December 29th 2021

Dear friends and family,

I send you warm winter wishes and a happy New Year. Fall has overall treated me quite well and it is hard for me to believe that the end of 2021 has arrived. Work for me has mostly reached a steady state that is acceptable. I have been able to work from home quite a bit as most of my meetings continue to be virtual, but I started teaching in person again. It’s nice to see people on campus, but I also appreciate the freedom of the virtual meetings as they do not tie me to campus or Cincinnati. My research conveyor belt continues to revolve, and I am very happy and proud to have finally published a neat collaborative study that uses isotopes in feathers to predict where juvenile birds were born and raised. Our UC Media office wrote a little blurb about the piece if you’d like to learn more (uc.edu/news/articles/2021/09/feather-analysis-allows-researchers-to-track-wide-ranging-hawks-and-falcons.html).

We celebrated Mom’s birthday with her in Michigan. We got to ride on a reconstructed historic sloop called “Friends Good Will” and also visit the Gilmore Car Museum, which has a very impressive collection of very impressive cars. We then spent our anniversary in early October on Mackinac. Fall was definitely in the air in northern Michigan early October, and we enjoyed this little preview of one of my favorite seasons. We winterized the house when we left as we likely won’t be heading up there again until the Spring. I am amazed at how much we have accomplished in one year.

Back in Cincinnati, it took awhile for Fall to really take hold, but when it did, it was quite lovely. We had an opportunity to have a picnic with my Mom’s cousin Gerry in Columbus in early October, and my brother Scott decided to join us, which was really nice as we haven’t seen him for a couple of years. Our friend Andy reinstated his tradition of visiting us for Halloween and we had absolutely amazing weather. Normally Halloween is both cold and wet, but this year it was clear and gorgeous. People were able to wear their costumes (I was a pirate) and we set up a little table outside.

In November, Matt was invited to give a talk in New York City and I got to tag along. It was wonderful. We stayed in the Lower East Side on a street called Ludlow, which was very easy to remember since that’s also the name of our neighborhood. The weather was also pretty darn nice, and consequently, we were able to walk all over the southern half of the city (including China town, The Battery, Chelsey, The Highline, Soho and Greenwich Village). The western edge of Manhattan has a distinctively Toronto-like flare along the waterfront. I also caught up with an old family friend over lunch, which was really nice. New York restaurants have implemented a street dining scene that surpasses any I have seen elsewhere. Nearly every venue has a little outside space (taking up part of the street). These range from open decks to stylish spaces with roofs, windows, lighting, and heating. We ate sophisticated food and drank sophisticated wine.

Immediately upon returning from New York, we hosted Thanksgiving. My Mom and Matt’s brother, his wife Lauren, and their son Oscar, all joined us in Cincinnati. We collectively cooked for several days and made a true feast, but otherwise the week was pretty laid back. Oscar is about 15 months old and the last time we saw him he wasn’t even crawling. Now he’s walking and very alert, but he behaved very well and even the bunnies enjoyed spending time with him.

Fall semester ended in early December and Matt and I headed to Colorado to spend a few days with my Dad. As always, we had a great trip. Dad made us his killer cheese fondue and also a delightful German confection called Apfelkuchen. We got to see some family friends (some of whom we have not seen in a very long time, like since I was a toddler), and unexpectedly, we even got to help exercise a gyr falcon, which was truly a special treat. These are very impressive birds – bigger and faster than a peregrine. The bird we met, called “Storm” is trained to follow a drone equipped with a lure (and some chicken). The drone headed up, we unhooded the bird, and then up, up, up she circled. Under ideal conditions, Storm can gain up to 1000 feet of elevation, but it was relatively warm when we saw her and she only made it to about ~ 600 feet. She grabbed the lure, landing on a road near us, and the drone came back down.

Matt also experienced his first true Colorado windstorm. It was definitely intimidating with gusts >90 mph, but it was also invigorating. Our plan was to have lunch with Dad’s cousin Betty at a very special tea house in Boulder, but the wind curtailed that plan. We navigated downed trees on the road into town, arrived nice and early, and ordered our tea, and then the power went out. So… we drank tea (quite a bit of tea) for about an hour, and then headed elsewhere in search of food. Dad took us on a scenic tour through North Boulder and we ended up in the little community of Niwot, which has a tavern that had exactly what each of us was craving. We left Colorado filled with warm and fuzzy feelings, had a couple of days to catch up on things in Cincinnati, and then headed to State College, PA to see Matt’s family. My mom joined us and it was wonderful to get to spend time with [nearly] everybody in one place. We enjoyed a few very relaxed and undemanding days.

Now we are back in Cincinnati and I’m getting my ducks in a row for the Spring Semester. It’s technically Winter but the weather is still quite mild. Earlier this week we enjoyed temps of nearly 70°! This is radically different from last year, when it was something like 10° at the end of December. I also recall more than one semester where we had very appreciable amounts of snowfall in early December (to the degree that school was cancelled). Although it’s rather disconcerting, we’ve definitely appreciated the good weather. It has given us an opportunity to deal with some house-related things, like replacing exterior doors on the house, and also go on some really nice walks around the city. We continue to discover new and interesting routes that allow us to crisscross much of Cincinnati on foot in ways that would never be possible with a car or bike. It’s wonderful exploring like this, and I now have a much deeper appreciation for the city and its history than I did previously.

As the year draws to a close, I am reflecting on all of the good things that are in my life. I am grateful for my friends and family, my home, job, and health. I look forward to being able to travel again more freely and see friends, colleagues and family in places that are currently inaccessible. Hopefully that will be possible in 2022.

Take care and Happy New Year!