A lot of stuff

Sunset on a day of different doctor appointments

/ Roadtirement / 7 Comments

It was very nice this evening, and the sun setting greeted us as we stepped out into the back yard. Had to try a picture…

Sun disappearing below the trees. There is a unique feature in the photo: see it and know what it is?

The different doctor appointments? I had two today, one with my GP and one with my pulmonologist. What was really different was that both were tele-health (video) appointments. My doctors are not doing in office visits due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Good, because I would not want to leave the house anyway. Once the initial set-up of the phone apps was done, these video things worked well, in my opinion.

Have you had one of these video appointments with your health care doctors?

A break from COVID-19 and the net

/ Roadtirement / 12 Comments

We’ve been in “isolation” at home since February 25th. Just shy of 40 days. Only been out three times, and those just driving around, never got out of the car. Days include watching TV, streaming Netflix and of course the news conferences of both federal and state ‘leaders’. COVID-19 always there. Oh, and reading blogs, writing for this blog, and in general spending way too much time on this computer.

One I made yesterday

Yesterday I just could not get my brain to think about anything computer or COVID-19. I took a break and decided to get out my leather stuff. I make leather pouches (sometimes called medicine bags) to sell at the festivals and shows we love attending. With the coronavirus related shutdowns and closures it will remain to be seen when we’ll be able to go to one.

I really enjoyed the break from the computer.

When the sound of a mower is relished

/ Roadtirement / 3 Comments

Our local NBC station showed a video on their noon news of the city of Indianapolis. The video was in black and white and showed scene after scene of the city with no people, cars, buses or any sign of life. Totally empty streets and parking lots made the shots look like they came right out of the last scene of the movie “On the Beach”, an apocalyptic movie from 1959.

Carry out only

Sher and I and our son were commenting on the video which led to the discussion of the quiet nature that has become our neighborhood. It seems as though most of the neighbors are paying attention to the Indiana declaration of “stay at home and work from home”. Very little traffic, even the guy with the extra loud Harley is not to be heard recently.

Then we heard someone starting up their lawn mower. Wow who would ever think that the usually obnoxious noise from a Briggs and Stratton engine would provide a twisted sense of normalcy to this COVID -19 pandemic abnormal situation. Thus the title of this post.

Excitement during coronavirus isolation

/ Roadtirement / 6 Comments

COVID-19 can make people sick, kill people, wreck the world’s economy and isolate millions in their homes. But….  It cannot stop a good old fashioned thunder and hail storm.

It was in the low 70’s, our first really warm day of the year. We had heard some thunder with a little rain, then calm. All of a sudden and with no warning the hail started. Good sized hail!

Impressive hail stones fell

Sign of spring

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was over in a few minutes. The sky began to clear and you could smell the freshness in the rain cleansed air. Fortunately there was no apparent damage to the house or our vehicles. This storm gave us a nice change of pace during our isolation.

Texas distillery now at 100% hand sanitizer production

/ Roadtirement / 6 Comments

Treaty Oak Distilling in Dripping Springs, Texas is one of the best whiskey distilleries in the Hill Country west of Austin. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has shut down their restaurant and their distillery. To at least keep some income coming in, Treaty Oak is now only producing hand sanitizer.

According to KXAN TV, the NBC affiliate in Austin,  on March 26th reported that the FDA is allowing distilleries to produce hand sanitizer. It must be at least 80% alcohol, have no other ingredients and be in a bottle with appropriate labeling. Starting next week Treaty oak will only produce the sanitizer, thus allowing some employees to remain working.

Last November we visited Treaty Oaks Distilling. Little could we guess back then that this distillery would be in the fight against a killer virus. You can read about our 2019 visit here. 

Remembering a distillery visit in Texas

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I thought it was time for something different than a post about the COVID-19 pandemic. Allow us to share a few photos and text about a nice local distillery we visited during our winter residence in Texas a few short weeks ago.

Fast Eddy logo in neon

The Hill Country near Austin is home to several breweries, wineries and distilleries. Near Dripping Springs one will find the Fast Eddy Vodka distillery. We stopped there one day near the closing time. The place was absolutely packed as there were the normal amount of cars and two huge tour buses that had filled the place with folks.

 

 

 

The bar of course had samples of the many varieties of flavored vodkas bottled at the facility. There was a very large distillery room with lots of tables. We looked at the merchandise, but did not really find any shirts we liked. Our purchases were limited to a couple of glasses with the Deep Eddy logo.  We passed on samples as we had been out all day visiting breweries. I was not really in the mood for even a sample of vodka.

Here is the Deep Eddy website. Notice that now the place is closed due to, you guessed it, COVID-19 restrictions. When we go to Texas in the future, we do plan on visiting Deed Eddy again.