Rains of Change

Hurricane Zeta brought a ton of rain. Everyone looked miserable out there.

Everything was underwater.

Somehow, we've lose enough dirt that the water flooded into the boys area. Carrie pulled them once the rain stopped to let it drain some.

The rain affected our little world, but there was a bigger shift going on: Three school districts in VA closed their doors and said, "We're doing it online till the rains pass."

Are school cancellations a thing of the past? Snow days a glory of yore? 

I think the headlines are a sneak peek at the 'new normal.' There will still be kids who play hooky when snow falls. Shane might even be one of them, but as a teacher I'm sure I'll be sitting in front of my computer.

The rain took over a day to drain from the pastures. A river ran through Maddy's lot.

I rescued a few earthworms caught in the current. I think Carrie said we got over 5 inches of precipitation.

Two days later, there were pools of water just off the soccer field at Shane's final game!

 I'm sure the ground squished as the kids ran!

20-21 Virtual School for Me!

It began Tuesday! 

I sent out a welcome letter Monday night to all the families, set up reminders all over my computer, and was eager to get to it.

Virtual school went well. 

My chief fears were that the technology wouldn't work, most kids wouldn't show up, and/or that whoever did show up stayed silent.

The technology worked save for one big blip I worked around, there were lots of kids, and most of them communicated in some shape or form.

A lot of teachers spent the week on sappy "get-to-know-you" activities" that I hated as a kid. I spent the week on "how to virtual school." We practiced screenshots, alt-tabbing windows, and how to zoom. I had the kids doodling on my screen and then sharing each other's screen so they could doodle on those while in breakout rooms.

"Just don't use what I show you for evil," I said. 

Most listened. One kid had a lot of fun renaming himself as a demon and doing lots of LOL's in the chat for the first day, but he settled down the next!

The big tech blip was when Schoology deleted all of the students in my 4th block. Thankfully, everyone was already in the class. I did a workaround and Schoology "found" everybody a couple hours later or it would have been a disaster. 

"Better this happens on day 2 rather than day 20," I said. "You'd lose a lot of work then. Now, you can laugh about it."

A lot of the kids got a kick out of Aria. Either she likes me or she likes the feel of walking on my keyboard (possibly both).

She flashed her anus to the class multiple times walking across my shoulder and jumping back and forth to the cabinets behind me.

I tried not to touch her as much as I could (allergies!), but whenever I had to remove her she jumped back up a second later.

I felt good about the week, but it was exhausting. I spent hours each morning building my materials and then sat on Zoom for 4.5 more hours. It was easier in that it was less time I would have physically been at work, but it was harder in that I like to be at work moving around and social. That energizes me. Being trapped at a computer talking to a screen does not. It drains me.

Speaking of draining, our internet is going to be a problem. Virtual school is blowing through our metered internet quotas.

We get 100 GB a month. That averages to 3.33 GB a day most months. We normally use well below that, but we noticed a big spike day 1. We wrote down "32.4 GB"  Thursday morning and we were at 39 GB after school ended (6.6 GB). 

We only had 3.5 days of school and we're nearly halfway through our internet for the month. 

Zoom has to be the big culprit (4.5 hours minimum for me and 3 hours minimum for Shane), but all of my grades, materials, and communications come through the computer, as well.

Carrie's already started researching supplemental options. I asked my principal if the County offered any support, but there was nothing we qualified for.

It's nothing insurmountable. I've got options. The cost will be comfort and convenience. I may have to drive to Shane's school to use their wifi and teach a class from the car. It's a much further drive, but I could also drive to my real life school and use the internet there. I'd rather be at home if I have to be virtual, but you do what you have to do.

One week down. Eight more weeks until 1st quarter ends. The County *might* start to switch to a hybrid model then, but we won't know until October.

I'll need to keep converting materials and think about how to attack things next week over the weekend. I slipped in a little content already, but the pacing guide is really tight. We're building the plane as we fly it.

School Starting

By a 4-3 vote it was decided to reject the School Superintendent's plan.....wait a minute.

No, wait 10 minutes.

There was a break and then someone changed their vote. This time, the school board voted 4-3 to accept the School Superintendent's plan and do a full virtual opening for 1st quarter.

I had hoped to go back part time with a virtual opening, but it's now my job to make their decision the best decision for the county as far as I'm able.

And I hope it is!

Honestly, it was a tough vote. People weren't going to be happy whatever the outcome was. I don't want to be a school board member any time soon (if ever). I do want to get on teaching.

Tuesday 8/18 was our first virtual work day. The students won't start until September 8th.

It's...different. It's a mix of easy and difficult.

Easy - It's hard to sit in on zoom meetings. I'm saving on my commute (~45 minutes and  ~34 miles a day). Then there are online tech trainings for things I've already been doing (Estimated completion time - 3 hours.....it took me 20 minutes. I took another 20 minutes, because I felt guilty).

Hard - The 'rules' for what we're doing aren't exactly finalized. I have tons of ideas, but I want to know what the structures are before I run with something. I'd hate to spend hours fleshing out a plan only to scrap it when the winds change. While I'm excited, other teachers are clearly anxious and I sat through one planning meeting that felt like most of the teachers in the room were spiraling into panic mode and nothing got done for hours.

It's going to be a whole new ball of wax. It's nothing I would have chosen, but that does make it interesting. It will probably be the type of 'interesting' I only want to do once, but I'm ready to get to it!

COVID 19 - The Coronavirus: Virtual School Wrap-Up

Thursday was the last day of online classes. All the content had been introduced, so it was more of a "Get help if you need it and turn stuff in!"

This meme is how I envisioned it....

...., but the tidal wave was really a trickle. I still have kids who haven't figured out how to check their grades. I've made them do it in class (when we actually had school) and I've been sending out reminders for when I get questions I already wrote the answer down three weeks ago.

That's not to say there haven't been some good questions. I've gotten rather proficient about drawing online and talking at the same time to explain things.

By the end of the week, the kids who were on it were done and the kids who hadn't been off it were still off doing whatever it was they're doing. 

My online classes were a bit of a joke. I only had a few kids show up and they were the ones who were already done!

Go figure the last class was when I discovered one of the platforms we used had a multi-user whiteboard.

We doodled for math! Out of six classes, I had two kids show up in two of them (my honors sections). Those kids were already done.

I spent my last office hours in the barn. Carrie called me down to help. The vet had been running late and Carrie had volunteered to look at a house with Laura (a neighbor's actually!).

Pro tip: Pulling on the horses tail can make them shift their weight onto the foot the vet is trying to x-ray.

Life tip: A good poop can relax anyone. In Ernie's case, it made him hold still long enough for a difficult angle!

I had maybe 2 kids shows up all virtual school during the period I offered to help. The day I expected none I had 2 (Doubled my attendance!). Both students were done with my class (and only one had any questions), so they hung out for a while and watched the vet work.

I had to put the foot down and help position Ernie after Carrie and Laura left!

Both students are interested in medicine, so I think they had fun.

It was a unique way to end online teaching.

The one drawback: I couldn't take any video while streaming my class. Poor Maddy is a hot itchy mess, but she was scratching her neck on a door in a way that looked like she was moving and grooving to a song! The student laughed and I really wanted a video to make a gif, but alas. It was drop the student from the call or drop getting a video.

Roughly 70% of my students finished by this point (out of 106). There were still 8 or 9 that hadn't started. The rest? I was hoping they'd do work over the weekend. Otherwise, I'd get to spend part of next week making phone calls.

COVID 19 - The Coronavirus: St. Patty's Day and Teaching From Home

St. Paddy's day was quiet this year. My siblings all started the day keeping my phone abuzz with leprechaun antics! I wish I was that creative, but it was a lazy year. I had been planning to where my kilt to school, but it got lost in the rush. I stuck with pajamas at home.

Carrie didn't make our big St. Paddy's day meal until the next night, but I did raise a glass with some of Mark's beer. 

I like the flavor and the name! ("Math is all about patterns!")

There were five days off school this week, but I swear I did at least two days of hard work (Maybe three if you'd factor in lunch breaks and kids talking to me so that I can't get grading done!).

This guy made it a challenge. Any time I wanted to focus on something he'd pop up and just start talking. Or he'd chase the dog into the room and have to turn it into a barking circus under my chair instead of anywhere else! Blog work and school were tough to accomplish (This is why I normally go to work on workdays even when I could stay at home!).

I did a solid four hours of grading on Tuesday, because Shane got into Sim City and I just let it ride. I counted it as math work for homeschooling!

Shane popped up and I made him get lunch and some other stuff in that time window. I felt great once I had caught up on ALL my paper grading.

Wednesday was our second (and now weekly) virtual meeting. I waited to hear what was going on before I started updating my Schoology page, so that I wouldn't have to backtrack on anything I did.

My plan is to update every workday to keep connected. Right now, there's no new work allowed or anything, but I'm trying to keep little things consistent. I have one student who helps me pick a word of the day. I tend to post a picture of what's happening at the barn or if Loki or Shane does something funny. I wanted kids to know I'm still available AND accepting any late work they want to email in.

Shane helped me make an intro video with my school account. We did it in one take rather than practicing!

I kept up the updates all week just to emphasize "I'm here! I haven't changed!"

Friday I had to send out an email to check in with all of my 3A student families. Most didn't write back, but it's something I'm supposted to/going to do each week after the Wednesday virtual meetings.

I thought I'd fully catch up on my blog this week, but Shane, chores, and horses kept me super busy. I played a game with Matt, John, and Patrick Thursday night, but was barely on anything else the whole week. My downtime was either spent reading The Eye of the World or watching something with Carrie after Shane was asleep (We've started Picard).

Carrie's been super busy with the horses and the barn which will be the subject of my next post.

COVID 19 - The Coronavirus: First Days at Home

It was a short commute to work for us on Monday!

The horses kept us busy over the weekend and it seems like they're going to keep us busy going forward. Sam's started to stop partway through his door to demand scratches before he'll head off into the field.

Annie gets a special mention today. Our new normal is starting with one less horse. She's going away for training.

Four horses was never the plan. We picked up Annie to help out our friends Sonya and Jeff. Nibs is older and was sent to a trainer, Torrie, to learn how to support a rider. The plan was to have Nibs spend 3 months learning how to work and then she'd come back in May when Kitty moved out. Then it would be Annie's turn to go off and learn how to be ridden.

We got offered a deal. Torrie's moving to SC to get married. She wasn't planning on picking up new prospects, but with the virus and social distancing her events have all been canceled. Suddenly, she has more time than expected and offered us a discount. Carrie likes her work with Nibs, and Torrie was already cheaper than who Carrie was planning on sending Annie to.

We talked it over and decided to go for it. Carrie's hoping that having the same trainer work with both horses will help us have a better comparison between them for how much they could sell for and what homes would be a goof fit for them.

It meant we had to do some extra work Monday morning. Carrie decided to 'ace' Annie to keep her calm for the ride. I got to distract her and hold the lead rope while Carrie found the vein.

I gave Shane my phone and asked him to take some pictures to keep him busy.

There's no need to shower or fix your hair when working from home! I was still in pajamas to boot.

Kitty was shocked.

She kept looking off into the arena and calling out to her friend. You could tell she was lonely. She started to stand closer to Maddy after a while and life went on.

Shane and I stayed home this time. I got to deal with all sorts of things from homeschooling to Happy barf with worms wriggling around in it.

We've wormed her multiple times and she's started to avoid food with the medicine in it. Genevieve is being awesome and sending us prescription strength wormer (she works at a cat clinic).

In between keeping Shane busy, I had a virtual meeting at noon. 

I put on a hat to hide the bed head, but then discovered I could join the meeting with the camera off. I muted myself for good measure (Shane kept trying to yell to me across the house, because Shane).

A bunch of other people didn't get the "mute your mic" memo and kept talking over the principal. I typed in chat that people could pose questions there and an AP said, "Yes!" and took over moderating.

Everyone is trying to figure out how to do virtual school when not all kids can access virtual school. At the moment, the guidance from the state is:

1. Stay closed at least two weeks.
2. Nothing graded allowed those two weeks.
3. No new materials either (unless you're an AP class).

ACPS has said that we need to provide some sort of enrichment material that can't take more than 2 hours to complete in a week. They've extended the school wifi to reach into school parking lots so people without access can use it and there are food distribution sites set up at schools to help the families who rely on schools for food. We will have a virtual meeting Wednesday with more info and it's planned to become a weekly event.

The schools were closed for all business except picking up materials. Shane's school opened to distribute student laptops for 3rd-5th graders, but we opted to stick with what we have.

Carrie came back with more work. She'd dropped by the supply store near Raphine (trailer accessible!). We cleaned out the trailer and did some afternoon work in the barn.

We were all cleaned up and ready for when the vet came that evening. Loki hasn't had a bad vet experience yet and was happy to run and greet the doctor.

Carrie had fecals for all the horses labelled and ready to go. Sam and Maddy earned some special attention.

They're going to the tough love fat camp this week. Sam was estimated over 1400 lbs and needed to slim down to ~1250 lbs. Maddy was estimated around 955 lbs and needed to drop into the 800's (800-850 lbs preferred).

It's good for Sam, but critical for Maddy. After she displayed some aggravation with Shane riding (and he's little) Carrie's kept an eye on her. She seemed a little resistant on the lunge a few times and the vet agreed with Carrie's assessment.

The vet said she thought Maddy was pre-laminitic. Carrie described it to me as "like diabetes in horses, but not diabetes. It affects the hooves." Fresh spring grass is higher in sugars and our fields are sprouting beautifully.

Maddy won't be out on them. She's going be trapped on stall rest with a controlled diet of hay (maybe even soaked hay if she'll eat it).

Sam got pulled in as moral support (No one wants to go to fat camp alone. Especially a herd animal!).

Maddy broke out of fat camp that night.

I'd heard her banging when I went to bed. She'd been complaining about being in the stall ever since the vet left.

We changed out almost all of the stall doors and hinges. Guess who's we hadn't yet?

Nibs was the first one to bust a door. Sam was the one Carrie worried about, because he kept impatiently bumping his chest up against his door. I'd forgotten that Maddy broke one, too.

The cheapo builder screws stripped and several of them broke when Carrie tried to reuse them.

Quite annoying.

It'd not a hard process. It's been on the docket for a while, but it's easier with two people and it was normally dark and cold whenever I made it home through the winter.

It's a good example of why it's good not to put something off for too long, though. There's only one old style latch left in the barn and it's in an unused stall. We took off all the inner ones when we switched to metal stall gates.

That's a big post dealing almost entirely with Carrie, me, and horses. My next post will talk more about how I'm planning to keep this guy busy while at home.