Razzle Dazzle Berry

The kids named her Berry, even though they've not seen her. Yet. Indeed, we do not even know if it's a "her," though in my view her personality tilts toward that of a female. She has been stopping by this winter. Not every day, but many days. The six farmette cats have noticed and they keep their watch. I'm sure they chase her away when they catch her lingering by the writers shed.

She is a cat. She is not the only cat that passes this way. We certainly are not looking to take care of more cats. There are too many here already. Occasionally, like maybe once a month, one of our six pack will kill a bird. And frequently they will kill mice. The bad with the good. When we see a returning cat in the winter, we will leave out dry food. No cat loves the dry food we serve here, but when a cat is hungry, she will eat it.

There is always the very real possibility that a cat passing through here belongs to someone. Our immediate neighbors -- one across the road, another to our west -- don't own cats, but the development has brought in new people into the mix. Maybe they own cats that go out for a daily prowl.

I am confident, however, that Berry is nobody's cat. I stubbornly refer to her as Razzle Dazzle Berry because she is anything but dazzling. Something happened to her in her life to cause severe hair clumping and matting. She is a long haired feline and her hair is so tightly stuck that it feels like she has mogul bumps all up and down her body. 

We thought at first that she may have some disease, some parasite that would ruin her hair in this way, but Ed claims that this likely is not her problem. She has burrs all over her body and he thinks the hair clumps and forms matts around them. The awful appearance is what stands out about her. But there is another thing: she is unquestionably the friendliest cat that has ever passed this way. By far. Not even our very domesticated Dance is as comfortable with people as Razzle Dazzle Berry is. We know ferals: their skittishness, their fear of loud noises, their great urge to flee when little kids come their way. Berry, on the other hand, from day one did not run away when I approached the shed (she, like all ferals who appear here, hid under the raised building). On day two she got nearer to me as I came up with a bowl of food. On day three, Ed reached over and petted her and she purred like a windup toy cat.

Yesterday, we decided to give her warmth and shelter in the writers shed -- if she wanted it. Ed took over a heater, a bowl of food and she followed him inside (again, not feral behavior!).

This morning, I went to visit her. She loves these visits and has a great appetite and in general, has made no moves to try to leave. She is hard to photograph because she follows me so close that I can't create distance between her and the camera. If I bend down, she is right there, waiting to be petted.

Who is this cat? My guess is that she was once someone's pet and they let her go. The kinder explanation is that she went outside and got lost. It happens. We'll try to locate a chip reader on the very off chance that she is chipped.

What's her future? Ed is slowly combing through her hair, but I dont think he can help her just with a cat comb. I think she needs a professional hand, but he persists. And inspects. And persists.

 

 

 

Even if he grooms out all the matts (impossible! she's all clumps!), she will then have as many bare spots as you'd see on a hill at the beginning of spring. She can't survive the winter without hair. What do we do with her??

Since she has the most fantastic disposition, I think we should give her to a cat shelter for adoption. Even as I know that one look at her will make you turn toward other cats. She may Razzle Dazzle me, but I admit that she is not likely to do that to the average person looking around for a cat to take home.

We talk about it at breakfast...

We talk about it pretty much all day long. (Except when we ski: that is our quiet time!)

For now she is content in the shed. There, with a motorcycle, a cat toy, the old cat condo that is discarded because it is so loathsome to look at, an even older door that for some reason is leaning against a wall, offering a good hiding spot when she wants to let go of her guard, and a heater, a blanket and bowls of food and water. Dazzling personality, horrible to look at. What the hell are we going to do with her...

 

In other news, I had my late afternoon lunch/snack of a raspberry chocolate chunk cookie with milky coffee (oh, how some would wince at the audacity of drinking milky coffee in the afternoon!) and for once I ate at the kitchen table so that I could better look at my new arrival, the book I mentioned yesterday -- Snacking Cakes. (Dance joined me. Dance loves pussy willows and I had just filled a vase with tulips and pussy willows.)

I mention this because I quickly put aside my colorful sticky notes (that I usually insert into a new cookbook to mark things I want to immediately try). They're useless in this case. For the first time in my life I have purchased a cookbook of desserts where I want to, I intend to, I can't wait to bake most of the cakes included in it. Yossi Arafi has hit on all that I crave and want to have on the farmhouse kitchen counter. Cakes that I can alternate with my oatmeal for breakfast and eat on days where I forgot to take time out for lunch (it happens more often than I can say). Yossi, a million thanks! You can't find this stuff at your local bakery. And who'd want to buy them anyway -- they're perfectly easy and you can whip up at home with your eyes closed. Thank you, Yossi. You are brilliant and I am grateful.

With love...

Sunday

I've forewarned you that today is National Croissant Day. And that we would eat this for breakfast:

And I've said that I no longer bake anything croissant like because it's a lot of trouble for something that that is these days remarkably good when purchased at the local bakery.

But I want to talk about baking in general: what should you bake at home? What do I want to bake at the farmhouse? Well, surely things that my grandkids love. That's an easy one and luckily, at least the two oldest living near me like stuff that I love having around: light and fruit filled muffins, anything with rhubarb. But is there more that I could churn out (in this imperfect oven that is soon to be replaced)? 

I've hit this stumbling block: if I bake it and it's good, then Ed routinely snacks on it. Nothing with copious amounts of sugar or even moderate amounts of sugar is going to be good for us. Add to it butter and white flour and you may as well start picking out your coffin style. At our age, we have to be careful.

So I've cut back on baking.

But I'm tempted. Today, for instance, I could not resist pulling out a recipe from Jesse Szewczyk's Cookies, for his "raspberry cookies with chocolate chunks." Here, I baked some two dozen:

I'm going to send some home with my daughter tonight. That'll help me clear away at least a dozen (I hope). The rest? Sigh... We'll eat them. I'll call it lunch for the next few days and Ed will snack on them in between meals. But really, I know I should not bake too many cookies, no matter how tempting they may appear.

And yet... for me, one hyggelig aspect of a winter day at the farmette is that candle (currently burning: North Woods Cabin, from Big White Yeti -- if you like them subtle, this one's for you) and a steamy frothy coffee in the afternoon with.... something. Before Christmas, I'd stock up on chocolate covered gingerbread. What should be in its place now? If not sweet buttery cookies, then what?

As if by magic, I stumbled today on an article in the New Yorker praising a fairly recently published cook book by Yossy Arefi called Snacking Cakes. This is what I need (arriving tomorrow)! Exactly this. Cakes that you can eat for breakfast without too much guilt. Or for lunch if you're like me and want something special, served on a pretty plate, but again, not too over-the-top, and not too sweet. Cakes that you can bake that (like my muffins and rhubarb cake) a child would like in the afternoon after school. 

My baking has a bright future once again!

[As for the oven -- well, thank goodness that we have to wait until spring for the ground to unfreeze. There is electrical work that needs to be done in preparation for the Big Switch. I don't look forward to losing my gas stovetop, though friends have convinced me that induction will keep me happy. Still, with happiness comes a price tag: induction is more expensive and most of my ancient pots cannot be used. They fail the magnet test. Ed and I keep talking about it, but we both understand that the Big Switch is a chore without great rewards at the end of it all.]

In the evening, the young family is here for dinner. Mostly because of Covid, they have not had a Sunday meal here at all this year and so it feels rather special to return to this routine. Not many photos for you. When all the kids are here and dinner needs a nudge and my daughter stays in the kitchen to catch me up on all the latest, the camera slides to some corner of the room and stays there. 

(Sandpiper thinking -- this place, these dinners... vaguely familiar!)

(he likes to scoot... backwards! which gets him into and under unusual places!)

(dinner)

It is a happy evening. Sure, I've got my compartment of worries: friends, family, people whose lives aren't running along a straight line toward success and a carefree existence. I cannot not think about them. But if I look back on days like this one and I look ahead to our plans and schemes for the future -- I smile. With good reason.

And with love.

Saturday

There have been no "normal" Saturdays this month at all. Each one brought with it its own bursts of joy and mountains of challenges, but none came remotely close to normal. So this last one (and it's the fifth, because the calendar gave us that many) is the exception! It is (more or less) normal.

(this morning: the hens go off for a little private conversation)

 

 

I am up earlier than usual, because I want to run over to the nearest bakery with the good breakfast bread product (Madison Sourdough, which does have really good pain au chocolat and croissants). Yes, I want some pains for this morning, and I also want croissants for tomorrow. Did you know that January 30th (tomorrow) is National Croissant Day? Look it up if you don't believe me! Since the croissant is a French product, one has to wonder why it's the National rather than International day of the flaky piece of pastry, but no matter, I'm celebrating. (Day-old croissants will be just fine: stick them in an oven for a minute and they come out as if baked that day.)

There was a time when I regularly baked croissants (at L'Etoile, for the Saturday market), but those times have long passed. Nor do I bake them at home. Once I found bakeries that produced reliably good batches, I no longer bothered fussing with 100 layers of pastry. Happily, Madison now has many acceptable croissant bakeries, and a few outstanding ones.

With croissant and baguette smells filling the car, I picked up Snowdrop and brought her to the farmhouse. (Sparrow had a date with a babysitter from the past who missed him and wanted to play with him.) The girl traveled without her jacket, so there was no question of outdoor play.

I mean, it really feels prickly cold out there, even with jacket. Possibly the low temps and the absence of sunshine has something to do with it.

Breakfast, the three of us, all eating the same thing. Three photos, too.

The girl was in a playful mood and our usual hours of reading were replaced by games, building projects (a Lego set that will probably require a month or maybe even two months of work at the rate we're going), and of course, the never ending stories she fits in to just about every visit here.

After lunch, I drove her (cowgirl boots and all)  down to her music lesson...

 

 

 

... and came back so very lazily to the farmhouse. There I (lazily) asked Ed if we should maybe go skiing and then we both ignored that idea, even though we both claimed it was a good one.

Nothing unusual, right? I told you -- our first normal weekend day since the beginning of the New Year.

Friday

Ed pulled an all nighter, working through the dark hours on his epoxy experiments and measurements until he was satisfied. Normal people would be up drinking their first cup of coffee of the day by the time he dragged himself upstairs to bed. This put me in a quandary: wake the guy up for breakfast? Cruel. Let him sleep? That'll blow the day to smithereens. 

In the end the ever ringing phones did the trick. (Ed has four phone-like devices ringing simultaneously at the farmhouse; one can only be grateful that most of his calls happen in normal business hours.) I'm up, gorgeous! He shouts. Breakfast, not solo.

Sometime after the noon hour, I take a short brisk stroll, during which I realize that the wind is biting and the pleasant-ish 16F (-9C) reading doesn't tell the full picture. Still, the sun is out and so I pack athletic gear into the car and drive out to pick up Snowdrop at school.

She does not want to go skiing.

She does not want to go skating.

She tells me she had an okay day at school (usually it's 10/10, today it's an 8).

She tells me she is tired and wants so much only to go to the farmhouse.

 

 

And I realize something -- the daily skating worked splendidly when she was isolated, when school was closed to her, when she was bursting to step outside. It's a little more tricky when the school day started at 7:40 a.m., when the teacher was unfair, when the recess games were intense and when the vision of less effort and few demands is just too tempting. 

So we go to the farmhouse. And she loses herself in her stories and in our books about goofy and brave cats...

These are her most sacred tools that she uses again and again to make sense of this very complicated and demanding world.

 

At her home -- the brothers.

 

And at the farmhouse, later, much later, I sautee some Vietnamese Shrimp (last week's Wash Po Cooking Voraciously recipe drop), and steam some rice and pour a white wine from the Jura region of Eastern France. I'm not surprised to see Ed doze off early. No, not all.

With love...

Thursday

Sunny and cold is a common winter forecast. You get the good with a challenge. Face the sun and your golden. Walk with your back to it and your bones crack from the cold.

Today, however, by noon, we have that winter rarity: sunshine and warmth. It's hard to keep up with these changes, really it is! Good bye maraschino cherry parka, hello regular old jacket. Good bye clunky mittens, hello woolen gloves. It's what makes life interesting, no?

Breakfast with spring flowers.

It seems like a waste of a lovely day to stay indoors, so right around noon, we zip out and zip around for a while on the ski trails.

Again I feel as if I am at a south facing mountain resort. Ed would say -- why travel anywhere at all when you have all this within a five minute drive!

I just smile. I agree with him and yet there are those of us who will pack that bag and go anyway, even if what we have at home is so very good!

In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop at school. And wouldn't you know it  - on this warmish day, when I could definitely lace up four boots without freezing my fingers in the process (we are right at the freezing point now, though the sun is behind clouds), she chooses not to skate but to go straight to the farmhouse, with a vague hint that maybe maybe she'll play outside later. (That's her, knowing what runs through my head...)

It never happens. And I'm not surprised. She hasn't spent much time here this month. There are birthday toys that haven't been played with. Books half read, favorite foods laying in wait. 

When night falls, I return her home. This is my chance to visit with Sandpiper. Yeah, the little guy who learned to sit by himself in the weeks I was away (because of Covid).

This last photo is a classic: Sandpiper always keeps his mouth open when he is trying to show you something or express an emotion. This next photo is the exception (but so very sweet)!

Home again. Ed and I discuss a new big project: to take out the gas stove and replace it with an electric one. It was going to be that or chop out a hole in the building to vent the existing model. This is one of those decisions that you make not because you'll like the outcome (I, like nearly every other serious cook, love my gas stove. It's just not possible to have such control over the cooking process with an electric cooking surface). But, you need to make choices in life and this one (switching to electric) seems right. And so we begin. Ed pulls up Consumer Reports and immediately points me to the cheapest well rated model listed on their pages. I can tell that we will be discussing cooking stoves for many weeks to come.

Tomorrow? Back to the colder weather. Of course! It's January, isn't it?

Wednesday

Morning cold.

Breakfast warmth.

Afternoon? Bitter cold still. Nevertheless, I have a plan. Ed doubts the wisdom of it. We're at the warmest point -- a whopping 6F (-9C) and the wind is downright cruel. Arctic level horrors out there. Or at least what you'd expect in the northern most settlements of Canada, where people never shed their puffy parkas. Still, the day had me taking care of business on the computer and now, as the sun is rapidly getting closer to the horizon, I need movement. So I suggest we ski.

But your knee! Don't you need to rest it? 

Ed never gives me advice on what I need or should do, so I know he is coming up with irrelevant excuses. 

The one thing my knee loves is skiing, I tell him. This is true. Gliding on snow only loosens it up and I can use the poles to help bring the weight off that bothersome left leg. Let's go.

 

Does it surprise anyone that both the left and the right parking lots of our local park are just about empty? (There is a car, but it's one of those where a guy sits with the engine running to keep warm as he "chills." The parking lots here often have one or two of those. Either they're chilling or they're waiting for an illegal drop-off, which we probably interrupt with our presence.)

At least I have a scarf. Ed takes the opposite position on scarves to that held by French men (they always wear them, he never does). 

We take on the right-of-the-road segment. A path, really. Not groomed, but trampled down enough to create gliding potential.

And of course, after a few minutes, the bitter cold becomes just a normal winter cold and the rhythmic schussing down that path is so good, so energizing, that there is no question about the rightness of our being there.

We are mountain animals! We are snowbirds! We are alive!

Satisfied, we drive home. The longer way, where at dusk, deer saunter and move freely.

Beautiful. All of it: the snow, the light, the deer. Stunningly beautiful.

I have to rub it in: aren't you glad we went out?

Yes gorgeous.

 

With love...

Tuesday

How many times have you heard this warning in recent weeks -- you may be done with Covid, but Covid isn't done with you yet? Yeah, me too. And I had another twist to this when I learned that Sparrow's class has again shut down for a week to ten days because of Covid exposure in the class. So even though Sparrow has had Covid, he can't go to school because of Covid exposure. If that makes sense to you then you are a smarter person than I am. I called the school. They will revisit their policy.

Outside, the day is sparkling! I mean, just stunning!

The kind that has "crisp" and "brilliant" written all over its lovely face!

It's bitter cold, of course. My walk to the barn was in readings well below 0F (-18C). But, that's why we have bulky parkas that make us look plump and keep us toasty warm. It's exhilarating to be outside, truly it is.

It's also perfect weather for baking something. I have a ton of frozen rhubarb so a rhubarb coffee cake sounds so very perfect.

For breakfast (and for an afternoon visitor -- my granddaughter -- who just loves coffee rhubarb cake).

I have a bunch of emails to catch up on and I do that, thinking all the while about the graveyard of forgotten aspirations. That's what I call my Inbox, where messages lay dormant because I once intended to pursue them -- maybe read a suggested article or do a clever activity (like practice my French) -- but over time, they moved down, well beyond my eyesight and I forgot about them completely. I could clean it all out, trash that reminder to do X, or read Y, or buy Z, but somehow I cannot. Perhaps one day I will scroll through the emails of my life during the pandemic and take note of all that seemed doable but somehow never got done. Add that to the list of why the pandemic sucks: it pummeled our aspirations and build a wall of excuses for us. Because if I can't go to France, then why bother repeating conjugations of irregular verbs. And if I can't leave the house, then why read about places I could only theoretically explore. Fighting pandemic numbness takes energy. I concentrate on the kids, on Ed, on farmette work. On the occasional ski run or quick skate. After that, I have little left to fight the urge to just chill and watch a mini series with Ed where people shoot and kill each other but there is always that last episode in sight, where everything will resolve itself and the characters will have moved on. Just like someday, we will have moved on beyond the pandemic. Just not yet. Because, you know, it's not done with us yet.

In the afternoon, however, we return to a schedule long forgotten -- where I pick up Snowdrop from school and bring her to the farmhouse. I refuse to go skating today. It's cold and I find it hard to lace up four skate boots with ungloved hands. My fingers freeze right about midway up the second boot. And, too, I'll admit it -- I have to give my knee a rest. The ribs, after being bumped around some, are willing to return to some state of calm, but the knee -- it needs time, so today I give it time.

Snowdrop doesn't mind. It's been a while since she's had an afternoon at the farmhouse.

(It's still in single digits F (so below -12C), but she is certain she does not need a jacket to walk from car to house!)

(Ah, back to our old normal.)

 

 

 

Food, books, games. A tease with Ed.

And in the evening I drive her home, with a special treat: a drive through a car wash! What kid, what grownup doesn't love suds being whipped on the car while you're in the warm safe interior, waiting for the transformative experience of having the car emerge out of the bath squeaky clean and ready for the next set of adventures?

(Here's a fellow who might not like the experience, even as he loves his car games at home.)

Tonight may well bring down the temperatures to their lowest numbers yet. We're ready for it. The house is warm, winter is one third behind us. Aren't we lucky!

Monday

We woke up to more freshly fallen snow. Once again, there is great beauty just outside the farmhouse window.

Still and quiet. Gentle and calm.

We will get that Arctic blast by nightfall, but for now, it's just plain old winter cold. Nothing unusual, nothing to keep us housebound.

Breakfast first though. Keep that hot oatmeal coming!

Afterwards, I think once again about stuff. I want to empty out the farmhouse more and I have to devise a better way to do it than just to walk around each room and see what items throw themselves at me in their uselessness. Stuff. Why do we bring so much of it into our homes? I tell my Polish friends who bought my Warsaw apartment that I am not going to think twice about what's there. They can take it all, along with the keys to the unit. Those sweet spoons from Paris? That blanket from Scotland? Nice, but I don't need them here. I have plenty of blankets, plenty of pretty spoons. Trinkets, big and small, belonged to an era that is quickly passing (of frequent travel to my own place in my country of birth).  I wanted to see if Warsaw is still a big chunk of who I am. Turns out it may be, but I don't need a constant reaffirmation of that. And I don't need a physical space (with physical objects in it) to feel that my roots are deeply wedged into the neighborhoods and streets of that city.

 

Monday is not a day I typically spend with the kids -- rather, I catch up with all that loads my todo lists from the week before. Typically. But today, Snowdrop really wanted to skate and since much of the rest of the week will be too freezing for words, I agreed to pick her up at school and head out to the local park rink.

(gaga, can I borrow your scarf? sure!)

(skating selfie)

I take her home afterwards and I linger there for a bit. It's the first time no one in the household is under quarantine! Sparrow just came home from school and Sandpiper is a little dazed by the sudden tumult, as older kids, a sitter, mommy and gogs all descend at once. 

Still, it's good to see them all again, without masks and inside a warm space!

 

 

 

From there it is a mad dash to pick up Ed before the sun sets. No great ambition for today's skiing -- just our local park. It's cold alright, but we stick it out. Ribs and knee? Best ignored. Can't pass up a beautiful ski run in the sunset. 

 

 

 

Inhale, exhale. Smile.