Rose Hippy Friday

The Rose Hips Dance

Hannah is a champion gleaner. As she and Julie and I get our morning multithousand steps, she will sample likely plants. From this I have learned that rose hips are quite edible (assuming you get them from bushes unlikely to have been sprayed - such as at the Highpoint Water Tower). To me, these tasted like a cross between an apple and a mild bell pepper - not really like either. Now I am inspired to harvest the hips on my plants, when they ripen!
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Today I used my email account as a work sorting tool. Earlier in the week I had thanked Amy Higbee for some peas that she had purchased for me early in the pandemic, when people were minimizing going out; the peas supplemented those I had saved, dried, from a prior year; I'm very happy with my crop and passed that on. Due to family obligations made more intense with the COVID, she won't be able to do Toastmasters any more. That's the way it goes, although I hope her husband can keep going at the club he was working on - I think through Brig.
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I responded to an inquiry on the Low Bono listserve from Sart about a retainer explainer. I may not know a lot about that area of the law but my plain language writing skills are pretty good
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I got an email from Emilia of the Seattle Mask Brigade:

Hello wonderful Mask Brigadiers,

When we started the Seattle Mask Brigade back in March, we wanted to fill a temporary gap while the need for PPE was critical and supply chains weren't up and running yet. We couldn't have imagined how great the need would be, how many masks we would distribute, and how long we would be doing this. You probably felt the same way when you first signed up to volunteer! Yet here we are, five months and over 50,000 masks later.

I don't have to tell you that we're nowhere near finished with this pandemic, but our region is now in a much better place in terms of PPE supply. Requests to the Seattle Mask Brigade have been slowing down for some time, and our government and nonprofit partners have been able to provide more masks to folks in need.

So we are winding down our operations, at least for now - hibernating, not closing. Should the need for PPE pick back up and start getting ahead of supply again, we'll be ready to spring (or at least lumber) back into action.

I saved the most important thing to say for last, which is, of course, THANK YOU! Thank you for signing up to help week after week or even just once, for driving across the county to pick up a handful of masks that made a huge difference to a nurse who didn't even have one, and for delivering carloads of PPE to overwhelmed hospitals, shelters, clinics, and nursing homes. Thank you for generously giving your time and energy to get masks to people on the frontlines, when literally no one else could. There's no doubt you saved lives.

It's been an absolute privilege to be part of the mask brigade with you. As always, don't hesitate to get in touch with me if you have any questions. And keep an eye on the Seattle Mask Brigade website - seattlemaskbrigade.org - where we'll be posting ongoing opportunities to donate masks and volunteer with other organizations.

Again, thank you so much. Be safe, and take care!

Emilia

I am proud of working on this project, and found it especially interesting as an example of community action - all done without much personal contact. (Then I got an email for one last pickup, which I'll do Saturday. Yay!)