Man, I was preadapted for this. My to-do list is perennially at cubic light-year proportions and is diverse enough to have kept boredom an abstract concept for decades. And we live in a home in the woods with neighbors we rarely see. We did have some unexpected guests drop by the house a couple times last week, but they were welcome, kept their distance, and didn’t stay long.
To be honest, I have yet to be able to get to my long to-do list because of our mandated total transition from in-person teaching to online teaching instead. That took two very long, stressful, and exhausting weeks to accomplish. We’re up and running (or crawling) with new approaches, and I think this is a suboptimal way to teach and to learn, but, hey, pandemic. For now, only behavioral changes are going to help us all.
Our cold winter continues, and we’ve had a staggering amount of snow this March. Our first week of teaching online corresponded with two big snowfalls, combining the coronapocalypse with a snowpocalypse and keeping things extra spicy. This coming week might be a little easier, although the university is still working out the details on what the governor’s shelter-in-place mandate means to those of us reliant on the university’s internet to be able to deliver or take our courses. Fairbanks has a lot of low- and no-internet pockets. The last resort has been to put wifi into some of the parking lots to enable people to remain isolated (in their vehicles) but still have access to high-speed internet.
For the first couple of days of the work-from-home edict campus looked like it does on Sundays. But with every day looking like a Sunday I began instead to get an Ennio Morricone soundtrack in my head. So of course I put it on for real and locked in this surreal vibe for the week. Try it – there are hours of this stuff on YouTube; here is a good start.
Moments after this shot was taken, the owl did a dive into the snow below to catch a subnivean vole. It failed, but it was exciting to watch.
Look at these two laughing it up while they eat our decorative shrubbery beside the outdoor lights (which they did not get tangled in and drag away, unlike some previous visitors).
Stay healthy!
P.S. It was Rose who spotted our guests out the windows. She’s the keen-eyed animal spotter in our family.
Can always count on you for a good story and great music!
Thanks Kev!
Great stuff, Kevin! We are well, here. My next door neighbor, Glenn, says “What the Hell. I’ve been practicing social-distancing for 12 years!”
We didn’t have much snow here this year. In fact, we didn’t have much cold weather (teens and below) either. Chautauqua Lake usually freezes in late December and stays frozen until early April. This year the whole lake never really froze and ice-fishing was limited to less than a month. I only got out skiing three or four times.
Great to hear from you, John. Your neighbor sounds like he should be leading the nation right now. We had a heck of a winter, like the old days. -7 F this morning. Stay well.