It warmed up by the afternoon after beginning with a temperature of -15 C before windchill which made it feel more like -23 C. With the sun pouring down at 3:00 pm and the temperature at -5 C with a breeze, it was the perfect time to be outside on my back deck. As you can see, there is still some snow in my yard. Snow has been scarce and it doesn’t bode well for a great start for the new farming season here on the prairies. There is a forecast for some more snow for tomorrow, but it will be dependent upon late spring rains for needed soil moisture for seeding.
I’m not a farmer. However, this is farming country and I am well aware of how critical our world depends on agriculture. With Covid19 doing a number on our world economy, and a worse number on human health, both mental and physical, the last thing we would need would be to add in an agricultural crisis into the mix. These are hard times. As human beings, we have no choice but to adapt to the world which will emerge.
That aside, my middle child had suggested this morning [she lives in the USA with her husband and three teen-aged children] that I write a book about this whole pandemic as it effects our extended and nuclear family lives. It’s an idea that I will follow up on, simply because I can do this, and do it well. That idea grew into yet another idea of a novel using the same pandemic reality to create a pandemic influenced novel which enhances the real-world value of normalising nudity. More about that will be said in future posts. I don’t want to say too much about the idea as I want to see what emerges in the writing department first.
Now with the need to get the stories right, I have spent much of my day building timelines: a) the global timeline up to today, b) the Canadian timeline up to today, and c) my timeline from December to now – this is the most I have done for pre-planning a story – it will be a story – in my life. As you can see, I will not be getting bored with all this quarantine time on my hands.
Added to my writing and researching activity, the two of us have continued to exercise outdoors in the afternoons when it isn’t quite so cold. Twenty minutes of exercise including jogging twenty inner circuits of our yard. In another ten days, we will be able to venture off our property to put in our usual long-distance country walks. It’s easier to maintain a healthy mindset if one has a healthy body, and vice-versa.
How do you spend your time in social isolation? I’m interested.