2021

 As of right now, our business will remain closed until at least March -- we'll reevaluate in January as we see how things are going with the COVID pandemic.

I read that CNN has a new special on the 1918 Pandemic. It showed that there were groups then who were anti-masking and met to protest the ordinance. Politicians in some cities ignored the virus and held big parades resulting in thousands of cases. According to the report, many authorities outright lied about the seriousness of the pandemic and people were happy to stay in denial. If history repeats itself, we may be in for a longer wait than the first quarter of 2021.  

The Trout Derby at Roman Nose State Park is being planned for the first weekend in February instead of March (a Chamber of Commerce event).  I will be stepping down from the board of the Friends of Roman Nose State Park and won't be involved with the planning of events they put on. There are new people involved and I hope everything works out well for the Trout Derby.  The Cheese Festival is scheduled for the first Fri and Sat in October 2021, and plans are being made by the Chamber of Commerce for that event.  I've made an application to host a traveling Smithsonian exhibition through Oklahoma Humanities and hope to get word in the next week or so whether or not our site is selected as a host community.  It would be ideal to have it during the Cheese Festival in October 2021 but no date is certain as of right now. 

There is no word on the April Roman Nose Hills trail ride yet.  Not much can be planned definitively until we see how things shake out after the first of the year as far as spikes in COVID and distribution of the vaccine, which isn't going very well right now.  Things could speed up with more vaccinations being given but as of right now the U.S. is far behind.  I saw a recent report about vaccinations in Chicago, broken down by specific areas. One area on the southside of Chicago received thousands of doses of vaccine but as of this week only 50 vaccinations in that particular area have been given. That is a frightening report. 

Winter weather is hitting hard here this week, so I'll be spending time indoors, binge-watching movies and series on Netflix!