Earth Week: maintaining order

Last year on this date I had knee surgery. Eventually, the knee improved, but for the rest of the season, I struggled, trying to figure out how much work outside is too much for my new knee. Flower field maintenance had to be sporadic and superficial. 

I suppose my approach to flower field maintenance is always sporadic and verging on superficial, but this year, I'm devoting more time to it and the results should be good, if still very far from perfect. I trim bushes I haven't trimmed well for a long time. I dig out some of that scoundrel weed -- the creeping bellflower.

Let me sound off for a bit about the creepong bellflower. If you have been gardening for a while here is the northern Midwest, you have probably had to fight with it constantly. I have had it in all my gardens my entire gardening life and I can truthfully say it is the worst! It's indestructible! It's drought tolerant and will survive when all else fails! It can put out rhizomes deep into the ground and suddenly you have the plant appearing in a new place and there's precious little you can do to eradicate it. Sure, dig deep and poison the roots, but in an established bed that's pretty draconian. I'm not going to go the Glyphosate route. No way! But yes, I do try hard to dig it up or at least tug at it -- all millions of new plants -- so as to not let it go to seed, because that damn plant, after flowering, can produce 10 000 new seeds (one plant, 10 000 babies!) and before you know it everyone up and down the neighborhood will hate you for it.  So, I pull, I dig and I dont even make a dent, I'm sure, but at least I will not, let me repeat -- will not! -- let that pest get the upper hand!

All this counts as flower field maintenance. It doesn't have the glamour and glory of planting and so it may seem a little weird to count it as part of my celebration of Earth Week, but in fact, it may well be the most important thing that I do out there on farmette lands. I help some grow, I eradicate invasives, I plant, divide, transplant and (so important!) I dig out weeds. (You know who you are you creeping creep!!)

This is the first half of my day.

Of course, I had started with a walk to the barn to feed all six chickens.

And shortly after, Ed and I eat our breakfast.

And then he and I do our gardening tasks and there are many and they are never ending and they are important. 

In the early afternoon I pick up the kids. The rain comes, the kids run from the car to the house, I scramble behind with the various paraphernalia that accumulates on a school day, especially a day followed by music and dance lessons. Typical Friday stuff. But before scooting off for they lessons, the kids need to eat up and unwind. Each has her or his way of doing this.

And now it seems to be my habit that after drop offs, and after chats with my daughter, I go grocery shopping. Week's worth of food. Somehow Friday evening seems right for this. A bit odd, a bit normal. As I fill the cart, I turn toward today's supper. Here's a brilliant idea -- something I haven't done for years -- I buy prepared foods. I'm that tired.

Home again. Feet up, TV on, prepared foods, heated in the microwave, before us. Rain outside. Just what the flowers need. A perfect cap to a somewhat manic planting period!

with love...

Heaven on planet Earth

This is it! One last frosty night behind us and now we are done with it (I'm guessing here, but it is an educated guess). The warmup is here and I can finally take all wintered-over plants outside, and begin planting the tubs that circle the courtyard. The annuals will provide color all the way until October. They may be outnumbered by the perennials in the flower fields (way outnumbered!), but in fact, they are the bedrock of the farmette's flowering season. They will be blooming in mid June when nothing else seems to be showing signs of color, and they will be blooming in September when most perennials will have tucked themselves in for the coming cold spell. Most serious flower people intersperse annuals with perennials (Monet's Garden in Giverny comes to mind), but I've always preferred to separate the two, keeping them close, but to the side. And today, they can finally begin their season of growth and bloom.

Knowing that this is to be my big tub planting day, I get up very early. My walk to the barn is bouncy! First of all, there's still that night's chill in the air, secondly -- I want to get going!

First job: take out all the prefilled baskets onto the porch. Yes! It finally looks beautiful out there. The kitchen table is adorned now by grocery store tulips, garden daffodils and asparagus. Because guess what -- Ed found this year's first spears of asparagus in the farmette fields!

And now I'm ready to head out for my third (and last?) trip to Kopke's Greenhouse to pick up the tiny pots of annuals that will fill the tubs. And there are many containers to fill! [Ed saves last year's hanging baskets and I feel compelled, yes compelled to fill those as well, in addition to the tin tubs that we now use for annuals.]

But wait.

What's that noise up above? 

Five big hawks, swooping into the peach meadow (where the young hens often hang out), swooping into the courtyard (where the older girls like to hang out). I rush out and wave my arms wildly and ...hey, is one of them clutching something white? I run to the barn where I find five chickens. Five?! There should be six!

Ed! The hawks took one of the young girls!

Ed comes out. Are you sure?

Count them!

He counts the five. Have you looked everywhere?

I saw something white flash as the hawk swooped down to the meadow!

Two minutes later, Ed is calling from the barn. The sixth one isn't missing. She is laying an egg in the coop. Your reasoning is off: you see five chickens, you see hawks, you conclude one is taken. Poor deduction.

He's been after me with my hurried, unsound conclusions lately, pointing out a trickle of fallacies as I rush to move from one thing to the next. The guy has the luxury of time! Me, I'm in a perpetual hurry.

Too happy to see all six girls, too happy to be finally planting annuals, too happy in all ways to bother defending my honor, I wave good bye and head out to the greenhouse.

I fill twelve containers with flowers before I have to throw down the shovel and go get the kids. (Ed's in the old orchard, cutting down dead branches.)

I'm not sure the kids notice the new plant additions...

But the UPS delivery person sure does!  

And I notice. Indeed, I'm so determined to finish my planting that I go back to it after the kids are gone, working to fill another half dozen containers before dusk finally sets in.

Yes, dinner is insignificant (spinach and scrambled eggs) and very late.

As I toss the spinash and chop up lettuce for a salad, I think to myself -- it's April 25th and most of my planting work is done for this year! Remarkable. Truly remarkable.

Earth Week when you're... older

It's cold this morning. We didn't quite hit the freezing point, but we came close (and we expect to actually hit it tonight). I had grabbed my thick sweatshirt for my morning walk to the barn and I felt it was not good enough. Nonetheless, the sun's out and the plant life is looking just fine and the birds are everywhere and we are to have another lovely day. Cooler, but still radiantly beautiful.

So of course, given that it's Earth Week (at least in my head), you'd think that I'd hurry through breakfast and rush outside to continue with tending to the flower fields.

You would be wrong.

Breakfast is leisurely and loaded with flowers, because I'd snipped some more fallen daffies and I brought in the outdoor baskets that do not like this cool front that's passing through.

And then neither of us goes out. Too cold -- I say. Too lazy -- Ed mutters.

The reality? Too old. 

Too old to work day after day without pause. Too old to go out in that chilly air. Too old to run out and start digging immediately after breakfast.

 

Finally, after a very long pause, I head out. The goal today is to clear the space for the incoming blueberry bushes. I thought I could also dig some preliminary holes for those guys, but the clearing of the space took so long (saplings to cut back, sticky weed to pull out, old grape vines to redirect, fencing to take down, blackberry canes to cut back -- you get the picture), that I gave up on the digging and finished up the morning with some extra weed pulling in one of the flower fields instead.

Ed worked with me in the new orchard, tending to the neglected blueberries already there, and the chickens came out as well to see what we're up to...

And it was downright bucolic once we got going. But it did take us a while to get going. We are getting... older. The pauses are regenerative. We need to regenerate!

 

In the afternoon the kids are here.Happy to spend a little time on the farmette lands.

(with a violet behind the ear...)

(hugging the recycling can which, by the way, has all my purged papers and files in it!)

(tree frolic)

(making rainbows with the hose...)

(are there any strawberries yet??)

In the evening, Ed is off on his longer bike ride. I run the hose on the newly planted perennials. That's an easy task. Watering will get much more intense in the weeks ahead if we dont start getting our regular spring rainfalls. 

Tomorrow, I get to finally plant the annuals. A marker of mid-spring for sure!

Earth Week

Considering how closely related my activities were today to those of yesterday, I have good reason to call it Earth Day redux. Or simply -- day two of Earth Week.

I worked the earth. From early in the day, all the way until grandkid pick up time.  Yes, after animal care and garden inspection...

And after breakfast (for which I brought in the handful of fallen daffodils)...

(Dance, joining us)

I planted the strawberries in their funky hanging baskets in the new orchard. I planted a couple of milkweeds. I broke up and replanted a few false sunflowers. I moved some irises. And I weeded madly.

And here's the grand part -- I'd look up and see fields of daffodils, with a few surviving tulips mixed into their yellow mass.

And in the courtyard, I'd see the plump pink bulbs on the crab apple. And in the new orchard, I'd see masses of blossoms on the cherry trees...

And the hens grazed underneath pink buds,  and the the white clouds came and went...

How can you not feel overwhelmed by the beauty of it all -- that fresh green, the poking through colors. Magic, everywhere.

The kids were in their age appropriate after-school moods. 

 

  

 

Neither wanted to linger outside. Both were hungry, one was tired, one was thinking things through. The usual. Eventually they let go of their day's challenges and frustrations and exhaled.

And after they left, after our farro-cauliflower supper, after cleaning and clearing for the day, Ed and I exhaled too. Feet up, a chocolate split between the two of us. 

Frost is possible tonight. And tomorrow night. Earth Week let's me know that I am not the boss here! And that's okay...

with love...

Earth Day

I have not met a person who is more of the earth than Ed. Who feels subservient to its flourishing ecosystems. Who presumes nothing is his for the taking. It's not that he preaches restraint and respect for the environment to others. Not at all: Ed doesn't lecture or judge. Most likely, he assumes that the human species is flawed and hasn't the capacity to restrain its destructive ways. So long as there will be people, there will be environmental degradation. I'm guessing that this would be his view. [He once said, jokingly though not entirely, that he wonders if a sapient planet Earth invented humans merely for self protection: if we dont destroy the Earth first, we will figure out a way to keep it safe from being hit by an asteroid. At the rate we're going, I'd say that Earth did a gross miscalculation: we are too smart and too dumb -- all at the same time. This is our failing.]

On Earth Day, Ed does nothing different. He just goes on, setting an example to me (maybe to others, though probably not) on how to care about living things.

Me, I of course bring out the bells and whistles. Earth Day! No plastic use or discard on this day! Do the small stuff! Pick up the garbage! Don't acquire! Buying plants? By ones that are indigenous to your region. At least on this one day! 

None of this will make much difference, and yet, I subscribe to the idea of Earth Day, because it does raise awareness, especially in impressionable minds that haven't been totally warped yet by our profligate ways. I know that Snowdrop is out with her troop picking up plastics today, for example.

And so I love Earth Day, for the same reason that I loved my birthday -- it provides a focus and it makes us feel grateful for being here, today, on what is still a salvageable if a bit leaky ship -- the parched, overheated, overextended, dirtied yet still so very beautiful Earth.

Happy Earth Day. Stay focused. I dont agree with Ed that we are inherently out of control in our lifestyle choices. We can still plug up those holes....

*     *     *

I begin the day as usual.

And we have breakfast as usual. With the cat.

And then I go to Kopke's Greenhouses. It's trip number two this year and it wont be the last one. (I'm hoping the third will seal the deal.) I cant plant the tubs yet, but I can bring home trays of annuals and stick them in the mudroom until Thursday -- my bet for our frost free clearance this year!

I have no kids today -- they have a day off from school and a sitter to be with them. It's great timing for me because, guess what, the lilies have arrived!

Yep, the rest of the day is spent planting. Not so easy today. The bare root plant needs a deeper hole and the new extension of the Big Bed has a layer of good dirt, but it isn't thick. And underneath? Gravel. Worse than clay! I work the shovel with such vigor that my smart watch wants to call 911 for me because it is convinced I've flipped. Or something. 

And one of the older Bresse chickens is on my back, poking in her nose to get a worm, or two, or ten! 

And the tree roots weave their way underneath the soil.

And I see that the groundhog has been visiting: at least two of my plantings from yesterday have been dug up. I've been there before: once these guys hit a favorite spot, they keep coming back. I put the plants in, they dig them up. I put them in, they dig them up... and so on.

These are the challenges of spring gardening. I'm used to them. Again, I drink a cup of milky coffee, eat a Kind snack bar and get back to work. Until all 20 lilies are in the ground and some transplants are in their spot and the extension of the Big Bed is officially filled. Of course, it doesn't look filled. With perennials, you really cant revel in their magnificence until year two. Still, there will be growth and it will (eventually) look good!

Now comes the meditative part: the watering. 

And just like that, the perennial planting for this year is mostly done! Oh, there'll be the occasional transplants, and I'm sure to pick up a flower at the market every now and then. Too, I hadn't the strength to plant the strawberries today, and the blueberry bushes haven't arrived yet. But bringing in several trays of new baby perennials, and an armload of bare root lilies -- that's done. 

And I am one tired 71 year old! 

And dinner is late.

But it was such a good day once again!

with love...

birthday

Well, you already know this about me -- I absolutely love my birthdays. (Today I am 71.) From the first minute of wake up to the last minute of the evening. It all feels immensely special. It seems selfish, really -- to focus so much on your own milestone. But this is the beauty of it: on all other days I'm keeping an eye on those around me. They are my center point. Sure, there's time for doing stuff I like, but only if it fits into the greater picture. But on my birthday, I feel no hesitation in arranging the day in a way that makes me very very happy. Unpleasant tasks and boring chores are put off for another day. On a birthday, I see every reason to revel in the joy others bring you, on your hobbies and interests, on foods you love. This is the day for it. Release those happy endorphins! Let them take you on a sublime ride! Because if not today, then when?

It helps that my birthday falls on a Sunday this year and it always helps that it falls on the start of the fourth week of April. Living in south-central Wisconsin, I mark this as the beginning of the true planting season. Unfortunately, it's not a frost-free date (meaning we may still have nights with dips below freezing, as for example in the week ahead) and so I would take a risk if I plunged into planting annuals. Oftentimes I study the weather charts and I do take that plunge, but this year I really do have to wait until the end of the month. So no shopping for annuals and no planting of tubs today. But perennials are fair game! In they will go.

It is a stunning day of perfect sunshine and temps back up into the mid-fifties F (so topping at 13C). A brilliant day! An outdoors day for sure.

First, to the barn, to feed the hens and cats.

(Can you believe that a month ago everything was so bare and brown?!)

Then to the bakery to pick up breakfast foods. 

(just a short while ago I was watching to see if the waters of Lake Monona were still frozen...)

Ed has been with me through nineteen birthdays so he knows what's at play. Dutifully, he gives a loving card. And puts on a clean shirt. And lets me shave off the beard the night before. And supplies flowers for the table. And doesn't gripe about the self release photo at breakfast!

And then I take out all the perennials that have come in (missing still: the day lilies)...

And get to work. All day long, I plant. Interspersed with glances at messages from close friends and young families. (And I should note, that as always, we're splitting the celebration of this day into two parts -- today, because, well it is the 21st, and then secondly -- when the younger family comes up from Chicago at a slightly later date. So be warned, more birthday talk will follow.)

It is such a good day!

(The fields still belong to the daffodils, but they're slowly starting to fade. Oh, but they have been perfect this year!)

I pause for a quick cookie and coffee break and then I continue. All the way until evening.

I dont have to cook tonight. We go out to dinner with the Madison bunch, to Amara Restaurant, because it's a good midpoint between our homes and because it's Italian-based cooking and that means that everyone will be happy.

(Presents! With all three grandkids at my side.)

It's a bit of a wait for dinner, but I surely don't mind. I sit back with my Spritz drink and take in every detail, every moment. 

(Ed plays tic tac toe with Snowdrop. I think he's winning this one...)

And the food is so good, and the kids are so excited, and yes, there's cake!

There's a lot of lingering afterwards. Well, not for Ed who has to dash off to put away the chickens. And the boys have had their fill of lingering, so they go out for a walk with their dad. And still, my daughter and her daughter and I linger...

 

Until the evening chill and the lateness of the hour force us to return to our homes.

At the farmhouse, Ed and I bring up episode 3 of Modern Love - Amsterdam. Yes, subtitles are involved, but I'll put up with them, because there is some guarantee that the episodes wont be awful, and some will be downright good. There aren't many romantic or funny shows that can promise you that. 

And we eat chocolates. And I exhale. Typically, after special days (holidays, vacations) you can expect a feeling of let down -- it's over. Have to wait until next year for another. But with my birthday it's never like that. I mean, it's spring, I have loads of planting still before me, and my garden still looks young and trouble free, and soon we'll be taking our morning meal outside and... well, life, as we know it, is so good! Frustrations, aches and tedious chores? Just something to make you stronger and more aware of your own privileged position on this planet. 

And speaking of which -- do not forget that tomorrow is Earth Day. A good time to pick up plastic trash littering public spaces, and to increase your awareness of the overuse of plastics in our everyday lives. Are we on board with that? Okay, then!

Good night and thank you: for being there, for reading, for being part of my community of good people.

with so much love...

Saturday, part 2

I have to say, there is some statement being made here: today is the last day that I am 70 and the day conspires to remind me that however much you have felt frustrations over the piddly things in your life as a 70 year old, they can get even more frustrating at any minute, so keep your whiny horses in the stable! 

Not that I found it to be tough to be 70. It was an interesting new configuration of physical and emotional challenges. In other words -- just like any other year, only with wiser and kinder overtones!

But today! Oh my, it had so much going for it and yet, the frustrations piled high.

First, the pleasant walk in the morning.

And the equally pleasant time over breakfast.

("try my apple jam that I made and froze (and forgot about) eleven years ago!" Um, that's okay. I'll stick with standard strawberry!)

But here's the thing: it's COLD outside. I mean, capital letters cold. Yes, I had lugged the annuals into the mudroom so they are safe, but still, it's unpleasant to do anything outdoorsy. Neither Ed nor I felt like working, walking, staying outside. At all. 

When we have an indoor day, we typically read a lot, often internet stuff. And I write some. Also on the internet. I settled in to frame the outlines of a post and boom! Blogger (my blogging platdform) crashed! The thing about platform crashes is that you never know the reason for it, or whether it's their fault or yours, and if and when their hosting services will be restored. Made worse by the fact that googling revealed no major outages that I could detect. So... I had to wonder -- is Ocean dead? A thing of the past? Did Google (the parent company here) kick Blogger in the butt and send it flying? Or kick me off for some misguided reason? Stuff like this happens all the time! Should I start setting up a new blog elsewhere?

These are not questions you ask initially. But as the afternoon progresses and you are blocked from accessing your posting page, you begin to wonder.

Ed suggested we go chocolate shopping and chicken feed buying. (They are on the same path.) That was the best part of the day! I was awarded 25 lovely chocolates (in anticipation of tomorrow) and at Farm & Fleet, we spent some time admiring the baby chicks and ducklings that had just come in. For your buying pleasure. Were we tempted? No, not at all, but we did ask a shopper a bunch of questions about the virtues of owning ducks. There are many, but still, we were not tempted! At all.

At home, I again fretted about the felled Blogger website and about the miserable weather. Our mudroom is packed with both the annuals and the arriving perennials that I surely for once had the time to plant, but it would have been too cruel to do that to them. They need a good start in life. 

But by evening, calmness prevailed. Blogger fixed itself, dinner didn't quite fix itself, but I gave it a good nudge and so there was a lovely salmon with asparagus and believe me, asparagus is getting to be really delicious now. Not local yet, but I can tell -- these young spears are of the season! 

And tomorrow? Ah, tomorrow! The testing of my patience and my ability to stay calm in the face of adversity, however big or small, is behind us.  Tomorrow promises to be just fine!

a very weird Saturday!

There may not be a post today. Not to worry, it's not me, it's my hosting platform. I will come back to this if I can tonight but honestly, Blogger (my platform) has been down most of the day so don't be surprised if you do not see me until... tomorrow! 

What a day...

the world according to Sandpiper

There is no doubt: birth order matters. In what way? That's a tricky one! The older kid will claim the younger one gets away with so much more! The younger kid will argue that the older one gets more attention, more care, more bandwidth. The truth is complicated. But what is certain is that the positioning of your birth will trigger consequences.

Here's one thing that is as sure as the sky is blue today (and it is very blue!): in my older daughter's family, Sandpiper, who will be three next month, has spent very little time alone with me. [You could argue that this isn't fair, but I think that misses the point. Birth order and the age of the grandparent are a given. You cant pretend them away. And, too, you could retort that perhaps he isn't missing much. Playing with a grandparent in her 70s may be challenging for the grandparent and not altogether satisfying for the child. And of course, he gets the benefits of having two sibs at home. They teach him things, whether they know it or not. My younger daughter learned valuable navigational skills while observing her sister go through ages and stages of life before her.]

The sweet thing is that despite our different kinds of meetups (not just the two of us, and not so much playing with toys together), Sandpiper is very bonded to me. I see him daily at evening drop offs and his enthusiastic "gaga!" when I appear is epic. I may pop into his life in different ways than I do for the others, but it is a way that he knows and loves. He doesn't worry that his two sibs have "more time" with me. He is happy with what is in place right now. Kids are much more adaptable that way. Only later, in their adult years, do they take on measuring sticks that other suggest for them: oh, I see that my grandmother organized her life to provide after school care for Snowdrop and then for Sparrow but I was left out of the picture. This is not his narrative now, but it may be later. Who can tell. As a grandparent, I do what feels right now, what addresses current needs and my capacity to fulfill them. I cannot worry about future narratives!

All this to say that this morning was uniquely different because, after feeding the animals and inspecting the flowers (the daffodils are in it for another few days)...

... I went over to Sandpiper's school for "grandparents' day."

For once, I was not distracted by sibs, by my felt need to monitor their interactions with each other. It was all about him.

If I had to describe that boy going through his morning of Montessori play (in case you dont know, the school ethos is to encourage individual choice in learning, so that the kids are left to choose their "works" and take responsibility for their implementation) -- I would say that two things stand out: the happy grin on his face and the dynamic way in which he flies from one thing to the next. None of this lethargic indecision for him!

I was there just short of an hour and he must have "presented to me" nearly a dozen play activities.

All executed so swiftly and smoothly that I'd swear he'd been rehearsing this for years!

It was a beautiful morning! Sandpiper is an affectionate child. The hug and kiss at the end are worth their weight in gold.

Sunny but windy and cold. That's this Friday. And that's better than tomorrow which will be cloudy and windy and cold, with temps dipping below freezing. This means that garden planting must proceed slowly. Indeed, I'll be bringing in the baskets and annuals for the night, today and tomorrow. I know to expect these dips. It's only April. Yep, it's only April...

(Or you could look up at the pear tree in full bloom in the old orchard and marvel at the fact that it is already April!)

Breakfast only now, with very uninteresting scones from a nearby coffee shop.

The two big ones are here after school.

(she could eat up all available graphic novels, as she waits for us to settle into our regular reading...)

And toward evening, I do what has become a Friday habit: I meet up with my daughter at ballet drop off. To catch up. This is followed by late evening grocery shopping at the nearby grocery store. Saves me a trip downtown, but it does bring me home on the late side of things. It isn't until 7:30 that I roll up my sleeves and think about what to do about dinner.

Now for the cold night and, I hope, a warmer weekend. The plants are arriving! I want to put them in!

with love...