Sunday, December 09, 2012

traveling

Sometimes, our Midwest weather patterns are so predictable! Early in the week I saw the prognosis -- snow showers on Sunday. Now, that's vague. What are snow showers anyway? Wet flakes? Few flakes? Occasional flakes?

What we woke up to was a nice overnight dusting and continued, albeit lethargic, snow. The kind that causes airport delays. And so I was glad that, for reasons of price, I had booked my flight out from Chicago, where our snow showers translate into their rain showers.

It was a pretty way to say goodbye to the farmhouse.


DSC00036 - Version 2


… and to the farmette -- where our new orchard trees are now mostly protected, but the blueberries still need covers. They're just beyond these might leaning trees.


DSC00037 - Version 2


It was harder to say good bye to Ed. We'd not had our play time yet since I came off of my mad work weeks. He dutifully drove me to the Chicago-bound bus and I gave him ten thousand reminders about plants, about leftovers, about every irrelevant thing I could think of.

And then I sank into my bus seat and read -- Applebaum's new book on postwar Poland (and Germany and Hungary). It's always interesting to me to see what others, especially Americans have to say about "what it was like" to live under Communist rule.

There should be quite a bit of reading time and thinking time on this trip. Perhaps I've said this? -- I've almost never traveled to Poland alone in recent times. My yearly returns have been with Ed, with friends, with my younger daughter -- always with someone, always, therefore, to Krakow first. This time I'm by myself (though not really alone once there -- family, friends fill the otherwise quiet hours) and I'll only be in Warsaw.

Since I am so close to finishing my great (summer, as it turns out) writing project, it's a good time to take stock: to see if what I wrote still feels right. I'll be looking for that.

…if I can get myself outdoors! During the four (just that) days I'm there, the temperatures will never once rise above freezing. I'm thinking Rosie made me hardy this year.

Okay. I see the jumbo jet puling in. So far, no delays. So far.