First of all, whining works.  We've had some fantastic responses to our egg overages situation due to restaurant shutdowns and it appears the problem is solved.  One of the best responses came from farm friends in Pennsylvania who don't do any restaurant sales.  Like us, their retail sales have spiked and they were desperately short of eggs.  So we're sending them 900 dozen this week.  Thank you everyone who reads this and responds.  It's like magic--you cast your line out there, press "SEND" and suddenly things happen.  God bless the internet.

             Second, Teresa and I happened to be in the UVA hospital yesterday and encountered the new welcoming committee--a person who asks you a bunch of questions and is armed with face masks, hand sanitizer and little buttons that signify your status.  The sanitizer says on the bottle "kills 99.9 percent of germs."  Now folks, what about that other .1 percent?  They're called survivors.  And they can go through 20 generations of adaptation a day.  This is how superbugs develop.  I wanted to scream:  "You know what I do for sanitation?  I stick my hands in COMPOST so I have a healthy army of bugs all over me to protect me."  Had I responded that way, they probably would have locked me away in a little room with people in white coats asking silly questions.

             We watched countless people press the elevator buttons--no gloves, no sanitizer, some carrying take-out food.  Nobody cleaned the buttons.  Our take away from the day:  it's here.  It's going to contact you.  Go about your daily routine so you aren't stressed.  Stress suppresses the immune system more than anything.  All this hysteria is making everyone paranoid, which encourages fear, which depresses the immune system.  At what point does panic become counterproductive?  Instead of getting out of the way, are we getting in the way?

             Third, yesterday afternoon we launched LOCAL FOOD DRIVE THRU.  Brainchild of our local craft cheese maker Louella and our Polyface PR guru Wendy, it's a collaborative to facilitate local food sales conveniently.  Partnering with a handful of authentic food producers in the area, we offer twice a week pick-up at a local restaurant (New Town Baking).  Folks order 48 hours in advance, we pack their bags, and all they do is drive by the tent in the restaurant parking lot and yell their name.  We toss their groceries in the car and off they go.  The response is out of this world and finally we have a model that goes head to head with supermarket curbside pickup.  The excitement on both sides of the transaction made it a wonderful afternoon.

             Fourth, our local Staunton-Augusta Farmer's Market is canceled until further notice.  It's held in a parking lot, on city property, and the city did this; not the market.  Virginia closed all farmers' markets on state property and encouraged all public markets on local government land to follow suit.  It's unconscionable that government authorities believe it's more dangerous to buy groceries at an open air farmers' market than at Wal-Mart and Kroger.  Are you kidding me?

             Which leads me to number five.  What a shame that we don't have one state in the country that says:  "We're not going to do anything.  We'll be the control group on this experiment and see what happens when we don't do anything.  Go on with life as normal."   This whole thing is being handled incredibly unscientifically; bureaucrats give their edicts as if by divine decree and nobody knows what is really efficacious.  Whipped into a frenzy, we're destroying wide swaths of the economy, displacing jobs and businesses on an unprecedented scale, kaboshing dreams of untold millions, and nobody knows what we're getting in return. 

             West Virginia finally registered their first case yesterday.  I guess even the coronavirus didn't want to go to West Virginia.  Sorry, I couldn't help it--we Virginians tell West Virginia jokes, you know; all in good humor and with the greatest endearment. Peter Bane, permaculture guru, said that in times of epochal change, the most important asset in a culture is the freedom to be different.  Amen.

             I believe three things right now:  everyone will or already has been exposed.  Tight urban living is the most vulnerable place.  Rural areas are the safest place.  Immerse in nature; come visit the farm.

             Do you believe everything the CDC says?