Over the past several weeks, we have heard Coronavirus updates on the news but thought little of it until last week when things started getting canceled, like our Caribbean cruise that we started planning a whole year ago. It was the Live Like No One Else Cruise put on by Dave Ramsey but last Wednesday, it was canceled. Since then a lot of schools, restaurants, and any kind of gathering over 10 people has been canceled.
San Antonio postponed its annual 11 day Fiesta party from April until November this year. Yesterday, the annual Poteet Strawberry Festival was canceled.
Now everyone is concerned with buying every last pack of toilet paper, water, hand sanitizer, any kind of wipe, bleach and all antibacterial soap. We cannot find any of these items anywhere. Between then and now, we have been to a lot of stores and could not find any of these items in any store including Amazon. Everyone is sold out.
This morning, David and I went into David's Garden Seeds® because Mondays are always our busiest day of the week. I sent a lot of seeds to Amazon for Prime members. We had a full crew and were very busy the whole day long.
The Coronavirus Update today from the President said that we should all stay home for the next 16 days. Unfortunately, we need to work or we don't get paid. We are a small business with employees who depend on us for their livelihood, not to mention we need money, too.
We started early in the morning and fell asleep at home on the couch before 9pm. Spring planting is apparently on everyone's minds as they continually order our seeds and we are so grateful. I saw a few posts saying they are all starting Corona Victory Gardens. If you are one of our customers, thank you so much for choosing David's Garden Seeds®!
Happy St. Patrick's Day! This morning, we are expecting the sheet rock for the store to arrive.
We are also expecting to have our deer fence extended today as we saw eight deer the other night getting very close to the orchard. There is, however, a small problem--a brush pile directly on the fence line. Atascosa County has a burn ban in place.
David placed a call to the sheriff and got permission to burn the brush. He went out, got hoses and men with shovels in place and started the fire. I went out and now I smell like smoke.
After the fire, David and I went into the office in San Antonio to start sending some of our seeds to Amazon. We sell through Amazon because they have such a wonderful platform. I tried to send up my first set of seeds for the day but Amazon said we are not a priority so it would not allow us to send anything up at this time. I am blown away by this.
So this means we will have to sell the seeds and ship them ourselves. No problem except, of course, we do not offer Prime two day shipping.
Now for a Coronavirus Update: We hired two new part time workers over the last two weeks. Yesterday as he was leaving, one told us he would be here today to work if it was okay. He did not show up or call in so we called him. He said that a non-American doctor said everyone should stay home today so he could not come in. Wow. How much do people really want to work?
I just heard the President talk about staying at home until April 1. Sorry, but we cannot at this time. I also heard something about getting $1,000.00 checks in the mail. I am waiting but I won't hold my breath!
This makes me think back to my childhood. My mother's parents always had a huge garden and they canned most of what they grew. They had a root cellar under the house and when I would go in there, the shelves would be lined with Mason jars filled with veggies and fruits, plus vats of pickles and homemade root beer. Then my grandmother would bake delicious breads, coffee cake, biscuits, cakes and pies all year long. She loved being in the kitchen, plus she worked all week long cleaning other people's houses. She was a busy lady.
I learned to can food back in the 1990s when we lived in Colorado Springs and I stayed home for a short time with my beautiful babies. That was the happiest time in my life. Now that we have a large garden, I should probably start canning foods again so this crazy search for food and supplies does not happen again, if ever we get out of this crazy time.
This morning, the fence was lengthened and by the time we got home, there was a whole lot more of it.
We went into San Antonio to the office. There were so many orders to fill. Then we went to Salt Grass for David's birthday luncheon. His birthday is Sunday, March 22, the day we were supposed to set sail on our never-to-be Caribbean cruise. The same day is also Angie's birthday. Angie is our accountant's wife and she works with him so she is an important member of our team.
Salt Grass was fairly empty instead of like it usually is when we go there for our monthly luncheons. People are staying home and taking the coronavirus updates seriously.
We went back to the office and worked on more orders. Then I went to the post office for the third time today to take a huge box of orders to be mailed. It was 3:25pm and a sign had been put up saying that everyday from now on, this post office would close at 2pm due to the coronavirus. Really? At least we know now that you can get coronavirus only after 2pm.
So I could not mail those orders there. Instead, someone had to drive miles away to another post office to ship them off. Amazon gives us 24 hours to ship packages so they had to be mailed today. By the way, the folks who work there were still inside. The mail truck comes at 5:55pm so I wonder how he picked up the mail since they close at 2pm now.
Here is another coronavirus update. I just saw something stating that the House and Senate both passed a coronavirus stimulus package to send each American $2,000.00. I will believe it when I see it. But really, what good will it do? You still can't find toilet paper or wipes of any kind anywhere.
There were a lot of Amazon and Paypal orders to fulfill today. It was exhausting. The biggest coronavirus update that happened today is that all restaurants in the San Antonio are now closed except for drive through or curbside service. So we had the birthday party on the last day before all of this coronavirus stuff shut down the eateries.
Today, we got there early and there were hundreds more orders than yesterday and we stayed late again. This seems to be the new norm. I spoke with the post office lady and she said she would open the post office back up on Monday for the whole day but that only five people would be allowed in there at once.
Today's coronavirus update is that the Amazon orders that we now have to fulfill are pouring in every hour. David spent pretty much the whole day at the office designing the pattern and flow for the way we will be pulling the Amazon orders now that they will not be fulfilling our orders. He got a pretty good system down, setting up stations and assigning certain team members to do printing, pulling, stuffing envelopes and going to the post office.
We are now receiving about 2,000 Amazon orders a day that we have to fill in house. We are working seven days a week, but only ten can be there at a time due to the new city ordinance to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Many small businesses are suffering right now because they cannot continue to do business. We are thriving and we are agriculturally exempt from closure because we sell seeds and plants.
We have closed our San Antonio seed shop so no customers are coming in at all. It will not open back up in San Antonio. Next time it opens, it will be on the farm. Some of our team members are finishing out our brand new store building. The air conditioners have been put in. Next, they will put in texturing on the walls.
He tasked me with doing Paypal orders from our website. Usually, it is five to ten orders a day. Now it is anywhere from 60 to 100 orders a day.
Today is David's birthday. Happy Birthday, David of David's Garden Seeds®! We can no longer have church so we went to San Antonio and started filling thousands of orders, just the two of us. Who would have thought that church would be banned in the United States of America?
Today, we were supposed to go on our first cruise but that got canceled due to this corona virus. So we work. We ended up putting in ten hours at work. I am so tired from all of the long hours working seven days a week because all orders are now going through us. I read an article that Amazon warehouse workers are infected with coronavirus in six cities throughout the United States.
Return from Coronavirus Update to Our Small Farm
Since 2009, over 1,500,000 home gardeners, all across the USA, have relied on David's Garden Seeds® to grow beautiful gardens. Trust is at the heart of it. Our customers know David's Garden Seeds® stocks only the highest quality seeds available. Our mission is to become your lifetime supplier of quality seeds. It isn't just to serve you once; we want to earn your trust as your primary supplier.
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Peppers and peas
And lots of yummy greens
You can't go wrong
With Squash This Long
At David's Garden Seeds
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