Quarantine? Notes from Zone XII

Our Zone XII Chairman Liza Lilley has shared a great list of things to do during this time of isolation:

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Armchair Travel

Never been to Amsterdam or Seoul?  Now’s the time to Armchair Travel.  A virtual tour of many museums around the world is just a click away.  Want to visit Paris?  Log into the Musee d’Orsay’s website. In Florence, the Uffizi Gallery is closed, but open on-line.  Also, many gardens such as Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew offer virtual tours.

Here’s an incomplete list:

Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum; Van Gogh Museum

Berlin: Pergamon—The Ishtar Gate of Babylon is not to be missed!

Seoul: National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art

Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum.

Gardens

Monty Don O.B.E. is the UK’s leading garden writer and broadcaster. He has been making television programmes for over twenty years on a range of topics,

spanning travel, craft, outdoor living and, principally, gardening. He has been lead presenter of the BBC’s Gardener’s World since 2003 and since 2011 the program has come from his own garden, Longmeadow, in Herefordshire. Monty has also made acclaimed prime time series such as Around the World in 80 Gardens, Monty Don’s Italian Gardens, Monty Don’s French Gardens, The Secret History of the British Garden, Monty Don’s Paradise Gardens , Monty Don’s Japanese Gardens & three series of Big Dreams, Small Spaces.

Enjoy Nature

Bike

Hike

Forest Bathe

Go in one's own yard, or neighborhood, or park, and take a photo of an interesting, stunning, beautiful flower, tree, or shrub which exemplifies Nature in Spring

Binge-watch

Rosemary and Thyme series

Greenfingers—movie

Anything Jane Austin-except perhaps “Sanditon”

Haven’t watched The Crown?  A must!

The Durrells of Corfu

Hallmark Channel, ALWAYS A HAPPY ENDING--lol

Watch "The Story of Stuff" or "The Story of Plastic" from  inbox@thestoryofstuff.org. This was a suggestion from Robin Schachat.

Books—now’s the time to catch up on all the books you’ve meant to read.

Classics: Any Jane Austin book

Middlemarch by George Eliot

The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton

Slug Tossing by Meg Des Camp (humor)

A Bite-Sized History of France: Gastronomic Tales of Revolution, War, and Enlightenment, by Jeni Mitchell and Stephane Henaut

The Overstory by Richard Powers

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. Love, travel and mosses.

Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv and then go on a hike

Escape into detective mystery series featuring Maisie Dobbs; Maggie Hope; Judge Dee; Bruno, Chief of Police; Cormoran Strike (by Robert Galbraith, aka JK Rowling)

Pandemic classics: Decameron by Boccaccio; a series of stories told during the Plague

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Late Migrations by Margaret Renkl

Garden!

Share photos of your plants with club members as Spring unfolds.

Start a dialogue about gardening success and failures with your club members

Download the app Plant Snap to find out the names of your plants that you are going to enter in your next flower show.

Follow Laura LeBoutillier’s blog on the Garden Answer https://www.gardenanswer.com/about with many how-to videos and solid advice.

Check out the American Public Gardens Association https://www.publicgardens.org for ideas.

Plant!

Propagate from cuttings

Plant seeds for pollinators—try milkweed and sunflowers for starters

Join the Great Sunflower project!  Greatsunflower.org  Watch them grow, share photos and document visiting pollinators!

Plant seeds to start your vegetable garden

Schedule a club horticulture challenge class to be “judged” or shared at the club’s opening meeting in September.  Or, how about a Photography “contest” or challenge? Makeup FUN awards!

Share outdoor activities in GCA’s Club Member Showcase!

Plan Ahead and Finish GCA Chores

Surf the GCA website and see all the wonderful projects, conferences and read all about the many accomplishments of members of this AMAZING organization!!!!

While you're at it, check out the Programs site on the GCA website to plan next year’s programs.

Get all caught up on GCA Awards with the Members Years of Service Certificate

Have your members update their personal pages on the GCA website, this is SO important for the Nominating Committee in selecting future positions!!

Make sure they add their photos too!

Community

Reach out to those in retirement communities/nursing homes, they are prisoners in their rooms. A Zone Chairman just finished doing a crossword puzzle, over the phone, with a dear friend of her late mother’s. IT WAS SUCH A REWARDING EXPERIENCE.  They now have a standing appointment!

Stay safe and laugh

My sister repeated—during a 1 1/2 hour chat (what else could we do)-- Peggy Noonan’s advice to wash your hands like you’re Lady Macbeth with OCD!

Bad joke: There’s a new drink called a “Quarantini”-- It’s a Martini that you drink alone!

Another bad joke from a Zone Chair’s spouse: World Health Organization has exempted dogs from the quarantine protocol. Therefore, WHO let the dogs out?

Remember:

Getting Outdoors NOT CANCELLED

Music NOT CANCELLED

Family NOT CANCELLED

Reading NOT CANCELLED

Singing  NOT CANCELLED

Laughing NOT CANCELLED

Hope  NOT CANCELLED

Wishing you a healthy spring!

Cheers,

Liza

Zone XII Chairman