{"id":2714,"date":"2021-03-15T20:13:54","date_gmt":"2021-03-16T03:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/?p=2714"},"modified":"2021-03-15T20:13:54","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T03:13:54","slug":"a-cautious-sense-of-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/2021\/03\/a-cautious-sense-of-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"A Cautious Sense Of Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Grateful faces wearing hand made masks<\/p>\n

Mask On, Mask Off?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A few days ago, a (fully vaccinated) friend gave me hug, saying, \u201cI\u2019ve been wanting to do that for way too long!\u201d Though we turned our faces away from each other, we leaned into the deep embrace as slow tears rolled down our cheeks. Even if you\u2019re not a super huggy person by nature, the past year has taught us all how much loving human touch can contribute to emotional wellbeing (and how badly out of balance we\u2019ve grown). With vaccination availability on the rise and more and more people qualifying, there\u2019s a sense that a corner has been turned and we\u2019re on our way out of the pandemic dark. The feeling is partly encouraged by improving news and weather, and even by Daylight Savings. When covid numbers are stable or even sinking, and it\u2019s sunny and not freezing cold, it\u2019s easier to feel optimistic about pretty much anything.<\/p>\n

Many of my friends are already starting to gather in small, cautious groups, celebrating our new freedom. If the groups are meeting outside, I\u2019m happy to take part, but I still feel wary; it\u2019s not yet clear that vaccinated people are 100% safe or even safe to be around. Someone\u2019s in the 5% of people the vaccines don\u2019t help. Some evidence suggests that we might be asymptomatic carriers\/spreaders. Is it safe not to be scared? Yesterday, I entered a friend\u2019s home and, since we are both fully vaccinated and several weeks out, we decided that we could remove our masks. We looked at each other a bit nervously and Laura said, \u201cYou are the first person to be in my house without a mask on in a year.\u201d I\u2019ve been thinking about how we\u2019ve taught ourselves to be afraid of human contact. As the country slowly opens up, it might be difficult for some of us to find our way back to the old norms.<\/p>\n

Mask Making As Covid Craft<\/strong><\/p>\n

Personally, I plan to keep wearing masks even when the pandemic is past, at least in some situations. Our county posted zero flu cases this year, an unprecedented situation. Hardly any of us have had winter colds either, and in my family, seasonal allergy symptoms have been impressively reduced. I\u2019ve even noticed a line of grime on my favorite gardening masks (which I wear when gardening in public places); dirt and pollen that get trapped before it gets past the mask nosepiece is dirt and pollen that isn\u2019t going into my lungs. I\u2019m partly influenced by having a luxurious number of masks in many colors and styles. Many have been made by my friend Laura, who has made \u201csomewhere between 1,000 and 1,500\u201d masks over the past year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Pike Market Pig<\/p>\n

Laura is an accomplished fiber artist who turned her skills to mask making when the pandemic was first declared. Early on, she made masks for local volunteers through a program at Bainbridge Artisan Resource Network (BARN). Next, a relative asked her to make masks for the Pike Place Market Foundation, a nonprofit that provides assisted living\/low-income housing for seniors, as well as a food bank. Laura found some patterns, dug through her fabric stash and produced about 70 masks for food bank and office staff and others. Then she made about 150 more for a local YWCA. Then her sister in Green Bay Wisconsin asked for some for a women\u2019s shelter and 50 more for her grandkids\u2019 school classes. When the Yakima Valley was hard hit by the virus, she sent hundreds of masks for farm workers and their families.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Mask Maker Mask Maker Make Me A Mask<\/p>\n

Bling And Zing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pretty soon, all her friends were emptying out fabric stashes, looking for tightly woven cottons, good lining material, and fun fabric patterns for kids. We all handed over cloth and elastic and when Laura figured out that closure tabs for coffee bags make the best-fitting and longest-lasting moldable nose pieces, she bought a bag of 1,000 from a local coffee packaging company. (It definitely helps to live near Seattle.) Some of the most fun challenges were making festival bling masks for family and friends in New Orleans, as well as form fitting masks for the iconic Pike Market Pig and one of Bainbridge Island\u2019s famous Frogs (though not Frog Rock).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>New Orleans Bling Masks<\/p>\n

Working several hours a day, Laura can make a batch of 70 masks in 2-3 weeks. Once the pandemic was in full swing, she felt pressure to do something helpful and she started sewing 4-6 hours a day, as well as knitting mask extenders. Now, she\u2019s starting to wonder if she should back off a bit, as requests are slowing down. Does she foresee an end to the ubiquitous mask? \u201cI can\u2019t help but think mask wearing has come into the culture; some people will likely continue to wear masks in public, perhaps in stores,\u201d she says. We may not achieve the casual acceptance mask wearing has gained in much as Asia, where pandemics have taught hard lessons, but Laura thinks, as I do, that not catching colds and flu presents a compelling reason to keep our masks around.<\/p>\n

Recycling Masks Into Quilts<\/strong><\/p>\n

She does think the day will come when many people are ready to toss their masks, but she hopes at least some will come back her way. She has plans to recycle them into quilts, or pillows, or wall hangings, silently retelling the story of Our Year Of Masks. I\u2019ve started shredding my oldest masks into the compost bin; they\u2019re all made from natural fibers and full of protective energy to boot. Now I\u2019m thinking about sewing some still-sturdy masks into a vest as pockets, keeping hankies and chapsticks safe from loss. Mask on, mask off, I think they\u2019ll be with us for a long time to come.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Wear a mask so you don’t croak<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grateful faces wearing hand made masks Mask On, Mask Off? A few days ago, a (fully vaccinated) friend gave me hug, saying, \u201cI\u2019ve been wanting to do that for way too long!\u201d Though we turned our faces away from each … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[2192,2193],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1lB7f-HM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2714"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2714"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2722,"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2714\/revisions\/2722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}