Quarantine Life: Supporting Our Communities, A Plea, and, Naturally, Some Call-outs
The international, national, state, and local responses to the coronavirus / COVID-19 global pandemic ramped up enormously in the past two weeks. As of today, restaurants and bars in Wisconsin are closed, save for takeout, delivery, and perhaps in some cases, curbside pick-up. This is the right decision! Minimizing in-person social contact—creating social distance of at least six feet or more—is essential to flattening the curve during this global pandemic. Our healthcare workers will be overwhelmed as it is without unnecessary cases of coronavirus popping up in a group of friends that just had to go out for “one last round of drinks.”
Of course, as the co-director of a small business, a family farm, we made the difficult decision to close our little storefront to the general public as of yesterday morning, Tuesday, March 17. Since grocery stores are in need of constant supplying right now, we’re focused on harvesting just enough product to fulfill our major wholesale and grocery store accounts. All of our employees have been instructed to stay home if ill, and we’ve moved to a skeleton crew during this time, through at least early April.
That said, as an agricultural business, we will suffer. We will not have the weekly income we have come to rely on for at least the next month or so. We already did not have employer-sponsored health insurance—my husband and I pay out of pocket for a high-premium health insurance through the healthcare marketplace. So, I’ve made the tough decision to try to gain a little income while I’m home more and not enrolled full-time in grad school. I’ve put some Google AdSense ads on this site. I’ll be blogging more often, hopefully with useful and/or insightful content. I’ve applied for a few freelance writing and editing gigs. And I’ve decided that I will work two farmers’ markets this upcoming summer, markets that we rely on for extra income and that I hope will still happen after the pandemic curve flattens.
However, I’m extraordinarily lucky to work for a business that will stay busy during this time even with a much-reduced staff, because we work in the wholesale grocery realm. Many friends of mine own or work for small or medium-sized businesses that have been deemed nonessential during this mandated social-distancing time. Here’s what I’m doing to mitigate their financial losses and emotionally support them from afar:
Buying gift cards to local small and medium-sized businesses, including restaurants and salons, that I can use after the quarantine time
Sending money to people I love via Venmo during this difficult time, particularly friends in the service industries
Renewing subscriptions to my favorite independent literary journals
Shopping for books from Two Dollar Radio, Coffee House Press, and Bookshop.org in the wake of Amazon deciding it will prohibit all “nonessential” shipments through the first week of April
Increasing our coffee subscription to deliver every two weeks instead of every three, both to support our favorite coffee roaster and to make sure we don’t run out of caffeine (the horror!) during this challenging time when we’re at home much more than usual
Joining a wine club to support U.S. and global wineries and encourage social distancing
Here’s what I’m doing during quarantine time, though I’m isolated already in rural Wisconsin, so my daily routine hasn’t changed much:
Deleting Instagram for a few days in favor of Instacart, so we could stock up on some essential fresh groceries from our local grocery stores
Doing yoga three times a day—not kidding
Walking the dog four to six times a day—not kidding
Sending friends mail and care packages
Using the rowing machine in the basement at least once a day
Getting out for a hike in the woods at least three times a week
Planning a spring/summer vegetable garden
Prioritizing spending time with my spouse and my pet—my two favorites anyway
Revising my novel, working on my translations, and writing a few new pieces for submission to some of my favorite literary journals
Working for the farm as best as I can from home: payroll, accounting, emergency response plan writing, translations—nearly all of it can be done from home
I urge everyone who can to stay home during the next two weeks, through early April. Avoid nonessential travel. Don’t stand closer than six feet to others who aren’t also self-quarantining with you. For the love of god, do not go to a crowded beach. This isn’t spring break. It’s a pandemic.
Finally, I’ve been really disappointed and stunned by some of the activity I saw on social media in the last week. Friends of mine visiting bars, people “braving the crowds” to hoard toilet paper and other paper products, close-contact socializing, small business owners I know leaving their doors open until the last possible second. Our American ideals—namely, capitalism—often revolve around prioritizing individual freedom and money over public health and the greater good. I won’t soon forget what I saw, this stubborn, greed-rooted resistance to social distancing. I’ll choose to vote with my dollars at other, more responsible and global health-attuned small businesses in the future, after our self-isolation days are over.
Stay well everyone!