Tuesday, Wednesday

TUESDAY

Last update on coronavirus was yesterday evening at 6:03 p.m., 871 cases of coronavirus and 18 deaths in Nebraska. That's 57 more cases in 12 hours. That doesn't seem terribly significant unless you consider that it's a 68% increase over Friday's number. That does seem significant! They extended the peak date again until May 3rd. That's a little frustrating because I'm sure that nothing's going to open here in Nebraska until after our peak date. And when it keeps getting extended and extended, that's kind of disconcerting. But on an up-note, from their estimated number of total deaths by August 4th, they have greatly reduced the estimated number of total cases down to around 14,000.

Today I checked out what they're predicting for Florida. They're saying that Florida has the same peak date as we do, which surprises me. They're estimating a total of around 4700 deaths in Florida by August 4th, so extrapolated out using 2%, that would be around 235,000 people with the virus. That's less than 2% of the population of Florida getting the virus. And that percentage is about 2.5 times what they're estimating for Nebraska. I'm sure that has something to do with the more concentrated population, and probably an older population as well. Older people are probably more susceptible to getting the virus. Or at least getting it to the point of knowing that they have it. I have a feeling that far more people haven't been and will never be put in the numbers... Yesterday, I was starting to be convinced that I might have it! After hearing about George Stephanopoulos on the news and that he didn't have any symptoms except maybe a little achiness one day, it got me thinking about how freaking sore I've been in the last week or 10 days. I just chalked it up to the fact that I'm sitting on my ass so much, but maybe it's more than that...

I decided to take individual pictures of my Sansevierias today.  I think this is going to be a good year for them. First is the one that I got from Marco, that he uprooted from outside down in Florida last year... At least I think it was last year! Anyway, it's looking fabulous and even has a baby poking out on the side, whic you can't see here...

'Frosty Spears' is one I got a few years ago at the Cactus Club show and sale in Kansas City when Kathy and I judged the show. That longest spear is nearly two feet tall!

This variegated one might be the cultivar they call 'Twisted Sister'. It seems to grow kind of funky, but I'm not sure it grows funky enough to fall into that category.

Singularis is a really variable species. Both of these in the photograph are singularis, but they honestly don't look that much alike to me. If I hadn't grown them from the same plant, I wouldn't believe it myself. I separated them because they look so different.

Masoniana variegata is one I got at one of the meetings, I think at a tri-club meeting one year. I lost I'll put one piece of it, and it's finally starting to make a comeback. I'm excited to see but it looks like as it grows because it had two plants in their originally, each of which looked very different. One was very variegated, and the other one was only slightly variegated. The one on the lower right is the original, and notice how I've gotten one like it, and one that's very variegated!

WEDNESDAY

I didn't quite finished with this yesterday, so I'm going to blog briefly today and then get some things done around here. But I have to start off by saying that I wish the media would do what I do each day. Come on to the news, give the numbers updates and move the fuck on to something else! I am so sick of hours and hours and hours and hours of nothing but Coronavirus. They have come at it from every single freaking angle! This morning, they talked about how we're possibly going to see things different at restaurants in the future. Quotation: servers may be using gloves, menus maybe disposable, restaurants may check your temperature before you're allowed in. I mean, come on... Are you running out of things to report finally? If so, just shut the fuck up on the subject! It's bad enough that we're all going batshit crazy in our houses but let's just stop beating the subject to death.

And with that rant closed, I'll give my quick numbers update... as of yesterday at 5:45 p.m., there were 901 cases of coronavirus in Nebraska. There have been 20 deaths so far. That's a 2.2% mortality rate. Florida's death rate is 2.7% right now, and New York's is a whopping 5.4%! Wow! The national average is 3.8%, and if you take New York out of that, it brings it down to 3%. Still, to put it into perspective, .5% of Nebraska's population is confirmed infected with Coronavirus. 1.03% of New York state has been confirmed with the coronavirus, and 1.3% of New York City itself has been confirmed with it. Those are all still very low percentages! To put it into perspective, 3 to 11% of the population of the U.S. gets the flu each year. Which is why I'm not going to be as concerned about it as I have been and as the media wants to lead me to be!

Yesterday, I went down to Plattsmouth, just to get out of the house more or less. I had hoped to see my mom for a bit, but she never did answer the phone. I tried it before I left, on my way down, and once I got there. I could have run by her apartment to see if her car was there, but I just took the fact that I couldn't reach her as a sign from the universe that I probably shouldn't hang out with her. Maybe I do have the virus, and I certainly wouldn't want to infect her! She's going to be 79 years old in a few days after all! Anyway, I ran by Mr. Landscape, my sister's nursery (she wasn't there), and picked up some farm eggs. Then I went to the grocery store down there. I figure with only three cases of the virus in Cass County, it was safer. It was so awesome to get out of the house! I literally had not been more than to my front porch in 10 days before that! Today, I'm going to go get my nails done. Yes, I'm brave! Woohoo! I need this! I will, however, wear a mask.

And just a couple more photographs that I took yesterday before I'm done. The last Sansevieria I'm going to show it's called 'Bantel's Sensation'. This popular variegated form gets very tall. I got it from one of the club members last year, in the club raffle. It was a side shoot, apparently he thinned out his mother plant. So it was just a single leaf, the tallest one. Now it has two side shoots growing! I'm very excited to see this one fill the pot. The longest Leaf is between 2 and 3 ft tall!

Just three more photos... Yesterday, when I was at Hy-Vee in Plattsmouth, I found a gorgeous Christmas cactus. A true Christmas cactus, which are kind of rare these days! The flowers were so pretty I just couldn't resist!

I also found a whole bunch of hens and chicks! I picked two to put into my garden once it warms up. They are winter hardy, but I'll wait for the ground to warm just a bit since they're young...

And lastly, as I was doing some watering yesterday, I pulled out my Ledebouria ovatifolia. When I was watering that shelf a couple of weeks ago and commenting on everything, it was doing nothing so I don't think I even mentioned it. Yesterday though, I found two new little bulbets popping out of the sides. No signs of foliage from the main bulb itself, I'm not sure why. I may have to do some research to see if the main bulb will just quit growing with these new bulbs on the side. If it doesn't start growing in the next two or three weeks, I'll check into that.  NOTE: the grassy foliage is from more of those Schizobasis bulbs that seed into EVERYthing which I'll remove this spring...