Sunday

A grandma doesn't like it when her grandkids are sick and this grandma is no different. All three of mine have caught one thing or another these last few days, each one worse than the one before, and so I fretted yesterday evening, fretted overnight, wondering if the phone would ring asking for my help, and I fretted this morning as I waited for bits and pieces of news on how everyone was doing.

So that's the backdrop. (And as of now, two are well, while the third is expected to be well soon.)

Otherwise, it looked to be a fine day: the rains have moved on, cool and crisp autumnal air has moved in. I go out to entice the kitties into the sheep shed for their breakfast and notice that several of them had indeed spent the night inside. So we're making progress. The big challenge is to teach them to use the cat door, which is elevated and reachable only if you climb a slanted board. Once that's done, I will feel like we've done our best by them. Like sending your kids to college: we'll back you up, but we've given you all these resources to now cope, so make good use of them!

(After eating in the sheep shed, they're hanging out in the barn which, because of the missing parts of the eastern wall, is bathed in sunshine,)






Breakfast. Late. At the kitchen table.






(Autumnal colors in the gardens...)






In the afternoon, Ed coaxes me into going with him to the Brooklyn Wildlife Area to do some prairie restoration. We've worked there numerous times and today, the champion naturalist there has asked for help with seed collection. And yet I hesitate. When I fret about kids or grandkids, I back away from doing fun outdoor stuff. Maybe it's because in the past, you always wanted to stay near the phone to get doctors' calls or updates and so you still hate the idea of heading out at these times. Nonetheless, in the end, I push myself off the couch and we drive to these DNR lands and plunge into snipping off beneficial prairie seeds for winter sowing.






(Bordering the prairie: fields of soy...)






In the evening, no one comes over for a family dinner. I postpone it. My daughter is just flying in from several days away for work. My granddaughter has been too sick to eat much of anything all weekend long and I'm sure the whole family has quite a lot to reconfigure and fix for the week ahead.

Ed thinks I should have a break from cooking and so we go to our favorite local Mexican place for takeout tacos. Perfect for a Sunday where the farmhouse chef for once has little interest in rattling pans around come suppertime.





The evening is very quiet. We hang out with the kitties a little, Ed fixes a rattle in my car, we eat our tacos. And then I wait for good reports from the young families, hoping that everyone will have bounced back or at least nearly bounced back and that this period of woes and worries will quickly fade with the setting sun.