move in, move out

Such a day! Sunny and a tad too warm, dry but still significantly buggy.

It's Monday and I haven't walked the gardens since early Friday. That means there are three days of spent day lilies! It bothers me. A sweeping glance at the flower beds shows where the work needs to be done. But can I do it? The morning is set aside to help my mother move in. The afternoon belongs to Snowdrop.

Ah, but there is the very very early morning!

I walk and snip and the bugs are just horrendous so I am not thorough, but in thirty minutes, I've created a better landscape, I think.






The lilies thank me.






You're welcome!






I can't do much though. The bugs. The move before me. Still, there is so much to admire right now!






The construction continues around us, but I think they've excavated all the sand they can take out next to us and so the rumble of trucks becomes more distant. We eat an early breakfast on the porch.






And now it's mom move-in time.  In many ways, this is the easiest part. Filling out the forms, sending off boxes, packing up all else into suitcases, finding furniture, and then the long trip across the country -- that's the tough stuff.

My mom is lucky: her apartment is bigger and better than her Berkeley hangout and importantly, it is ideally situated. She has a senior center across the yard where she can eat. She has a grocery store a block away. A library, a pharmacy that delivers, the Capitol Square -- all there.

I set up the phone, the computer, the microwave. The clocks, the AC, the fan, the fridge, the shower curtain. The usual move-in stuff.

 And now we venture out a little. To the grocery store...






Then to the Senior Center across the courtyard.

And just as I sit down with her for her lunch, the phone rings. Mosquito Joe is at the farmette and Ed is away, still running errands.

Off I go. Someone needs to put away the chickens.



We came to this decision a few days back: we can move, or we can engage professional mosquito control. I am up for either. Ed chooses the latter.

We're trying out the natural oils: garlic, rosemary and peppermint. They don't spray flowers and edible plants. So will it be effective?

When they're done, we wait a little and then step outside.

Magic! We are normal people, walking about, watering plants, snipping buds, sweeping the walkway. Have you ever missed sweeping a walkway?


And then I pick up Snowdrop.

It's hot. She wants to go swimming. We cannot -- I did not bring her swim stuff. Too hurried, too worried that perhaps swimming will feed whatever bug she picked up last week.

So we go to the playground.






It's a good choice, sort of kind of. The sun is blazing hot in the late afternoon. There is no shade over the equipment. Nor can I really sit down, as I am her co-conspirator in play and partner in crime in her story world.





Then things get interesting. Another grandma shows up with a boy who, as it happens, is a classmate. We exchange pleasantries. She then looks at me and says bluntly -- you wouldn't by any chance be German? I'm looking for someone who would teach my grandson and me some German.

I have to smile. I shake my head. When we leave, I offer a lame auf wiedersehen. She seems delighted by it.

And now here's the sweet part: when Snowdrop and I come back to the farmhouse, I do not have to swing open the door of the car quickly, grab her and run to the farmhouse. Instead, I  unbuckle her, she steps out and rediscovers the joy of our gardens.






The cheepers come out too and I cannot tell you how cool it is for us to spend time with them again too.






May it last!






After dinner, Ed asks -- you want to go get an ice cream cone?

So unusual is this question that we don't even know where the closest ice cream shop is to be found.

Whoa, not too far! A few minutes on the motorbike and we're at the Chocolate Shoppe. Perhaps you've not heard of it? It's a Wisconsin favorite, possibly because they brag that there is nothing healthy about their product. You want nutrition? Go eat some carrots.That's their slogan.






No carrots for us this eve. Ice cream cones, followed by a beautiful ride home, perched behind Ed on his motorbike, watching the sun set over the fields of ripening corn.