work but it was nice to see the finished fence line was much nicer looking and not all overgrown.

I have been working hard on my Latin class, Chemistry 1 and getting ready to take the PERT at SPC soon.

We had another field trip to the Tarpon Aquarium. I haven’t been there in a long time and I really enjoyed how personal of an experience it was. We got to hold a lot of animals, learn really interesting facts and have an afternoon off school.

We also went to the Florida State Fair in Tampa as usual. I bought some new plants for my garden and to decorate my geckos cage too.

I have found time to work on Legos in the evening and relax a little in between all the fun stuff we have been doing.

I even got to go to SPC for a program on bats! That was really neat to learn all about them and to actually see a few close up was the icing on the cake.