March 2020 Happenings (after shelter in place)

The second half of the month started off with us trying to figure out how to continue working with both schools and daycare shut down. We had planned to keep the four primos together and rotate the Grandmas, C, and myself watching them. After a couple of days the entire state of California was ordered to shelter in place and we decided that with the Grandmas vulnerability to the virus it would be best not to have them watch the kids. Luckily HMC is considered an essential business as part of the critical food supply chain and was allowed to continue to operate. Unfortunately keeping up a full time job while working and schooling from home is absolutely horrible, most especially when your company is making decisions on how to deal with a global pandemic. My schedule looked something like this most days 5:00-8:00 am work, 8:00-1:00 help the boys with school while trying to work on ASAP items as needed, 1:00-2:30 work while the boys had iPad/tv time, 2:30-4:00 get out of the house, ride bikes, walk, play soccer, 4:00-5:00 work on ASAP work items as needed, 5:00-7:30 make dinner, eat, normal evening routine with the boys, 7:30-10:00 work. At one point we were asked to write a personal account of the impact of COVID19 on our farming operation and I wrote a blog about it on behalf of HMC, it's posted here if you would like to read it.

Despite all of the struggles, tears, and tantrums we were able to fit in some fun too. Not packing lunches and having to get everyone out the door in morning, doctors allowing for more appointments to be done virtually, more local companies willing to deliver directly to your home, and being able to spend more time with the boys were all really nice positives. Reed's teacher has been amazing. She hit the ground running the Monday after school was cancelled and has never looked back. Google Classroom, Zoom, Padlet, and Loom are part of almost each of Reed's days. She's managed to keep them moving forward in reading, math, and language arts with classroom instruction, apps, and learning websites. They've finished units on Insects, the Human Digestive System, and Immigration. They've done research projects, google slide presentations, and written multiple page original narratives. She's divided weekly assignments into Must Dos and May Dos to ease the burden on parents and has included a ton of fun content including virtual fieldtrips, dance videos, science experiments, craft projects, and YouTube drawing videos. Kieran's teacher has kept her Kindergartners engaged with weekly Zoom meetings that include show and tell, read alongs, drawings, and lots of sight word work. The boys' music teacher even got in on Zoom and has been giving them weekly keyboard lessons - it is amazing to see what she's able to teach even when she isn't physically next to them to correct fingering and has to rely on an app to hear notes and keys. All in all this has been an eye opening experience with lots of pluses and minuses!

March 2020 Happenings (pre shelter in place)

March started off like all of our months - filled with plans - two fieldtrips, a getaway, a few birthday parties, and lots of hustle and bustle on the calendar. Jon was still out of town at the beginning of the month. The boys and I made a date with Grandpa and filled a day with boy stuff. We rode around in the golf cart on the ranch, burned an accumulation of old documents, and tried out shooting pellet guns. Grandpa has been around guns his whole life, so that means I have been too. He's extremely careful and respectful of them. He taught the boys about the safety, how to put a gun down, pick it up, hold it and to never point it at anyone regardless if you think it is loaded or not. The boys did a pretty good job listening, took his advice seriously, and both impressed me with what good shots they were.

After spending a full week with Jon gone I was ready for a little girl time and headed to the coast with a couple friends to celebrate C's Birthday. We had a great time, drank lots of wine, made friends with a baby goat, and I got to enjoy a sunrise run all by myself with some beautiful scenery.

By the following week things had started to get weird. COVID19 aka Coronavirus had proven itself as dangerous to certain high risk populations and it was believed to be highly contagious and easily transmitted. Parts of the United States starting limiting gatherings, travel, and other large events. Most companies (including HMC) had ceased corporate travel and were suggesting employees abstain from personal travel. Large events like the annual poetry performance held at Fresno State (which Reed was supposed to perform at again) had also been cancelled. There were rumblings that there were more shutdowns coming. Much to our surprise Kieran's school allowed a school fieldtrip to the zoo on that Thursday. Since Reed's poetry contest had been cancelled I was able to join Kieran and his class. It was a little bit of a surreal day to read our Governor's announcement that all future fieldtrips should be cancelled and gatherings should be limited to 50 people or less while on a fieldtrip with an entire school of kindergartners.

On Friday HMC had its annual company golf tournament and as we have in the past a few of our co-workers/friends and their families came over for pizza afterwards. By this time hoarding at grocery stores had started, toilet paper and cleaning supplies were becoming few and far between, and as we all stood around talking one by one we got calls/emails/texts that the schools our kids attend and that our friends work for would be closing for several weeks. I look back at these pictures and can't believe this was the last time I saw a lot of these people in person and the same for our kids and their friends. It's also kind of funny to think of Jon being the last non-parent adult these kids might have interacted with and that we spent the time trying out a new muscle massager - definitely one of those if we had only known moments!

Sunday was C's Birthday and we had a family dinner to celebrate. As the weekend progressed more and more information was coming out. There are still a lot of unknowns about COVID19 but two months ago there were substantially more and decisions were made by government at all levels to avoid overwhelming hospitals with too many patients sick with the virus. Gatherings were suggested to be limited to 10 people or less and people over the age of 65 or other at risk populations were being advised to stay home. So we had dinner and dessert and tried to celebrate but we all knew Monday was going to look nothing close to normal.