Lockdown Chronicles: End

Bayberry Road, Pennington, NJ

17 June 2020

At 8:55 a.m. we ended our daily Zoom check-in, during which, having run out of stuff to say about our projects, we ended up talking about our pets. Our boss wondered, yet again, if, perhaps, we didn't need to have these calls every day. We said goodbye and disconnected.

At 8:58 a.m. our boss forwarded an email from the Dean for Research. We could return to work. Effective right now. 

Our lab is well stocked for PPE; we've all been buying it on our own in case the university couldn't get its hands on any. On Monday I'd filled every spray bottle available with 70% ethanol and distributed it to lab benches and offices. Every shared facility has a signup calendar now. There are rules about which masks we must wear inside the lab and which ones in the hallways. There was an official online training course, a health report form, and a mandatory self-reporting app. Physically, we were ready.

Mentally, not so much.

I stood up from my makeshift home office desk, a round picnic table in the screened-in porch facing our back yard. Ergonomically it was the best place to work. Internet connectivity-wise, not so much. I looked around, dazed, and stumbled inside to tell Jack that I'd be going into the lab tomorrow morning.

There was a pause, then a mad flurry of emails and Slack messages. There were orders to place and rooms to reserve. There were loose ends to tie up, details to iron out, maybe one more paper to squeeze in for the literature search I've been helping with since March. 

While I hadn't been going into work, I had always been working. I never did learn how to tend to sourdough starter, nor did I make mountains of jewelry, nor repaint the back hallway. The yard is far less weedy than it has been in years, however. That's something, I suppose.

There was still one thing I could do to finish this properly.

At 5:45 I wheeled Kermit outside for one last lockdown ride. I would take the bovine route, chip-seal and all, and deliver a final round of livestock photographs to the faithful.

The sky, in a double layer of clouds, added to the drama of the Hendrickson Farm on Cold Soil and Van Kirk Roads.

The herd was far off, in the middle of the field.

Closer in, mourning doves hid in the grass by the stream.

I knew that Bayberry Road had been freshly chip-sealed. I almost didn't take it, but for the Brick Farm flock with the bell-collared goats. A car passed me, kicking up dust. I pulled my mask over my face. Problem solved.

They were on the north side of the road today. Everyone had their heads down in the grass.

Nearly everyone. The dogs looked up once in a while.

Wargo Road, too, had been chip-sealed.

I saw, as I passed, that Old Mill had a fresh layer of gravel as well.

On Pennington-Rocky Hill Road I turned onto the entrance to the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail to get a closer look at the eagle's nest at the far end of the field.  A cyclist passed me.

"I'm trying to see if the eagles are around," I said.

He called back, from a safe distance, "They're the most-photographed eagles in the county!"

Nobody was home. I guess they've gone back to work too.