Monday - 346th

Every day has interesting elements to it, many of them, in fact, even for those of us who are still isolating. For me, three things stand out on this last Monday of February:

First of all, we jumped over a huge hurdle: we climbed into above freezing territory! (We've been round the clock below freezing for well over a month now.) Of course, there is so much snow that it will take many moon cycles to pass into the bare ground season of early spring. In fact, our snow squall yesterday dumped several more inches and Ed had to take out the snow machine one more time (could it be the last time?) to deal with the pile up in the driveway. Still, when we cross over to above freezing readings, your heart swells with the feeling that spring truly is just around the bend.

Second unusual and quite pleasant event: I signed us up for another year of weekly Community Supported Agriculture produce boxes. Last March I quickly realized that there would be no safe farmers market to go to in our 2020 growing season and so I returned to the CSA concept of getting our veggies once a week from Harmony Valley farmers. They were great and I have zero complaints, but the itch to try another group of farmers is always strong for me and so this year, I found one that is smaller and delivers locally and has a slightly different combo of produce. 

Now, you could say that going with the CSA concept yet again is an admission of pandemic resignation. Meaning I am thinking that the farmers market is not going to be fully up and running by this summer. Our robust downtown one is so crowded that you can't imagine it would be business as usual before everyone had access to a vaccine. But in signing up for the CSA, I was actually taking a kinder gentler look at the whole business of buying foods: there are very many ways of getting food from the farm field to your table and the market is one of them and working directly with family farms is another. My newly discovered CSA farmers call themselves Tipi Produce and they look really interesting and awesome. Why not get to know them this year?

Okay, there's a third element to this day: after a morning of snow clearing...

(it's pretty outside, isn't it?)

And after breakfast...

And after searching around for a new CSA, Ed and I ate solid lunches and set out to walk from the far East corner of Madison to our far southern tip of Fitchburg. That would be some 8 - 9 miles.

We had no choice. If I'm going to hang on to this increasingly ancient car, I want it to be inspected by a mechanic we trust. That mechanic has a shop just at the eastern edge of Madison. We dropped off my car at his place and then, well, we had to get back home. Typically, we'd take Ed's car for that, but his car is frozen solid in a snow cave that sort of enveloped it this winter and we cannot get it out until it all melts. There is no other way to get back from the garage to the farmhouse, so we walked. 

Past industrial blocks, and busy roads with no crossing options, past big box stores and taco shops, cemeteries, gas stations, clinics. Across bridges that spanned rivers and one that spanned the highway. Hello, Walmart, hello Madison sewage plant. Sometimes we had to stick to the road, sometimes there were sidewalks and sometimes these sidewalks had melted slush that wet the shoes and the socks in them. As we finally left the cities, first Madison, then Monona, and we made our way into the quiet of where we live, following a path we know, and then the bike path toward the farmette, we exhaled. The wind was crisp and strong, the sun set behind pink clouds and some three hours after we left the car, we were finally home.

(farmette at last! see the roof of the barn??)

Here's a wee small hope: that Ed's car will unfreeze itself when the time comes to pick up my car from the mechanic. Three hours in reverse would be a bit much.