the end of a farmette vacation

We were surprised this morning by an unusually strong thunderstorm. Pounding rain, flashing lights -- you'd think Snowdrop would wake up, but no. Not a peep from the room next door. I wasn't in a hurry to step out in all that racket and so Ed volunteered to open up the coop.

I thought I'd catch many more hours of sleep. Snowdrop went to bed so much later last night! Surely she'd sleep in past her usual farmhouse 8, but no. She wakes up, plays in bed for a while then demands to join the rest of the world.

She eats breakfast part A (her usual mushy stuff) and then I bathe her and make breakfast part B: farmhouse pancakes.






It's getting hot even in this still rather early hour, but we have a fan on the porch and Snowdrop never fails to appreciatively point to it when I tell her that we need some cool air.

But taking a walk around the farmette (with her entourage) is another matter.






Oh, she's happy to be outside, but very quickly she suggests a wagon might be the way to go. I tell her that pulling her around in a wagon in this hot weather is about as attractive to me as building pyramids in the blazing dessert. I pause to take a look at the rain soaked lovely lilies (the day ones and the true ones)...











(And I have not a small amount of satisfaction from seeing how much I managed to cut back the ditch lilies from the front of the farmhouse: I agreed to leave a thin row for this year, just because Ed thinks they're a good reminder of the house's humble past and, too, he swears they attract a certain breed of frog.)






And then I suggest an outing to Wingra Park, where this weekend they are holding the Midwest log rolling competition. The championship events are scheduled for the afternoon, but there are some local challenges going on all day and I thought this may be a grand excuse to hang out by the lake and watch people fall into the water.

I do not regret the outing, but the little girl is caught in a bind: to sit in a stroller on a hot day -- that's just not her. To run around in boggy (from the rain) grasses under the glaring sun -- not that either. Slowly we make our way toward the water as she pauses to mull over the possibilities, not exactly loving any of her options.






Once we reach the water's edge, I encourage her to watch the boom running event. There are hardly any onlookers and I think she should add her support to these earnest log loving athletes. She is, however, indifferent to their talents in running down the wobbly logs.






In the end, I get her to concentrate for a few minutes...






... and I think perhaps some onlookers may have appreciated her very emphatic reaction to one runner's loss of balance and big splash into the water. Oh-oh! -- the little girl said loudly. (It is her favorite word for when things fall down which, for a toddler, is a fairly frequent occurrence.)

On the way back, she figures out how to push this rather hard to control farmhouse stroller...






... and this makes her happy enough for me to continue on with our adventure. We cover the small Monroe Street farmers market, picking up a baguette for lunch and then we stop at Barrique's -- one of our favorite  coffee shops, where bits of oatmeal raisin cookie (and a long gaze at the comings and goings of others) make Snowdrop very happy indeed.


 



At home, I give over some of the baguette, along with her usual lunch foods and she is kind enough not to say the obvious -- not anywhere near the good ones she had across the ocean.






And in the afternoon, we do not dally. We prepare! Snowdrop's mommy and daddy are scheduled to fly in this evening from across the ocean and I want to have dinner ready for them. And there are raspberries to pick for dessert!






In all honesty,  I had very modest goals for this week: getting Snowdrop to feel happy at the spray of a garden hose.






Allowing her to pick berries,  which she has devoured and loved since starting in on real foods. And then adding that treat -- the whipped cream. And showing her how to lick the beaters after the final whip.






Too, I wanted to give her moments of great joy, even though I'm sure she missed her mommy and daddy. (Each time the phone rang, she was sure it was mommy, just because she chatted with mommy on the phone before her mommy flew off and away.)






And so I have no last minute imperatives. Snowdrop has been a bundle of cooperation all week long.

I prepare predinner snacks. I always set aside a plateful for Ed. This time, Snowdrop shares in his bounty.






It's as if this were any other Sunday. Early evening comes and I see their car in our driveway. I tell Snowdrop her mommy and daddy are here.






If she needed a period of readjustment, none of us saw it tonight. It is a beautiful evening out on the farmette porch!






It seems that the whipped cream on the berries never tasted so good.






How to end this post... Here's something that sticks in my head -- the fireflies from our late night out. Ed said I should have tried to take a picture of the evening, but this is a tad absurd: the only way I know how to photograph a firefly is to shoot randomly and hope something comes of it.

In reviewing my photos, I see that something came of one such shot. I'll end with that.

We'll watch the fireflies sparkin', do some sparkin' too...