Ehlana and Ethan:
The last hours of April are winding down
now; so the transition to a new month has us chatting about both the recent
past and what we hope for and expect for the near future and summer. Before we get to that commentary, though, let’s
do a quick review of our news of the day.
We’ve had a lot of fun since our last
report. Our jam session with Naomi and
Aiden was a blast; the movies-and-cuddle time kept the fun going; and the
parents let us get away with another co-ed sofa sleepover because we’re just
that adorable when caught sleeping in pairs.
That’s still a bit weird for two of us, but we’re catching up to Naomi
and Ethan; so we won’t likely have problems with this until our parents do once
we get into our tween and teen years. ;^)
Extra exercise buddies for Tai Chi by the
river helped to get our day off to a good start; having guests helped us to get
a pancakes and bacon breakfast; and then we headed over to Naomi’s house for
our studying and online lessons while Mom and Dad got to work and our favorite
collegians took over the office for their daily online lectures and studies. The weather continues to be great, so we took
a picnic lunch with us again and hit the trails for some biking. Yes, we need to be creative to keep limited
entertainment options from getting boring, but we usually manage to do that;
and we do hope that we’ll have more to do in the coming weeks as the
restrictions are lifted. We played for a
few hours, and then Naomi and Aiden opted to head home or to the bakery when we
headed for the lab and archives for the rest of the afternoon. That kept us busy until dinnertime; and we’ve
had a quiet evening at home since then.
We’re not exactly making this part of our
report quick; so let’s just add that our music practice, ‘real’ studies, watching
television, and the Jacuzzi or shower time has been good too; and move on to
the coronavirus-related commentary.
First up; our research at the lab and
archives is moving along, and we want to point that out because we don’t
mention the details in this journal, and even when we’re playing with our
family and friends; we’re usually multi-tasking and thinking about our work on
the coronavirus. We still don’t want to
get into specifics that most future readers would just find really boring, but
we can assure you that this virus is complex; a cure or vaccine won’t be easy;
and the headlines should all be taken with a large block of salt – especially when
so many people are more-interested in personal gain than in actually caring
about what’s best for everyone. We don’t
want to get started on a rant about any of that, but will mention that finding
a solution to a problem usually requires accurate data, and when so much of the
information we’re getting now is suspect and biased; we can’t trust very much
of anything that we don’t work on personally.
Work at the lab is going to be part of our
lives in the coming weeks and months, but before we get to that look ahead; let’s
take a moment to review the past month – and more; since we have been dealing
with these restrictions and social distancing since March Break.
Social isolation affects everyone, but
while keeping our distance from so many of the people we love-most is
challenging; we’re also sure that our community is growing stronger as we help
each other to get through this crisis.
We also have a pretty good handle on what really matters in life, and
that makes a difference too; since there are a lot of people in the world
currently needing to deal with the added stress of discovering the most-important
things in their ‘old’ lives don’t really matter at all. Those shifts in perspective can be hard; and
having that happen during an emergency that can also have you separated from
people that could support you makes those challenges even tougher. We won’t get into that either; and our point
is just that we’re finding ways to help each other; so we’re not having any of
the problems that are happening in other places around the world.
That doesn’t mean that we don’t all miss
life as normal, but as we do think about how to move on into the future; it
would be awesome if we could actually learn a few lessons; and collectively
make changes for the better. That might
be possible for our little town, but we’re a bit pessimistic when it comes to
the big picture in our country and world; since history seems to be repeating;
and that isn’t in a good way. We don’t
want to rant on about that either, but Dark Magi aren’t the only bad guys – or girls
– out there; and all of the terrible things we see going on now really has us
wishing that the Ascension of the Light could happen much-sooner than it will.
We won’t look that far into the future with
our look ahead to the coming weeks and months, and this has gotten too-serious;
so let’s comment on baseball – or the lack of it! Practices would have started next week, but
that isn’t happening; and it hasn’t been decided yet whether there will be a
baseball season at all. If there is, it
likely won’t start in June, but since we don’t have that many games to start
with; we might just have to do something different anyway – like maybe a couple
of holiday weekend tournaments or pick-up games. That’s hardly an emergency if we don’t have a
local baseball season, but that is something that affects more than the players
and fans; since those social gatherings – or lack of them – affect businesses
that lose customers and sales; people get less exercise; and those hours will
need to be filled up with other activities or entertainment instead.
Baseball is an example for what we can
expect in May; since entertainment probably won’t be a priority when we have so
many other challenges – particularly in a farming community. We don’t yet have the same problems beginning
to hit the farm level of the food industry in general, but that has more to do
with how our farms are set up around here and the time of year. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have problems
to deal with, but our issues have more to do with spring planting season;
getting that work done; and choosing the right mix of crops in a year when it
is going to be tough to predict what will and won’t be needed the most by
harvest time and into the winter. That
isn’t true for everything, since there are some crops that are needed in
knowable amounts, and then there won’t be many changes for local consumption
needs; so those issues are entirely with crops that are sold onto the open
markets.
Mom is quietly helping out with that, and
our lab is making a big difference with our designer crops and also our growing
needs for the cold-cure plants, but our point here is that we need to worry
about those serious issues first; and then we can take a look at getting back
to normal for the fun activities too.
There is some cross-overs for that –
especially with a big holiday weekend coming up and the start of what would
normally be the summer tourism season, but even those plans are tough to make
when there might not be very much tourism at all – whether we’re open for
business or not. We do expect to expand
our help through the family business when needed for the local campgrounds and
other tourism-dependent businesses, but while Mom and others are already
looking into that; we’re not personally going to be involved – unless Quarry
Lake is closed and we can’t go there for regular play days! We’ll hope that doesn’t happen, but that’s
likely something that’ll be decided on a State or National level; and we doubt
that those leaders will take our advice on the issue.
We’re commenting a lot on the challenges or
what might not be happening ahead of us; so maybe we should move on and try to
wrap this up with a positive or two.
More than half of our friends would still
say that no school is a good thing – even though our home schooling still
includes most of our core education and isn’t even shorter days for the kids
that don’t just get at the work and do it the way we do with our online lessons
and then working on our assignments and projects. Having Cassie, Michael, and May here with us
continues to be great; though they’ll be busy for the next couple of weeks as
they focus on final exams. Even a bit of
daily contact is better than weeks or months with nothing more than video chats
and texting; so that’s still definitely a positive for us. Finally, we’d be having a really tough time
by now if we didn’t get to spend so much time with our best friends; so Naomi
and Aiden get a lot of credit for being there for us – even when that includes
too-much time at the lab or archives! We’re
pointing that out as being important because the bonds that the four of us
share are very important for our collective future; and they’re growing
stronger through this crisis.
While that is awesome, we’re also glad that
we’ll be able to stick together through whatever happens in the coming weeks,
so while the excitement level might be dampened without baseball or even major
holiday weekend fun; we’ll do our best to enjoy the coming adventures; do our
part to help others; and continue to hope for the best for everyone here at
home and around the world.
This is Ehlana and Ethan Proctor; live from
the hidden home of the Magi of the Light – and May the Magi Force be with you!
