Spring Cleaning - the Groceries?

Spring has finally arrived up here in the frozen north. It's a little worse for wear but I'll take it! 

Every time the flowers on our poor magnolia began to open, the snow would start to fall. So, it never became the glorious mass of blooms it usually does - but that's okay, the fragrance was still wonderful. That grey blob in the corner of the window on the right is our cat, Spenser. I like to think he's keeping the squirrels from digging in the window boxes but that's probably not the case. I've got my mask and gloves all ready for whenever the garden centers open up so I can fill them up anyway. As long as I stick to geraniums the squirrels bury their seeds and nuts elsewhere.  

This is one of the daffodils from my last post, they were still just buds and picturesquely covered in snow. Amazingly, not only did they survive but they weren't damaged at all.

It's been below freezing overnight for the past week here but the tulips and daffodils seem perfectly happy. Apparently, they are a lot tougher than magnolia blooms.

Meanwhile, back inside the skeleton crew is hard at work washing the groceries! Hopefully, it will soon become just another part of the shopping routine. Although, among all of the precautions we have to take these days, it's probably the last thing I ever expected! For awhile, I added items to the grocery list based on how well they would survive a good dose of soap and water. It made the cleaning process a lot faster but produced some pretty weird meals.

It would probably be easier to just use a disinfectant wipe (if there were any available) but since CNN's Dr. Gupta says that soap dissolves the bonds that hold the coronavirus together, shouldn't it work better than alcohol? Then the FDA said there was no risk in getting the coronavirus from food or its packaging but to be sure to wash your hands after shopping. What? Now I'm confused but in the interest of not getting sick, I'm washing everything that comes into the house and then my hands, again! Better safe than sorry. How that cheese will taste after its bath is another question. 

At first, the "let them sit outside for 24 hours" approach seemed totally unrealistic to me. However, Mother Nature has not blessed us with nice weather, in fact it's still the same temperature outside as it is inside our refrigerator! So, following the guidelines from the FDA (but mostly out of sheer laziness) I decided to leave some of the groceries (with the more water soluble packaging) on our patio overnight. Unfortunately, the squirrels immediately started gathering in a nearby tree, so that option was abandoned before the raccoons and possums joined them for an all out assault on our patio screens. Honestly, we're used to getting stuck at home during blizzards but this is completely different and I guess there will continue to be lot of trial and error.

I can't bear to pick my outside flowers mainly because they're lasting so long in this cold weather! Fortunately, there's no shortage of cut flowers at the grocery store. They didn't get washed or spend much time on the patio but Spenser is the only one who eats them anyway.

HM took this photo of him a bit later. It's hard not to look guilty with a stamen stuck to your face.

Online ordering with curb pick-up is really handy but even that has some challenges. 

This is what I got in my first order from Target. Just for the record, it was an accident and not an attempt to hoard cat treats or trail mix. I'm not a novice at online shopping and have made plenty mistakes but this is the first time an error has resulted in quadruples of anything. It's okay, HM and the kitties are overjoyed and I will definitely be double checking those totals from now on!

 

 I hope everyone had a great weekend. Weather Bug was predicting snow for us but it rained instead, yay! I got a note from my son reminding ME to wash my hands that was delivered, along with these pretty flowers, by a masked man. This is definitely one Mother's Day I'm never going to forget!

A belated Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!

Thanks for stopping by.