Well, that was a long two weeks with COVID, and I had a mild upper respiratory case, which meant I had no trouble breathing and never felt as though I had to go to the hospital. But I was tired, achy, feverish, with no sense of smell or taste, and no appetite. As families do, I passed it to Clif, and he is about five days behind me. But we both know it could have been worse, and we are grateful that it wasn’t. So far, Dee has not had any symptoms, and we are cautiously optimistic that she is either asymptomatic or somehow missed getting it. Fingers crossed!

According to NPR, COVID is surging across the United States, especially in the South and West, but also in the Northeast and Midwest. I’ll be immune for a few months and will wait until December to get my booster. When I did errands last week—Clif was too sick to even think about going out—I wore a mask even though I was at the tail end of my bout with COVID. The last thing I wanted was to spread this nasty virus to anyone else.

Now on to a happier subject…our one-year anniversary with Bolty.

Last year, we bid a sad farewell to our fifteen-year-old Honda Fit, which had too much rust for an affordable repair. While I was sorry to see the scrappy, little Honda go, I was thrilled to buy a car of my dreams, an electric vehicle that could be charged at home and didn’t belch carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

So how has the year been? In a word, fantastic. Bolty gets us where we want to go, on average, about a sixty-mile round trip from our home. But it will take us much farther, around two hundred miles, and in the few cases where we have gone beyond Bolty’s range, we just stopped at a charging station, of which there are many points south of us. (If we wanted to go to northern Maine, we would be sure to check out charging station availability and perhaps rent a traditional car for the trip.)

In Maine, last winter was very, very cold—well below zero for stretches of time—and Bolty started without a hitch. (We do not have a garage, which means Bolty stays outside in all weather.) Using the heater does decrease Bolty’s range somewhat, but not so much that it became a problem. Again, we had plenty of charge for our local trips.

Do I miss going to gas stations to fill up the car? I do not. Charging Bolty from home costs us about $15 a month, well below the $40 —depending on the price of gas—that fuel would have cost for our Fit. (Because Clif and I work from home, and we are not gadabouts, our cars have very low mileage.)

2026 has been a hot year with drought and fire for some of my blogging friends. (Actually, Maine is in a drought, but so far, thank goodness, there have been no fires.) We humans are making the planet a hotter place, and by having an electric vehicle, Clif and I feel as though we are doing our small part to combat climate change.

I know some of my blogging friends have EVs and are doing what they can to reduce their carbon output. In the comments, tell me your stories. We can’t all do the same things. However, if we do what we can, I can’t help but feel that the world will be a better place.

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Listening

Midnight Oil: Beds Are Burning

This 1987 song speaks to many issues and seems very appropriate for the times we are in.