With many Nevadans still out of work and kids not going back to school in the fall, what are people doing to pass the time?
Art stores, nurseries, and even the Department of Fish and Wildlife are seeing massive upticks in sales throughout Clark County.
People are finally able to check items off their to-do lists, from DIY home projects to building a vegetable garden. Some people are even spending weeks at a time camping across the state.
Paul Noe is a horticulture advisor for Star Nursery and has been renovating gardens and backyards for more than 55 years.
Since the start of the pandemic he says, the nursery has been selling hundreds if not thousands of fruit trees, edible plants and other gardening accessories as people fix up their yards.
"We've seen a lot of new customers. People that we haven't seen before," he said, "We do have a large crowd of people who are regular customers. And they all seem to be doing the same thing just paying more attention to their yard because they're having to stay there around their home and they're beginning to notice a lot of things that may be happening to their landscapes or gardens and want to try to improve upon them."
Noe said if you're a first-time gardener the best thing to do is start by looking at the plants you like and then research whether those plants will do well in the space you had planned for them.
RESOURCES:
University of Nevada Cooperative Extension Clark County
University of Nevada Cooperative Extension Horticulture Program
Mountain States Wholesale Nursery
International Society of Arboriculture
UNR College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources
From Nevada Public Radio: Desert Bloom
Besides digging in the backyard, people are turning to new artistic pursuits. Becky Miller is the vice president of the Las Vegas Arts District. She said artistic pursuits - even for professionals - take time, which is something people have now.
"I think our artists have always wanted to pursue their dreams and now that they maybe have more free time because they're out of work, they're able to apply themselves," she said, "Because we know that if you want to be a writer or you want to be an artist, it takes practice and it takes work. So many people who want to write or want to do art just can't seem to find the time. So maybe they're finding more time."
RESOURCES:
Art Classes groups Las Vegas - Meetup
From Desert Companion: Oral History: Cancel, Postpone, Adapt
For many people, getting outside is the best way to break up the monotony of the coronavirus pandemic and stay-at-home order. Doug Nielsen is the head of conservation education for the Nevada Department of Fish and Wildlife.
He told KNPR's State of Nevada that the department has seen a huge increase in the number of requests for fishing licenses over the past few months.
"I think mostly what you're seeing is, as a society, we kind of moved away from the outdoors and we moved to indoor-related things - a lot of computer-based, gamed-based things - and you can only do so much of that a day and so people are getting tired of looking at the same four walls, looking at the screen," he said, "So I think you have some people who are going back to what they did in their younger days and then we have some people who are new that have never tried this before and they're trying to get themselves or their family members out just to do something different, to break up the regiment that they've developed in this COVID period."
The department stocks six bodies of water in Clark County with trout and catfish.
RESOURCES:
Fish & Wildlife - Let's Go Outside
National Park Service - Nevada
From Desert Companion: Hikes After 5
Paul Noe, horticulture advisor, Star Nurseries; Doug Nielsen, Conservation Education, Department of Wildlife; Becky Miller, Vice President, Las Vegas Arts District
