During Covid isolation week, I’ve gone out twice each day, once after sunrise to check on my garden and once at dusk, to exercise and check on the farm and the animals.

The sun doesn’t go well with the anti-viral medication, so I stay inside for most of the day.

Sometimes, Maria takes pity on me and lets me ride into town to the post office, the bank, or the food co-op.

I am not allowed to get out of the car.

(In between long naps, Maria has been venturing back into her studio, working on potholders and new ideas for quilts. She’s getting stronger by the day.)

I realized this morning that I’ve been neglecting my Leicas, and this evening, I took the Leica 2 out to capture the feeling of dusk, one of the lovely times on the farm. Tomorrow morning, I’m reuniting with the Leica Monochrome.

Yesterday and the day before, butterflies kept me company. Today it was bees. They loved the Dahlia and followed me from flower to flower. This is getting strange. Maybe Covid attracts outdoor insects.

Tomorrow, I’m dropping the sick-at-home look, giving up shorts, and walking around barefoot. I put my Big Boy Pants on and get dressed as normal.

I see tomorrow as a transitional day towards normalcy. If I look normal and act normal, it might just happen.

I don’t have to stay in the house, but I do have to wear a mask and avoid crowds. Maria is conscientious about Covid rules, and I will be good. I don’t want to pass this along to anyone.

After ten days, I am presumed to be a risk no longer to anyone but myself.

I will have to be patient about getting my strength back, and I’m sure I won’t.

I very enjoy my dusk walks around the farm. It’s a sweet and quiet time of day. Maria opened the gates and let the animals in for night grazing on the North Pasture. They were into it.

Robin is our youngest sheep, our latest lamb, and he turns out to be one of our most exciting sheep. He loves to be alone; he is almost always alone.

I can’t think of many sheep who do that; they are herd animals and notoriously wary of being alone, which is a good way to be picked off by a predator. The donkeys are guard animals, and they’ve done a great job.

Grazing time. We open one of the gates to one of our three pastures every night. In the summer, the donkeys and sheep love to graze at night.

We open a pasture gate, and Zinnia and Fate come running in (Fate pretends to herd the sheep, Zinnia runs back and forth with no particular destination, and the sheep pay neither of them any mind.)

That is the beginning of evening for me. It’s a sweet, peaceful time here. I’m going to read for a while and then go to sleep.

Tomorrow I’m shooting for normalcy.