Quarantined Quiet

ProfessorRoush was captive in a circle of solitude this morning, smothered by a silent world generating its own form of isolation for me, a blanket of clouds held low to dampen motion and moment.  Riley County has declared a two week minimum "stay-at-home" period, effective tonight, and the entire state of Kansas added its own, effective Monday, so the fog is a perfect partner to events local and afar. We are battening down the hatches here at home, anxious but able, resolved and ready.

I'm ready for this time, this transition to tomorrow.  As you can see from the photo at right, there is plenty to do here.  These few bags of mulch are a small fraction of those pre-placed around the house, ready for spreading as soon as the predicted winds diminish.  As the quarantines were announced, I ran out for straw and mulch and project supplies to substitute for activities that soon cannot be.  For some time to come, I'll be mulching instead of dining out, renewing pantry shelves for Mrs. ProfessorRoush instead of watching movies, weeding instead of worrying.  More fortunate than most, I still have work too; as a veterinarian there are always sick animals to care for and as a teacher there are always lessons to prepare.   And it never hurts ones ego to be designated as "essential personnel," however true the reality of it.

For this morning however, it's pleasant, the fog, and the privacy it imposes.  Invisible birds sang as I took these photos, a morning choir unseen but heard, at hand, but also away.  Neighbors and their houses have vanished, foretelling the next few weeks, a safe "social distance" seemingly mandated and enforced by Nature itself.  The mysteries deepen ahead of us; concerns for health and loved ones, uneased by change, disquieted by the quiet.   God-willing, as the fog lifts into sunlight, so our lives will climb from this uncertainty to normality, not the normal of before, but a new normal to travel onward.  Stay healthy, my friends.