COVID-19: Vids + Plants + Pets + Podcasting

Posted on by da-AL

Quick question and get your ears ready for another Happiness Between Tails podcast soon:

Have you checked out the new podcasting integration between WordPress and Anchor? I’m getting ready to try it and wonder if you have thoughts to share regarding it. (Here’s a podcast I published some months ago.) According to WordPress’ recent email, “We’re excited to announce a new feature that automatically converts the text of any page or post into a podcast on Anchor, the world’s largest podcast platform. If you’re already blogging on WordPress.com, there’s a good chance it’s podcast-ready—because our new integration with Anchor means you can now turn your words into audio in a few steps. The blog-to-podcast process is simple, and it opens up your work to new possibilities and listeners.”

COVID-19, staying-at-home included, is plenty hate-worthy. (I’ve griped about it here and here and here.) But not everything, i.e., I’m writing my novel, “Flamenco & the Sitting Cat” at a far better clip. (I elaborated on some COVID silver linings here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here, as did author Alice Renaud here.)

Our doggie sits politely for pumpkin seeds. Anyone got a pumpkin seed?

Nonetheless, there are those among us who love, loooooove, luuuurrrve COVID-19. Indulge me for how tickled I am by the “sound effects” of one such COVID fan…

Our fluffed, furred, feathered, slippery, scaled, and whatever else creature-family who can’t get enough of us — those guys are overjoyed! In their unique ways, they broadcast, “Hurray! Our people are home!”

At the start of quarantine, I heard a radio item about a doggie who needed a vet’s attention because she’d sprained her tail from wagging it so much!

People I know average an extra three hours to their days thanks to working from home. Here in Los Angeles County, “driving’ is a euphemism for “fuming in stand-still traffic.” Think of all the heart attacks fended off if we didn’t have to waste hours fuming behind the wheel. Just the other day, road rage triggered (pardon the sad but irresistible pun) a shooting in Long Beach.

More free time means more gardening. Urban gardening activist Ron Finley of South Central Los Angeles says, “Growing your own food is like printing your own money.”

His TED talk describes how his first parkway (what divides sidewalk from street) orchard-ette turned eco-lutionary…

When we moved into our home, my dear husband, Khashayar, applied his engineer’s practicality to our front and backyards. “If we’re going to work it, we’re going to eat it,” he said. Or something to that effect.

Which is why we’ve got several fruit trees crammed onto our bit of green. We (okay, he did the grunt work as our soil is basically clay) spent Sunday laying the groundwork for this year’s tomatoes and herbs.

Our little garden blooms with future fruits and herbs. Our little garden blooms with future fruits and herbs. (Here you can see some of what we harvested.)

Do you know a pet who’s celebrating COVID-19?

Published by da-AL

Happiness Between Tails blog/podcast speaks to and from the heart. It connects lovers — of pets, authors, reading — and of my still-unreleased novels. “Flamenco + the Sitting Cat” and “Tango + the Sitting Cat,” are my love letters to all who fear they're too odd, too damaged, too old, too whatever to find love and happiness with or without a partner. HappinessBetweenTails.com • ContactdaAL@gmail.com • BuyMeACoffee.com/SupportHBT

68 thoughts on “COVID-19: Vids + Plants + Pets + Podcasting”

  2. Listening to people slurping while eating irritates me but when it’s an animal it is SO cute. 😀
    Your garden is looks a lovely place to be.

    Liked by 2 people

  4. Many of us can appreciate the reciprocally healthy — perhaps even somewhat symbiotic — relationships that can exist between pets (for my family that has always meant cats) and their loving and appreciative human hosts, especially physically and/or mentally ill hosts. They have a beneficial influence over humanity that many people still cannot fathom; and this beautiful reality of their positive effect on their human hosts can also be beneficial to the animals themselves.

    There are numerous studies revealing the health benefits to humans when in immediate proximity to their cats, such as high blood pressure being alleviated. Whenever I observe stress in the facial expression of my mother, a typical senior, I also observe how that stress drains from her face and is replaced with joyful adoration when her pet cat enters the room: “Hi, sweetheart,” she’ll say.

    I know that countless other seniors with pets also experience the emotional benefits of their animals’ presence. And, of course, all of those qualities makes losing that pet so very heartbreaking.

    Liked by 2 people

  6. I look forward to learning more about this Podcast/Word Press connection. I don’t listen to many podcasts – gasp – so many of my friends do. But what a great way to get our blog posts out to people who don’t normally read out posts? Exciting.
    My dog loved canned pumpkin. Not pumpkin seeds, but the real stuff. And it was good for his joints.
    Your husband is a genius. Happy gardening and eating!

    Liked by 2 people

  7. I gave the Anchor podcast a try on my WordPress blog. I took one of my old blog posts “Tale of a Horse Care Fail” and turned it into a podcast, meaning I read the blog post so it was like a “book on tape.” The Anchor website makes it easy to do. The difficult part for me was trying to read my own blog post without making any mistakes. Much harder than I thought it would be. Anchor does give you the option of having a computer voice read your post instead, but it sounds like a computer, and I thought my listeners might like hearing a human voice instead. It was a fun experiment, but I have not gone back to record anymore just yet. I am more comfortable with written medium than the spoken word, I guess, but I would encourage any interested bloggers to give it a try just for the novelty of it if nothing else.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. how fun! many tx for sharing your wisdom — I’d love if you’d write a little something for my site about your experience that could go with a link to your podcast 🙂

      Like

      1. Sure thing! Here is the link to my grand-total of one podcast (essay read on tape) episode. 🙂

        http://thebackyardhorseblog.com/2021/03/12/the-backyard-horse-blog-podcast-season-1-episode-1/

        For any bloggers out there who would like to try to use the Anchor program (I found it to be very straightforward, not complicated), I would recommend starting off with a short introduction about your blog that would help set the stage for what you are about to read. I did not do that. I even forgot to read the essay title. It would make the whole thing seem more warm and inviting. The hardest part of the experience for me was reading the essay without making any mistakes. I ended up recording about six times and finally gave up. Not really sure podcasting is my gig, but for those of you who are curious and want to give it a try, I found the Anchor program quite user friendly.

        Liked by 2 people

  8. Love the upbeatness (if upbeatness isn’t a word, it should be) of this post. So many folks have found ways of turning the pandemic shutdown into something positive. Your and Khashayar’s work in the garden is a wonderful idea.

    I was absolutely terrified that I would die when Covid first arrived – we’re in the age demographic for most susceptible. I worried I’d never see our sons and their families again. So I painted watercolors for each of them – I couldn’t find words to tell them how much I loved them and hoped that if they never saw me again, at least they’d have a painting to convey that I adore them.

    Now I’m sad about so many things. The violence against innocent and defenseless people,the attack on our Capitol, the nasty state of politics, the refusal of way too many people to get vaccinated because they’ve chosen to merge their politics into their healthcare.

    And I ache for all the millions of people who were ill and those who died and those who mourn the loss of family and friends.

    For many of us, this virus has brought out the best. I honor these wonderful people who found ways of living though it and shared their joys and achievements so others might benefit.

    Now you and hubby get to eat the fruit of your labors – how very cool is that!

    Liked by 4 people

    1. many thanks for visiting & commenting, Sharon. I’m always delighted when you visit & hope you’re doing well. covid is truly a tragedy, including how its been handled. I hope my comments don’t give anyone the impression that I think otherwise

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Your comments didn’t come off inappropriately at all. I’m just deeply upset about the current state of the world. Too many hateful, entitled extremists are skewering so many innocent people and trashing the world for their own benefit without realizing that they and their children will benefit much more if everyone eats, lives safely, and is healthy. What a radical I am, right?

        Liked by 2 people

  9. There is woman in New Zealand who has created great “music” videos regarding Covid, and she made one about how happy dogs were, that humans stayed home (https://youtu.be/GifUAB2QjC8). But then, she also made one about how “unhappy” cats were, that humans stayed home! 🙂 I sent her a picture of my 14-year old Ragdoll rescue kitty that we adopted last year, and she used the picture in her video! 🙂 It’s the cat saying “You’re in my chair”! ❤ (https://youtu.be/UFBEami1qIg) Initially, the cats seemed unhappy that we were home all the time, but, I think, even they, are glad to have seen more of us over the past year! 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

      1. Yes, she did a great job with both videos! 🙂 And thank you for your kind comments about my kitty Bubbles! ❤ She is a doll, and we feel so fortunate to have crossed paths with her and provided her a home!! ❤

        Liked by 1 person

Share the joy: click buttons and engage with us. *** Note: WordPress insists ‘likers’ sign in. ‘Commenters,’ fortunately, need not. My email: ContactdaAL@gmail.com

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.