March 2020

The month that the world changed.
New Zealand, like many other countries, announced our lockdown on Wednesday 25th March.  Level 4 on the Covid-19 Alert scale was commenced.  We had had advance warning - from China, South Korea and Italy, and more recently Spain, the UK and the USA, all horrifyingly highlighting the potential devastation that could also lie ahead for this tiny country.  Our case numbers have dramatically increased since Covid arrived here.  The local hospital has been in lockdown and is rapidly putting plans and structures into place.  Any patient who tests or screens positive and needs care will follow the 'red' pathway', and those who are negative follow 'green'.  We have yet to have a maternity 'red' case, but I'm anticipating that this is only a matter of a short time.  Personal Protective Equipment training has been rolled out, and no hospital visiting is allowed.  

Many aspects of care that we hold dear as midwives will be abandoned.  There will be no touching of course.  Women will only be able to remain in hospital after birthing if they require medical care.  'Red' women will be denied a support person in labour (more than one person with a viral load in any of our birthing rooms will overcome the PPE and put attending staff at risk).  'Red' women will also be encouraged to have epidurals to protect the health of theatre staff, particularly anaesthetists because if they require surgical interventions this can be done more safely under epidural than risky intubation and GA.  'Green' women are unlikely to get epidurals if they want them because the anaesthetic staff will have other priorities.  The use of donor breastmilk has been stopped and breastfeeding support will be hands-off.  Antenatal and postnatal appointments will be prioritised and reduced and must be limited to 15 minutes of contact time plus phone support.

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed, not so much by the prospect of contracting Covid-19, but by the volume of work that will ensue as more staff are either sick or required to self-isolate.  We were already chronically understaffed.  I'm reading all those Facebook posts about the boredom and frustrations of home isolation with some amusement, and maybe a little jealousy.  But at least I won't be out of work.  Once our German self-isolating guests have completed their 14 days and move out, I will turn the sleepout into my de-contamination zone.  Somewhere I can change, shower and immediately wash my work clothing before coming into the house.  If things do spiral, then maybe I'll have to move in there altogether for a while.



On the other hand, I'm even more grateful that we have our little bubble of relative self-sufficiency and plenty of places to go and jobs to do that provide a distraction, and in the case of gardening - therapy.  I'd managed to get a load of pea straw bales before lockdown.  Once I've cleared the flower garden, these will be used as mulch.  I also managed to source plenty of green manure seeds.  Hopefully not too late for that.  Some colder nights are starting to kick in and those seeds will require warmth to germinate.  Today I finished clearing all but one of the vege beds and planted the green manure.  I'd mixed the seeds with some garden compost and lots of blood and bone - that should repel the rabbits for a while.  And happily it's now raining.  Only light rain but it's perfect timing for the seeds and very welcome for everything else.


The woodlot is next up for a bit of attention.  There are 6 mini oaks and 4 peachcot seedlings that can go out and put down their roots over autumn.  Some weeding and preparation of new planting holes are needed, but that should be a relatively pleasant task for this number of trees.  I've also taken redcurrant and tea cuttings (to replace one dead Camellia Sinensis and expand the tea plantation generally).   

The Aztec corn has been taken down and the cobs are drying on the outside table under shelter.  They are quite small cobs and I'm not sure if that's how they're supposed to be or if they suffered from the drought.  The corn itself is a multitude of colours.  I'm looking forward to doing something with them, ideally making some polenta.  

Also cropping now are multicoloured carrots, beetroot and purple sprouting broccoli.  On the fruit front, the peaches are stunning, though low volume.  The figs are just starting to ripen and look to be a pretty impressive crop this year.  In Madame Cholet, the peppers and chillis are amazing, and I'll be digging up the ginger and turmeric sometime soon (need to look up when that should happen).  Peter's chilli plant, the Carolina Reaper, is producing several fruits, that are just starting to colour up.

Molly left for Christchurch straight after the level 4 announcement.  She moved into their army house on the Burnham campus.  She had to quit work to do this, but only really a few weeks before she'd planned to anyway.  Peter and I had already seen the house when we were in Christchurch for the Dramfest - a very enjoyable experience that we'll definitely repeat.  So Sam and Molly are setting up home together at a very bizarre moment in time.  We've temporarily inherited her strawberry planter to take care of until she can be reunited with it.

Karyn's garden will need some work now that she can't come here to do it herself.  I may drop off a few of her carrots from time to time, but only if she's very nice to me from a distance.  It's an irony that she's actually grown some carrots that look like real carrots, and she'll have to rely on me to get them to her.  Moo haha...



The resounding garden success of the month has to be the gourds, that I accidentally grew.  They weren't staked and instead spread all over the gravel path, hiding their precious and magnificent treasure.  They mingled with the pumpkin (big yellow and butternut) and cucumber foliage, until a gentle frost zapped them a bit.  ī'll hang them inside to dry this time, and am awaiting a plan to form in my mind about just exactly what I'll do with them, other than admire their voluptuousness.  

The oak trees on our dog walk route are all fruiting and we've started to gather the beautiful acorns to feed to our grateful pigs.  They are, of course, eating us out of house and home, and any extra rations are consumed immediately.  We won't be able to turn them into bacon for a while as the home kill service is not deemed essential, so will have to continue to be creative about their food.  We can still buy pig nuts and peas, but that's expensive.  It's good to find alternatives.




I've now done the first 2 hypnotherapy modules, but may not be able to do any more for a while.  It's a shame because it's ridiculously interesting stuff, though I can do plenty of reading around.  Just a case of finding time to do that, and also finding the headspace to focus.  My mental well being is definitely improved by working in the garden, and probably I need to resign myself to that being a priority beyond work.  For now at least.  Our current good health, as well as life circumstances and opportunities, is definitely something to be grateful for.  We have many blessings to count.