2020 was by far the worst year for pretty much everyone. In my case maybe 2014 was worse since I was sick the entire year but 2020 has been one thing after another mostly hijacked by the Coronavirus pandemic. I had such big plans starting the year, I had stopped working (again) and was looking forward to several big hunting trips, camping and travel to the LA sunshine. All that lasted about eight weeks.
I started out the year with my first and last trip, visiting Kristen and Cadence in LA and getting a good dose of sunshine before coming back to rain, snow and cold in Seattle. Little did i know when we visited the Museum of Death that it would be only a month before people started dying of COVID-19 in Seattle. It was a fun trip, I finally made it to the La Brea Tar Pits, we did some great hikes and finally made it to the back of the Hollywood sign.
Returning to Seattle we had snow and got in a few hikes up in the Middle Fork valley in the snow which is always fun. Lira and I got out in February and had one pheasant hunt which became my only hunt of the first half of the year. At the end of February Catherine and I attended a basket class and made foraging baskets, this was to be our last social event of the year and the day that the first COVID patient died in Seattle.
The next day, March 1st, we both woke up sick. A few days later we found out one of Catherine’s friends had been exposed to COVID at the nursing home in Kirkland where the initial outbreak was taking place. A few weeks later we were still sick and her friend tested positive after ending up in ER so we got tested and quarantined. Luckily Catherine was negative but we were still sick for the entire month of March with what must have been a bad flu/cold virus but it was enough to make us very afraid of the pandemic which, by now, was spreading all over the Seattle area and showing up in other major cities.
Well, the whole rest of the year has been a LOT of staying home and getting more self-sufficient. I, like everyone in the country, took up bread making but had the added fun of trying to do gluten-free sourdough starter and bread. I have no idea how many loaves of bread I’ve baked now, about once a week since sometime in April. I also started brewing kombucha and we make a gallon of it every two weeks. We got serious about a garden this season and I cleared out more garden space on the side of the house and built two raised beds for the back yard. We grew a TON of food this year and between the garden, our CSA with Jubilee and the pretty full freezer from l last fall we hardly had to buy groceries at all.
The outdoors was shut down in April and early May which sucked since it happened at prime trout season and turkey season. I had a whole West Coast turkey slam planned in CA, OR and WA and that promptly got canceled. Once they opened up the outdoors in Washington Lira and I got out and caught trout and I had one day of turkey hunting before the Teanaway got closed due to a murdering fugitive on the loose in the area which meant no hunting, camping or hiking in there. Once they finally caught the guy we made a few trips for foraging and got in one way too overcrowded camping trip before deciding that we wouldn’t be camping much due to everything outdoors now being overrun with people.
The summer was spent trying to go to out of the way spots where we wouldn’t be mobbed with other people on the trails, fishing tenkara in the local rivers and doing a lot of bass fishing in the local lakes which I really hadn’t done in years. This was one of the bright spots of the year, getting back into bass fishing and eating our share of bass tacos. Catherine, Lira and I got out about weekly to the Middle Fork while the weather was good and we tended to go super early and stick to non-popular trails so rarely ran into people when out.
September came and so did fire season which again shut down the outdoorsy for a time. The smoke was so bad in the area and Eastern Washington was even worse. We hunkered down and did some short hikes and that was about it for a few weeks. By late September the fires had mostly ended so I decided to go deer hunting for a week during early muzzleloader season. I had a great week of hunting but dealt with excessive heat which made it challenging, the deer were not out in the day or evening at all so the first few hours of the day were it. I ended up deer-less but got in range several times but never had a clean shot. I also managed to catch some really nice trout on the trip since I could fish in the afternoons.
Lira and I got out and did some bird hunting in October and took a trip to Ellensburg at the start of November where we got into some birds hunting a bunch of new spots. Unfortunately after coming home we noticed she had a light limp in the evenings when she got up. On our last local pheasant trip she worked hard and that night could not put any weight on her right leg so I took her to the vet. Just to top off 2020 as the suckiest year ever Lira was diagnosed with a partial tear in her CCL (ACL) on her right knee. No more off-leash, hunting or long hikes for us, she was restricted to 3-4 bathroom breaks a day for a few weeks as we learned all we could about CCL injuries. We talked with a surgeon about TPLO, got her fitted for a leg brace and found she was a possible candidate for stem cell treatment since her tear(s) are not too bad. On Winter Solstice Lira went in for the stem cell procedure and we found out her worst tear is only 15% of the ligament. Since the tear was less than 50% they were able to do the stem cell treatment on both knees. Now she’s back at home sleeping a lot and is going to be pretty drugged out for a few days then we have 12-16 weeks of rehab and recovery for the first few months of the new year. This was pretty much the last straw of 2020 for me.
Somehow though with closures, covid craziness and Lira’s injury I still got out 125 days fishing or hunting this year which is the 2nd most days I’ve ever gotten in a year. Not as much hunting as I had planned due to the knee issues but we made up for it in fishing this season. Being outside hiking, hunting or fishing every day really helped keep me from going crazy over the year. My guitar also helped keep me sane this year, I was so glad I took it up last year for my birthday. I play about an hour a day every day. I’ve been working through my big Iron & Wine song book plus doing some Neil Young, Death Cab, Postal Service and Jason Isbell songs.
Looks like 2021 is going to be off to a rough start, between the pandemic and Lira the next 3-4 months are going to be very challenging. I hope as the sun moves higher in the sky Lira slowly recovers and the covid vaccine really starts getting distributed. Maybe, just maybe, fall will be somewhat more normal than this year has been. I’ve already booked an early muzzleloader hunt in Washington for next September but have a feeling the turkey trips I moved to this coming spring still aren’t going to happen this year. Looks like a lot more fishing and hopefully in the fall Lira will be back chasing birds with me.