it's only (the) fair

July 4th. It rained, the bugs returned. As did the heat. And yet, it's July 4th. Such an important date for us, that you can forgive the sometimes superficial trappings that go along with it. Here are a few that have a very clear association with this day, for who knows what reason: grilled meats (150 million hot dogs will be eaten in America on the 4th), firecrackers in your back yard (only 10% of all fireworks are set off professionally; the ER visits this evening will be numerous), red-white-and-blue something -- t-shirts, maybe paper plates for that picnic, or the dessert served after all the grilled meats. I'm thinking cupcakes with red white and blue sprinkles, or "cherry lemon and grape" popsicles.

And yet, this year, it's very hard to think about We The People, when we the people have such different ideas about what makes a country great.  

I read many articles today about what it means to be an American. And how we should think about celebrating the 249th "birthday" of the US. Our own take on this day is... well, our own! Somewhat predictably, it had no grilled meats, it had absolutely no firecrackers, and we aren't really flag types, so not much of red white and blue was in display on farmette lands. Just some flowers: blue flax in the meadows, white alyssum in the tubs, red lilies scattered throughout. 

So what did we do today that was singularly special? We went to the Stoughton Fair.

 

The morning was wet. The rains stopped just as I stepped out to clip lilies and feed the animals (315 spent lily blooms today), but the garden was one wet canopy of leaves and petals. If it weren't for the Return of the Avengers (aka mosquitoes), I'd say it was especially beautiful in its dripping state. More lilies had opened up, and once the sun poked through the clouds, the garden sparkled!

We ate breakfast on the porch. Dance was in disgrace (she has been a messy farmhouse girl) and we pretty much ignored her as she sought our favor.

Ed looked up the program at the Fair and we set a time for our visit to it.

Stoughton is a small town just to the south east of Madison. With strong Norwegian roots, so that even on the 4th, the flags on Main Street are a mix of American and Norwegian.

 

 

If you travel at 35 miles per hour it will take you 35 minutes to get from here to there. (Guess how I know that?!) And every year (for 99 years now) it holds a very traditional fair on its fairgrounds, right on the weekend that is closest to the 4th of July. 

We've gone to it before. Many times. We love the farm animals on display there, and it is especially awesome to watch the kids take such great care of them (most of the animals at the Fair are presented by 4-H clubs). They're farm kids of course. Who else is going to give love and attention to a cow or a goat? You really get a slice of rural America when you go to such fairs, and it's a slice that leaves you smiling all day long, despite everything.

Ed suggested I take Rosie (he follows behind on his motorbike). That was a brilliant idea! The day was perfect for it and the ride there and back was along rural roads that were empty and beautiful. 

The Stoughton Fair is free (though there are rides and booths as well -- we ignore all that) and you can just park your moped, or car, and walk around to your heart's content. Which is what we did. I'm going to post just a few photos from our walk. All you need to imagine is the rumble of fans in the animal sheds and the smell of hay and manure. And very many, very beautiful animals with their caretakers hanging out, napping, or working hard to make their animal shine.

(prize winning "Polish" chicken, though by name only as this breed originates in the Netherlands)

Ed had noted that there would be a pie eating contest in the main hall at 1pm. We make our way to it.

Anyone can participate and you get your choice of banana or chocolate cream pie. It's all about speed. You cannot use your hands. 

(on the left, the second place winner, on the right -- third place)

The top three were all men. No surprise there.

(the winner)

 

It is actually quite gross to watch, as the eaters eventually have to dump the pie out onto the table and sort of lick it from there. The announcers assured the audience that the tables were sanitized  beforehand. Maybe.

Once the winners were announced (first place guy ate it in 6 minutes), Ed and I wandered over to the other displays: a craft contest, a corn growing contest...

 

 

... a baking contest, even a photography contest. I'd say that the animals at the Fair were all first class stuff. The rest of the displays and awards? Well, it was very... local. I would, for instance, have no trouble beating the baked blueberry muffin entry. Though honestly, I would not be able to score high in the cake decorating contest, given the judges' preferences:

And then it was time to ride home. Such a good way to spend this day! (Capped for me with a long Zoom on the porch with Bee back in Poland.) As for dinner? Well, I have all these veggies from our CSA box. How about a stir fry of peas, asparagus and scallion, with some shrimp, in a Vietnamese sauce? And Swiss chocolate for dessert. America is a compilation of nationalities and ethnicities. And so is our 4th of July dinner.

Happy 4th to you!

with love... 

isn't this the perfect day to...

 ... wear bright pink shorts? On an impulse I ask Ed this morning -- should I wear my raspberry red shorts or my denim ones? I never ask him this stuff because he doesn't care and I don't care either. I have 7 pairs of shorts, I run through them in the course of the week. But I added this bright pair this year and they seem almost too bright. So I hesitated. Ed pretended he had an opinion on this: wear the bright pink ones. And so I did.

As on every July day, I begin with plucking spent lilies. The numbers are not big yet. Still in the 200s. Nonetheless, the signs of a good lily season are there!

 

(um, I'm trying to grow a Clematis over that stump, buddy!) 

 

 

(perhaps you've noticed -- I love to pair lilies with phloxes)

(a mix of day lilies and true lilies)

It really is a pretty time of the year and because we've had neither excessive rains nor excessive dry spells, the flower beds look healthy and vibrant. And reasonably weed free!

I'm ready for a breakfast of Madison Sourdough pastries and so I put in my order and set out to pick them up. Not in the usual way (by car), but on Rosie the Vespa-wannabe. 

Ed found me a used moped on Craigslist about a dozen years ago. It's actually quite lovely. Deserving of the name Rosie. Initially it had some mechanical (slow start) issues, but Ed has been patiently working through them and the moped is now in great working order. He asked me the other day if I will ever ride it again, given that I haven't taken it out for several years now. If it's to stand idle, I might as well sell it. Someone would surely appreciate it. The trouble is - I don't know what the future holds. Will Rosie be useful again? I've been so pleased with my electric bike (Alpine Blue) that I always choose it over the moped. 

Why don't you ride it to the bakery? -- Ed asks. Then you can see how you feel about it.

And of course, it feels grand. It's just the perfect day for a moped ride and Madison Sourdough is a great destination -- too far for a pre-breakfast bike ride, but ideal for a moped, as all the speed limits going there and back are within her capabilities. (Rosie maxes out at 35 mph (56 k), though downhill she can accelerate to 40.)

I recognize that Rosie's usefulness is limited. She's a fair weather friend. Awful in windy or wet days. Maybe it's better to let her go?

Then I step into Madison Sourdough. As usual, it's crowded, but I preordered and prepaid, so I avoid the line and walk over to the shelves where they keep our purchases. A woman, about my daughters' age, stops me and says -- Oh my God, you are killing it! I'll have to tell my husband...

So here's the question: is it because I have my motorbike helmet on and she was impressed with seeing wisps of gray hair sticking out at the sides? Or was it my raspberry pink shorts? Or how about the Baggu bag that I slung across my shoulder -- so fashionable, a daughter gift of course? Or maybe the combination of raspberry pink shorts, gray hair, and helmet, with a sack of croissants? 

I'll never know, but as I pull into our driveway...

... I think to myself -- Rosie has to stay. I'm killing it! How often do I get that kind of a reaction? I'm not giving her up! 

(a very leisurely breakfast on the porch) 

 

 

 

 

In the afternoon Ed and I go to our local farmers market. I haven't taken my bicycle out since I left for Europe. I suggest we bike over, select our market stuff, and continue down another couple of miles to pick up our last CSA box of veggies for the year. He hesitates. It's 91F (33C) outside. Don't you think it's a little hot for biking?  No I don't. You've been out on your bike, I haven't. I need a little leg action. You can take your motorcycle if you prefer. No, I'll bike along with you.

It's a hilly ride. By the time we reach the market, Ed is downright dizzy. I tell him to wait for me and I'll spin over for our CSA box, but of course, telling Ed to give up on something is pointless. Our exchanges go something like this: Are you sure you're okay? I'm okay. Would you tell me if you weren't? Nope.

Natalie is at the market (I get a small bouquet of flowers from her). She offers to run us home in her truck, bikes and all. I tell her thanks, but no thanks. Ed'll pass out before he'll take that kind of help. And maybe not even then. 

We stroll the market, pick up cheese curds, a loaf of the black walnut sourdough bread, and hey, a first batch of local blueberries!

And then we bike uphill all the way for our veggie box and I swear Ed is so overheated he almost looks pale to me. Ghostly. And still he continues. 

 

 

 

We'd left our market purchases with Natalie so that they wouldn't get thrashed around in my basket on the hot ride, and we stop at her stand on our way back to load up my bike with all our fruits, veggies, cheeses, breads and flowers.

We come into our air conditioned house and it feels like heaven to have a cool kitchen to unpack in, a cool living room to rest, a cool glass of water to sip, and a cool bunch of cats to feed their evening supper!

It was a really lovely day.

  

obsolete? I don't think so...

A morning like so many others in July: warm, with a touch of sunshine. I walk the flower fields snipping lilies. Still low on the count: about 240 spent flowers today. Let me correct that: spent lilies. In the course of the morning, I also pinched off some two hundred spent petunias and another hundred or more marguerite daisies from the tubs. There will come a day when I will have had enough. I'm nowhere near that moment yet!

(Such stunning color: like a goblet of a rich Pinot Noir!)

(or do you prefer something with a lemon twist?)

(a check of the roadside bed)

(by the walkway to our back door, which we use 100% of the time as the front door)

(a fragment of the Big Bed with a fragment of a hen)

We eat breakfast on the porch. 

 

 

 Sometimes Ed is sleepy for the morning meal. Sometimes he's attentive. Today, he is feisty. 

My haircut person (whom I saw Monday) told me how happy she was that her son got into (through a lottery) a dual language kindergarten classroom. If he stays with the program, he'll be guaranteed a language fluency very quickly. I mention to Ed that I heard an expert say on NPR this morning that in order to speak a language like a native, without that telltale accent of your place of birth, you really need to learn it by age 12. After that it's just very very hard (perhaps impossible) to shed traces of your learned pattern of pronounceation after that. I've said this before and I repeat it now -- I wish schools here would start teaching languages before kids enter Middle School.

Ed shrugs. Pretty soon, learning another language will become obsolete. Goodle translate is getting to be that good. 

I see we are going to have that discussion today. 

Since Ed has given up on travel (at least my kind of travel, where you actually pay for a hotel room, a shower and a toilet, booked in advance), he has found every reason to believe that spending time in another country is unnecessary to your growth or well being. I've come across this before -- people who claim to get as much from reading books or watching films and who find travel to be a burden, a waste, and a strain. I don't have issues with people not liking travel. I get it: it gets to be expensive, energy consuming, stressful. And yes, I'm sure many people are more informed about the culture of another land by imersing themselves in texts and films than they would be if they were herded like sheep from one iconic art piece to another, shoulder to shoulder with people just like them -- tourists, with no real contact with the communities they visit. Sure. I get that.

But as I tell Ed this morning -- it's not the same. You get something from being surrounded by people who are not like you. And you especially get something if you try speaking the language of those people, I try to analogize it to his world of machines. Listen, we watch Just a Few Acres, where Pete the farmer walks us through his daily routines and spends not a small amount of time explaining how he restores old tractors. The fact that he understands the mechanics of everything in that engine puts him at another level of comprehension than would be the case were he to simply plug in an error code into a reader and get his information from that source. Google translate is not the same as speaking a language.

Of course, he persists. Still, I don't need to know a language to communicate or get exposure to another culture. And in any case, you don't get much exposure by simply popping into a country for a few days, staying in comfortable places and then going home. 

Here's where I get slightly exasperated: I know you are proud of your sleeping in a ditch in South America, hitchhiking across Mexico, hanging out in Cuba for a month. But those trips, glorified in your mind, were a long time ago and not for a minute have you ever been or will you ever be treated as a local while traveling abroad. And especially not with your Google translate. And here's a fact: you can think me to be uninformed in any number of domains, but having lived back and forth between Poland and the US all my life -- a few years here, a few years there, as a Pole, as an American, as a Pole, as an American -- puts me miles ahead of you on the subject of cultural understanding and assimilation and especially the absence of either.

We don't often get into discussions about travel. About languages. About assimilation. About American isolationism. Ed surely is a globalist in that he favors (as I do) immigration that fills many voids in the American employment market place, to say nothing of being the vehicle for innovation and growth. He is (as I am) an American who believes in multiculturalism, seeing it as a good thing rather than some kind of an impediment to prosperity. And yet he stays put, nose buried in reading material, avoiding direct contact with something brazenly foreign. Again -- all good until I hear from him that this is "just as good and perhaps better than going places." Go ahead, stay home, you'll not be harmed by it, but you are then missing a layer of understanding that comes from direct exposure, and especially if accompanied by an attempt to speak the language that is not yours.

Feel free to disagree, but I'm pretty convinced on this point. (Even though this is not why I travel to Europe so often. I do that because I like a break from being home and I like Europe. But not in July. July is flower field time!)

 

 

 

My sweet, sweet Ed! When we first became a thing, a couple, a partnership, he worked hard to convince me that we have common ground. He actually had more than one pair of shorts then and twice (but only twice) he agreed to go t-shirt shopping with me. I picked out 3 cheap shirts at Gap that I still think are my favorites, torn and ragged that they are. Over the years we have both relaxed, giving the other more room to explore preferences that we know are not shared. And yet, we share a ton. We know to go gently when a choice is directly in opposition to the choice of the other. We know to ask (or at least give notice) before we disappear into our own worlds. And we know where we are alone in our thoughts and beliefs. Our morning discussion was nothing more than a conversational game. I know his approach to travel, he knows mine. And never the twain shall meet.

Coincidentally, I came across an article tonight in the Economist focusing on the benefits of bilingualism. It appears that cognitive benefits are greatest for the young and the old (and less obvious for the middle aged). If Ed is at all correct and people will, over time, forgo foreign language acquisition (because of Google translate or the like), then we will all become dumber than we already are. A frightening thought.

 

In the afternoon, I run errands. UPS, RX, USPS. Drop off this, pick up that. I should have biked, but most stops are on busy streets and you get spoiled biking as we do along paths or quiet rural roads. And I do my annual vacuum and cleaning of the car. A year of debris. Car cookies, an odd french fry. A sticky straw once filled with honey. Crumbs, wood chips, dirt. A year of memories I suppose. Time to make new ones!

In the evening, Ed bikes, I watch fireflies outside and read my fifth Tana French book. This is the summer of Irish mysteries! Perfect for losing yourself in stories that are not your own. 

with love... 

and now it's July

Spring, coming as it does with spring flowers, is exhilarating.  That sudden appearance of color -- yellow, pink, blue, the fruit tree blossoms, the lilacs -- it's all brilliant. But the fact is, when I think about my flower fields, when I buy additional perennials, when I strategize on how to fill spaces with blooms, I am really thinking about July. This is the month for my lilies. Yes, I've had some blooming already in June and I will have some more continuing into August, but July offers that potpourri of lily color that I love. And it gets better and better as the month progresses. You'll never get me to leave the farmette for long in mid July.

So here we are: the start of the big flower month. I work so hard for its glory. In these 31 days I reap some of the biggest rewards.

Two good things happened today: the humidity went down and so did the mosquito population -- the latter with a small assist from us. We allowed some areas to be sprayed with the "natural" mosquito deterrent. It's supposed to scare them away and in the past it's been pretty effective, though for a very short period of time. Maybe a handful of days. After that, you either repeat it, or live with whatever bugs stubbornly are still there. Last year two sprays did the trick for the summer: the swarms were dispersed and the stubborn ones that stayed were manageable. We'll see what this year will bring.

Because we were focused on doing bug control, I kept the animals under lock for the first morning hours. I did snip the lilies very early -- maybe around 250 today (I got interrupted in my count), still slapping away at the disgusting blood suckers but by late morning, I could finally do some outdoor work without the constant buzz in my ear of these horrid disease bearing pests. 

 

(day lilies to the left, true lilies to the right)

(it rained again last night)

I've been much more careful with the back ends of the flower beds this year. Weeds removed, new lilies (day and true) and cone flowers planted. I don't think anyone can see these from the walkways, but I know they're there! And when I plunge into a field to do some weeding, I come across these very pretty scenes.

 

(A real peachy pinkie!)

(Meanwhile, plunging into the Big Bed...)

We eat breakfast in the kitchen. Ed claims there is a faint smell to the stuff they used on the mosquitoes. I think he imagines it, but he is convinced that we should wait a good hour before resuming outdoor activities. I tell him that if he's smelling anything, it's my freshly baked granola, which indeed has a strong and very lovely aroma, but once he has the idea that there is a whiff of something out there (think, for example, scented candles), he insists on keeping his distance until things settle down once again.

He asks me what my next project is for the yard. Well now, the fact is that unless the unexpected happens, the heavy work is behind me. Right now it's all about maintenance. I do spot checks and small corrections all day long. It's delightful stuff! Sure, I do sometimes get sucked into heavier work -- today I pulled out roots of saplings that have grown quite high at the base of the crab apples. But for the most part, my work at the moment is easy compared to all that I have done between April 15th and now!

(these are such July colors!)

 

 

In other news, today Ed's new wallet arrived. I mention this because pages of writing would not describe this guy as well as one photo would. I'd been gently suggesting that he get a new wallet for many, many years. His stock answer to this and anything else is -- this one will do. Until this weekend when he reached into what once was a wallet and felt that things were rather loosey goosey in there. Could I get him a nice new one? No indeed. He found one that he likes on Amazon. $9.99. Here's a picture of the old one. I asked if he perhaps would like to put it up on Craigslist. I swear, he hesitated.

Evening. I make chili with fresh tomatoes. We finally finished last year's crop! The freezer box in the basement is waiting for a new harvest. Ed's tomatoes in the newly fenced in area are doing well so far. 

It's a fine year to be growing things in south central Wisconsin!

 

 

 

with love... 

how did we get here

Who introduced you to your hobbies? Are they new to you, or have you nurtured them all your life? Are there many?

I've been thinking about mine. I think there are many. Most I've had all my life. I've wanted to be writer of some sort since I was 12. I have taken many photos with a camera every month (and eventually every day)  since an even younger age. Reading? Oh yes, forever. Cooking? Skiing? Traveling? At 18 years I kicked off all three, with abandon.

Gardening came a little later. 

I watched my grandparents work the soil all my childhood years (I spent most summers in their village home in Poland). My grandpa was the flower grower. My grandma did the vegetable patch. I did ask at some young age if I could plant my own flowers and was told  -- go for it. Here's a patch of soil underneath your bedroom window. Put in seeds, watch them grow. I did put in seeds and then promptly neglected them, expecting miracles to happen without my input or attention. Of course, nothing came of it. I shrugged and never thought about planting anything again until I moved to Madison and invested in a place with a sunny balcony (1980 -- I was 27 then). I thought -- wouldn't it be nice to fill it with pots of flowers. I went overboard. And from then on, I've always gone overboard with planting flowers in whatever form or fashion, wherever I could.

It's not impossible to start in on new hobbies when you are much older. But I think it's significantly tougher to get blown away by them then. You can't help but feel your novice status. It's tough to be completely incompetent at something at age, say, 72. Whatever skills I have in growing flowers, they've come about through years of mistakes, omissions, failed experiments. You don't gain that sort of knowledge overnight or from taking a class. 

The funny thing about this passion of mine is that it could disappear overnight. I would not be able to live at the farmette and manage the land here without Ed's hlep. A couple of days ago a large portion of a willow tree fell down. Someone needs to take a chain saw to it. It's not going to be me. I can give you countless examples of things that happen here that I cannot attend to, or repair, or take care of. This place is ours. It could be just his. (He would simply let the flower fields go wild where I not here to take care of them.) It could never be just mine til I'm old and wobbly. Not without Ed here, on call to fix whatever suddenly falls apart.

Working the fields for me is an act of hope. And a belief in the beauty of the moment. It may all crumble at any time, but today I have this:

( a fragment of the long roadside bed)

The morning is lovely, if extraordinarily buggy. I convince Ed that we need to give the fields a "garlic plus" spraying tomorrow. It's impossible to snip lilies and be overrun with biting mosquitoes that no longer seem to regard Off as a deterrent. I only had 170 snipped lilies in my bucket, but I did want to finish up with the weed pulling over by the sheep shed. It was tough going!

 

 

 

 

 

(why a cat should be scared of a hen is beyond me.. ) 

 

Breakfast, on the porch.

Appointments, chores, and then back to work outside for as long as I could stand the bug slapping.

 

In the end, I also managed to see the two older kids today -- I caught up with them as they were leaving their Shakespeare group towards evening, because the parents had left something at the farmhouse last night and this was the best way of getting it to them.

 

A wave, a hug, and a smile and then I am back at the farmette, thinking that surely there are less laborious hobbies out there than digging, pulling and slapping myself in a futile effort to ward off the bugs.

And yet... I love those flowers. I know all of them. They are under my care. I'm going to make them shine!

(new this year: the climbing rose)

 

 

with love...