to go...

I admit it: I have cabin fever. Not because I am restless with what I see outside, but because the prospect of resuming travel diminishes as infection rates stubbornly refuse to reverse themselves. Miracles can happen, but the way we're going, I don't expect them anytime soon. The prospect of going someplace far in September has just moved from being at 50 - 50 to hovering at 49 - 51 and the nays have the upper hand.

Given that, I've been coaxing Ed to venture out with me to some distant place in... Wisconsin. The problem is, of course, the animals. He tells me -- you know that farmers can't leave their livestock for a single day out of the year?

Yes, but we are not farmers. Not even close. Can we settle on three nights? No one will starve if we're gone three nights.

We didn't settle on three nights. Ed talked me down to maybe one, maybe two. And from a remote corner of the state, we moved to a place not at all far away. Still, it's not here, not in the farmhouse, not entrenched in our summer routines, it's away!

In the meantime, I'm up in the morning doing the same old walk and enjoying it actually because the burden of clipping has been lifted -- only the tall lilies are still producing heavily...

And so it's the wee burden of weeding, which I don't take very seriously because, well, we are nearing the end of summer. (But I am hugely annoyed that the rains totally passed us by last night. Can we please target the farmette tonight? Okay?)

Breakfast on the porch, but it's sticky hot, so immediately after we all move inside. Cat included. Spoiled cat.

And then I work hard at coming up with our get-away location. Ed claims that I love doing this more than anything else in the world. That's ridiculous. I enjoy being with my family and with him and with friends, heck there's lots of things that I like better than roaming over an AirBnB map of Wisconsin. But I do have that drive to "find a good place." It can take many hours. I did take many hours. Finally, toward late afternoon, all was settled. Peace once again reigns at the farmette!

Any cooking highlights? How about chili with cornbread? Anything with corn sounds good to me on this warm summer evening.