Pandemic Skilz

It's amazing what you can do when there is nothing else to do! Or when you really have no choice. I think families all over the world are making the same discovery, given all the YouTube performances, crafts, and sudden interest in homesteading slathering social media. Here's what we've been doing at the Queen of the Hill Cottage:

I re-learned how to make bread, so we could go to the store less.

Hubby bought a tractor to clean up our forest after the pines were logged. 

The boys hacked a trail to our creek through the autumn olives old-style -- with machetes. There is no photo of this because they looked scary and I kept a wide berth!

I am finally cooking meals. Every. single. freaking. meal. I'm still waiting for my house elf to reveal itself and clean up after me. 

D learned how to yo-yo. Like, from couldn't do it at all to being a total trickster.

I'm starting some herb and vegetable seeds this year, and I am planting lots of flower seeds that I always meant to.

Look at me! The gardening queen. 

D taught himself how to make survival bracelets. Naturally, he believes this will make him a millionaire. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it is really billionaires that run the world these days. 

G is cleaning up a canoe that has been languishing by the barn for the last 40 years or so, after my ex brother-in-law "paddled" it over The Sinks in the Smokies.  

My mother has learned how to FaceTime! 

My mom is the real gardening
queen.

Mom also made a whole new garden bed, complete with a drainpipe -- all by herself. 

Out of utter desperation, I finally gave in and cut D's hair.

Isn't he handsome? And still has 
both ears.

My family does rock star quality
FaceTime sessions!

While it is genuinely torturous for some of us, the "shelter in place"proclamations and "social distancing" and "safer at home" campaigns have gifted my family and friends many things. Most of all, the gift of time.

What have you learned to do or found the time to do that you always wanted to do "some day"?