Fall 2020

Fall 2020

The Covid pandemic is still alive and well. Most businesses are open with restrictions and mask requirements. The number of positive cases was fairly low at the beginning of September but started to ramp up sharply. By the beginning of November Wisconsin was seeing in excess of 5000 positive cases a day. By mid November some hospitals were reaching capacity in their ICU's and were worried they may have to turn away patients. There is a general consensus among the health care industry that wearing masks and social distancing helps to slow the spread. However there are many people who don't believe this or are just disregarding this recommendation. Whether or not this is contributing to the spread is up for debate. However it seems like a easy thing to do to help to make this virus go away. Several of the pharmaceutical companies have been reporting that they are within a month or two of releasing a viable vaccine.

I am writing this on November 18 and so far only my brother Doug and his daughter Kendra have been the only family members that have contracted Covid. They were sick but are recovering. Other family have been exposed but tested negative.

Our main activities this fall have been taking walks in the Kettle Moraine Forest and taking bike rides. We also visited with Alex and Monica a few times and helped them with projects at their new home. They love their new house but since they moved in they have found out there has been some thievery in the neighborhood. Apparently the thieves stake out homes and when they see someone leave the house and leave a door open they will walk right in and take things. Mostly wallets, purses and keys. They were pretty freaked out about this. We helped them install a motion detector light in the backyard which will help to deter anyone from sneaking around at night. In addition they need to be more vigilant on keeping their doors shut and locked.

We had plans to go to Alex and Monica's for Thanksgiving. However the number of Covid cases increased substantially and Monica was exposed to someone at work. They did not want to expose us so they decided to stay home. So only Sheila and Henry came to our house on Thanksgiving. We smoked a turkey, made baked beans and Sheila provided a yummy corn and egg casserole. For dessert we had apple and chocolate pie. Not the traditional Thanksgiving meal but it was yummy just the same.