The Pittmeister's COVID Chronicles

At this time, there are just over 70,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the state of Arizona. In my last post last week, there were 47,000 confirmed cases. That means in one week, Arizona's cases increased by 23,000 cases!  Here's the video of our governor's press conference this week. His name is Doug Ducey, but I refer to him as Doug Douchebag because he is one. He has about as much spine and backbone as a jellyfish.  The Arizona monsoon season started yesterday. We had intermittent rain throughout the day. The best part of the monsoon season are the sunsets when the sky is full of clouds. This was the sunset last night from our house in Old Mining Town.  We went to our secret fig tree to pick figs yesterday but there were none that had ripened enough yet to pick. There were plenty on the ground however.  Our zucchini squash plants are starting to come back and the volunteer butternut squash have started shooting out new leaves, so maybe they will come back too. I've

Arizona is approaching 47,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 & has been identified as one of 10 states in the U.S. as a new "hot spot" for the virus.  There were 3,246 new cases reported yesterday (a record) with 41 new deaths, which brings the body count to 1,312.  In our county: There are now a total of 340 cases with 221 of these cases considered active. 113 people have been released from isolation.   There have been 6 confirmed deaths.  34 people have been hospitalized with 13 cases being admitted to the ICU.  The number of cases in our zip code currently stands at "6-10".    Other Arizona cities like Flagstaff and Tucson have now implemented policies requiring the wearing of masks while out in public. No word on if officials in Old Mining Town will be doing the same.  Here's another video of that hail storm from Monday that destroyed our garden... Last night, Wife had dinner with two international friends of hers; one is from India and one is from Afghanis

We had about 30 minute hail storm yesterday here in Old Mining Town and it did a number on our vegetable garden. It also knocked out power for about an hour. Wife was home alone and took the video above.  It also did a number on our vegetable garden. Below is a picture of what is left of our volunteer squash plants. It looks like we had one already starting.  Here's what it looked like before: Here's the zucchini plants:  And the beans:  So tonight, I raked up the leaves that were torn off our apricot tree and buried them in the new compost bed. Then I lit a fire of dried grassroots (that were still very wet in the middle): 

There are now close to 34,500 cases of COVID-19 in the state of Arizona, with close to 1,200 confirmed deaths from the virus. In our county, there have now been 207 cases of COVID-19. 118 of those cases are currently active, 85 have been released from isolation, and 4 people have perished due to the virus.  This past Tuesday, a local health clinic just down the street started testing people in a drive-thru manner. I naively thought I would stop by and get tested on my way to work. I drove by to find there was a line of cars so long, that I was never going to get tested in time to get to work on time, so I just skipped it.  Here's an update on our vegetable garden: 7 of the 12 potato plants we planted have sprouted. The dirt on the other 5 mounds is breaking, so I think we're going to get all 12 sprouted. Here's a picture I took on Friday morning. They are already much better than this.  Our volunteer squash plants have spread all over and seem to be taking over the vegetabl

As of this morning, there are 24,332 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in our state with 1,012 deaths. That is an increase of approximately 5,000 cases since my last weekend post last Saturday evening. The number of new cases reported yesterday was nearly 1,600! Overall, the "Total Percent Positive" rate is 5.9%.  In our county, the number of total cases has increased to 118. 54 of those cases are currently active. 59 have been released from isolation and the number of deaths related to COVID-19 has risen to 5. 13 people have needed to be hospitalized with 6 admitted to the ICU.  In our zip code for Old Mining Town the number of cases continues to hold at 1-5. The number of cases in the border town of Douglas is now at 48, so that is the epicenter for our COVID-19 cases in our county. 

Good evening! Here is a rare weeknight post from me, but seeing as that Wife is down for the count tonight with a headache and has planted herself in front the television watching a Japanese drama, I thought I would draft a post.  It's getting much more warmer here in Old Mining Town. The predicted high today was 98 degrees. That's 37 degrees Celsius. I don't know if it actually got that warm because I work in another city, we'll call it "Base Town" that is typically a little bit warmer, but I work indoors with A/C that is so strong, I have to sometimes go outside to defrost myself.  So, I thought I would share some recent pictures from our vegetable garden.  Over the weekend we planted 12 potatoes in hopes of growing potatoes. This is what they looked like last night. We used the Japanese "cone" method where we put the sprouted potatoes on the dirt and then covered with with an ~12in mound of dirt over it. I was then directed by Wife to watch videos