food, flowers and the last day of July

In your typical southern Wisconsin summer, the lilies in our flower fields slow down precipitously by the end of the month. Yes, there will be August bloomers. Yes there will even be September bloomers. But the vast bulk will be done for the season. August is for phloxes andSeptember is for asters. And honestly, much of the color will continue, but in the tubs, where annuals never stop until the night of the first frost.

But we no longer have typical summers. We haven't had the mosquitoes, we had a late spring and a dry summer. And it looks to me like the lilies have a good week still ahead of them. I never count snipped lilies beyond July, but as this is still July, I did my final counting today: 605 snipped flower heads. That's more than yesterday!

My morning work and meditative indulgence in the fields:

It's another beautiful day here. Perfect weather of gentle breezes, partly sunny skies. I mean, I would like some rain. My flowers would like some rain. But if you're just trying to judge what's out there on this day -- well, it's splendid. 

Breakfast, of course, on the porch. 

And even before I finished my leftover half croissant half pain au chocolat, I set to work on the sour cherries. 

What's the game plan? Well, my friend who had lived in Denmark for a bunch of years emailed me this note (in response to yesterday's post):

In Denmark we pitted a whole bunch of cherries, laid them out on a baking sheet, put a piece of glass over the baking sheet and set them out in the sun until we had dried cherries to put on our oats for weeks.

What a splendid idea! I dont really have a clean piece of glass, but the Internet tells me I can use cheese cloth. And so I start in on pitting the cherries.

(about half done...)

And I am reminded again of preparing food at the restaurant. I rarely had to do the real grunt work there. I worked from 5 (after I'd be done teaching at the Law School) until closing (around 11 or even later on the weekend) and since service began at 6:30, someone else had to prepare most of my ingredients. I would just cook and plate from a nearly ready mise en place. That means I would never have to pit cherries. 

But someone else did. Carefully, because if a diner would crack a tooth on a missed pit, you'd hear about it.

It is, in fact, a boring job. And I'd say the same holds true for much of ingredient preparation. Sure, if you're cooking for your family, pulling off thyme leaves and chopping them into fine bits is not big deal. But for an evening service? It's tediously dull. Typically, the dullest tasks were passed on to the dish washing crew. Peeling potatoes, chopping onions -- that kind of thing. Probably they were the guys who also pitted the cherries. I was thinking this morning as I sat there with that heaping full bucket, that no one ever thanks those who pit the cherries in a local foodie restaurant where everything is fresh and honest. Maybe you will next time you get served some exquisite dish with cherries swimming in their own juices. Thank you for doing this so that I can enjoy the chef's creative ideas!

I put out a tray of the cherries for drying.

What are the chances that the cheepers wont notice the fruits on the picnic table? Hmm... Out comes the cheesecloth, secured with heavy objects.

In the afternoon, I drop by the young family's home. They're back from a Michigan beach vacation and I spend a few minutes catching up with them.

Our schedule isn't yet regular and I'm not sure it will ever return to a set pattern for the rest of the summer, so I'm not cooking Sunday dinners just yet. With a free late afternoon, I drag Ed out for another walk. Nothing ambitious, but it did feel so good to be out in the forest yesterday that I was itching for doing it again.

In the evening I was going to roast the chicken Ed and I bought from One Seed farmers up the road, but it is still frozen as can be so instead we order pizza. Of course, there is also corn.

And the evening is beautiful and I understood why so many poets have, over the centuries felt compelled to write about times like this: fading light, sweet smells of meadow flowers, cherries drying on a tray. Summer magic.

With love.

food and views

Saturday is the day when I most often return to a former life: that of a food person. If I devote endless hours now to growing things on farmette lands, it used to be that I would devote the same number of hours, year round, to preparing food. My garden then was small, my kids were at the age where school work and friends filled their hours and so I turned my attention, all my post-work hours, obsessively you might say, to food. 

Those were the years where I moon-lighted at a restaurant, first as an appetizer and dessert line cook, then as a baker in preparation for their Saturday market sales, and finally as a forager at the market, picking up the items on the long produce list left for me by the chef de cuisine. I'd be at the market at 6 a.m., when the farmers were just setting up their stalls. Getting there before the crowds hit the Capitol Square was essential. The restaurant wanted the best of the best. It was my job to find it.

That was then. These days, though I cook dinner every day for us and I think about foods that may (or may not) please Ed (as well as satisfying my own cravings), I don't obsess about it. I no longer fuss, nor do I introduce complexity into the game. But, on summer Saturdays, it all comes back to me as I stock up for the week with a run to Madison's Farmers Market.

Many of the farmers have been selling at the market for decades. They're in their same spot, selling mostly the same foods and when I head out, I make a mental note of who to visit first and what can stand a prolonged carry. Honey -- yes, flowers -- not so much. Today, I parked the car in a 25 minute spot which was unfortunate since it is impossible to do a full circle of the market in just 25 minutes. But, I mapped out how I could accomplish everything in just half an orbit and I set out, determined to get back before the meter ran out.

My mind is full of food thoughts. The stalls are piled high with incredible stuff and I have to marvel at how we have evolved to feed ourselves so well. Ed will say -- at the cost of plowing down fields and radically reducing animal and insect diversity as we plant our soy and corn, and he is of course correct, but still, this is not the way small farmers grow their crops. Theirs are not the fields of corn and soy. And judging by what's in the stalls, many of them have added flowers to their mix, which has to be a good thing! 

I go first to Mary, the Bee Charmer's stall because I'm low on honey. Too, she has great corn and I need to supplement what we picked up yesterday in Oregon. 

I'm all out of corn -- she tells me.

No! Really? 

It went in the first hour. Well, you know, Tory buys a lot.

Ah yes. The chef at my former place of employment. Darn those restaurant foragers who come out with their wagon at 6 in the morning! 

Not to worry -- it's always like this early in the season. Ambrosia takes a while to get going -- Mary reassures me.

And this is where my food loving side kicks in: it's not enough to love just corn: you have to have a favorite variety! Yesterday I wrote about Stoneman's Honey 'n Pearl. Well, the Bee Charmer's Ambrosia is another singularly wonderful variety. It's more delicate, but the taste is also sweet and, well, heavenly. 

They do have copious amounts of corn at a stand that sells nothing but corn and it's good, and it's freshly picked, but I'm looking for something even better. And I find it here:

This guy, like Mary, will be selling Ambrosia in the coming weeks, but today he has Trinity. This variety precedes Ambrosia and he says it's also singularly good.

Some people are really sorry to see it go when Ambrosia comes in! -- he tells me. So I buy a half dozen ears. I cannot wait to gently (and ever so briefly) cook it for dinner.

I need tomatoes too for the week. Here's a beautiful bunch:

And believe it or not, I need eggs. Yep, we had an incident last night that just goes to show you how complicated farm life can be. Very very late last evening, so late that I was all ready to retire upstairs,  Ed said -- oh, I forgot to bring in the eggs from the roosting box. (This box, placed on top of his table saw, is where our girls have been going to lay their eggs. Dont ask me why. I do not understand chicken logic.)

I'll get them -- I offered. We need to retrieve them so that predators wont raid the box.

And what should I find in the box? Henny, one of our older hens. Sleepy, woozy, comfortably settled for the night. Apparently she has gone broody (where she sits for hours on end hoping to hatch her eggs) and Ed did not notice that she was not in the coop when he locked it up for the night. Luckily, the raccoon that has been coming to visit us every single night this summer, had not yet made his rounds or she would have been his supper for sure. But, even though we saved Henny, we do now have a broody chicken who refuses to budge and so the other hens are laying their eggs -- well, who knows where. We can't find them. And I need eggs!

And of course I need flowers for the week. Picking the best bunch is tough, especially when you are on a 25 minute meter and you're giving yourself only half the market and one navigation through it for the day. I go back to a stand where I often find wonderful stuff:

And from the market, I go to Madison Sourdough for bread and breakfast pastries.

Not done yet! I still have my weekly order from Farmers Unite to pick up. It includes sweet and sour Door County cherries. Not thinking deeply about what I was doing, I had placed an order for a "basket" of the sour ones. It turned out to be this much:

So you're going to take out the stones from all those cherries? -- this from an amused Ed, over breakfast.

Uh huh...

And do what?

Bake maybe...

Yes, it's a very food centered day. But food thoughts do not replace outdoor work. Even before going to the market, I snipped lily heads. And I did count today -- I picked off an even 500. I'm sure if I poked around, I'd find one more, but I liked the way 500 felt so I did not look hard for others. Oh, and I took photos because, well, it was so very beautiful out there. Dry again and yes, I'll have to water if this continues (and it looks like it will continue), but still -- so very, very beautiful.

(The four Bresse hens, sunbathing together)

One last flower photo for the day:

In the afternoon, I get this idea that we should hike at Blue Mound State Park. A friend described a recent trek there and I get tempted.

We rarely have gone there over the years. It's a half hour drive and that kind of a commitment is reserved for the best of the best. Still, this one sentence was enough to convince me: 

Perched atop the highest point in southern Wisconsin, Blue Mound State Park offers spectacular views and unique geological features.

I love a place with a view!

There are two lookout towers -- one to the west and one to the east and in-between and all around, there are the trails. (Since it's on a hill, there's quite a bit of up and down which is a good thing!)

We spend a beautiful stretch of time there. Tower to the West:

(It almost looks like we live in a very hilly region, instead of just a somewhat hilly region!)

Tower to the east:

And the trails in-between!

It's a gorgeous place. Well worth the drive. (Yes, I know -- how dare I gripe about a 30 minute trip! You do get spoiled living in Madison!) 

We toss around ideas for supper and finally settle for a very home grown meal: the last of the cheeper eggs with market tomatoes and mushrooms, pan friend new potatoes with onion, a solid salad with farmette cucumbers, and of course corn. Fantastic, memorable corn. 

Are we ever sleepy tonight! Totally zonked, in the best of ways.

With love...

in the moment

I know the buzz words -- strive to "live in the moment." Who hasn't heard that sage advice! But I'm no master at intentionally putting it into practice. Like with most everything, I don't train for stuff that doesn't really bother me. (This is unfortunate, I know. We'll talk about it another time.) I move along without reminding myself that I need to "pay attention to my surroundings." Or that I need to "focus on the small stuff and feel gratitude." Perhaps it's because farmette days are already full of that: I spend hours paying attention to my surroundings and I write endless posts about small stuff. And ask me when was the last time I did not feel gratitude! I could improve: anxiety and stress are there, waiting all the time to invade my space, but for the most part, I haven't felt their threat strongly enough to hurry up and get good at practicing mindfulness and living in the moment. The day will likely come when I will need that skill set, but thus far I've coasted on a lot of luck and a love of hobbies (gardening comes to mind) that force me to stare beauty right in the face for hours on end. Good enough!

Not knowing much about mindfulness, I was, therefore, shocked today when, in the middle of the parking lot of Bill's Food Center in Oregon Wisconsin, standing next to Ed's motorcycle, I had a feeling of such profound happiness that I wondered if I still had the leftovers of whatever they pumped into my veins at the clinic yesterday.

Why? And why there, of all places? Too, why were we even at Bill's Food Center in Oregon Wisconsin? All good questions. Let me try to deconstruct the moment:

I had spent an unreasonably long time this morning cleaning the lily stems. Two and a half hours! At the end of July! That's just too long! I thought we were on the downhill path, but clearly the lilies proved me wrong. Was it a record? I don't know. I did not count the snipped heads because I'm getting to that place in the game where knowing how much I still have to do is discouraging. Best to just proceed and hum various songs in my head. Like "Nymphs and Shepherds" (Purcell) while working these girls:

Or "One lovely summer evening" (it's a Finnish song I learned back at the UN School -- "Ol' Kaunis Kesäilta") while working in this field:

What? You cant find the song or the lyrics? Ask a Finnish friend to sing it for you. Here's an English translation of the lyrics:

One lovely summer evening while strolling down the hill (repeat)

I met a lovely maiden the memory linger still (repeat)

The kantele she played and her song was sweet and clear (repeat)

That song I'll always cherish and in my heart hold dear (repeat).

Okay, I got sidetracked here. It happens when songs and poems waft through your head on a garden walk.

I took photos of course, because, well, the blooming season is so short, and the beauty is so profound.

(Not to be forgotten: the nasturtium that always remind me of Monet's Garden in a pot that to me is straight from Garden Majorelle in Marrakech)

(oh, those colors!)

(Big Bed)

Breakfast was at 11. Pretty late, even for us.

I already feel the depth of serenity during a breakfast on the porch, so you might say I'm primed for contentment every time I dig into a bowl of fruits and oatmeal or granola across the table from Ed, but then, I seem to have taken it a step further today. I suggested we head out to Stoneman's Farm to start buying our summer corn. We drove by yesterday and the sign said they'll be selling it on Friday. Today is Friday. 

We get on the motorbike and ride the four minutes to Stoneman's.

The family is there, the kids are running around in their ever cute yellow t-shirts sporting the family logo (Stoneman's Famous Sweet Corn), but there is no corn.

We sold out already today. This from one of the family members shooting' the breeze in the driveway.

The sign in your driveway now says "soon." When is soon?

We're hoping to start on the bi-color next week. Once that gets going, we should be selling pretty regularly.

Oh, the bi-color! It's worth waiting for, even if their season is off to a late start (like my flowers!). The Stoneman family (which really is the Oppermann family, as the Stonemans have passed on and the farm is now run by a grandson and his sibs, with the help of their spouses and parents and in-laws) get up every morning at 6 and start picking. By 8 they are done for the day and most go off to their regular jobs while a couple remain to sell the corn. It really is a family affair! 

And the corn? Oh, the corn! It's heaven. They plant Honey 'n Pearl -- a variety that's harder to grow and has a lower yield than what you'll find elsewhere, but the taste is simply sublime.

Still, we wont be eating it today. I check my phone to see if there's a farmer's market nearby. Madison has so many of these markets in the summertime, but I guess Friday is not a popular day for it because I come up empty. This is when Ed says -- call Bill's Food Center in Oregon (some ten minutes up the road from the farmette). They sometimes have local stuff in their produce. Maybe they'll have someone's corn.

They do. Eugster's corn. I mean, it's not going to be Stoneman's, but it will be local and very fresh. With corn, eating it within a day or two of picking changes the experience from simply "good" to "exquisite."

So we motor our way to Oregon and it is such a pretty country road!

Since I don't have my mask with me (and Ed always has one in his pants pocket), I leave him to do the purchasing as I wait by the bike. And feel happy.

We ride back and the feeling lingers. The air is just perfect. Ed routinely reaches over with his hand and gives my leg a gentle rub (I think this is a biker's thing, but he has always done it and it always feels loving and kind) and I bury my face in the back of his shirt and I think -- we have corn, the sun is out, the flowers are blooming and I'm with this sweet guy who is so different yet, despite everything, he and I both find contentment and yes, happiness in our small life in this tiny corner of our beautiful planet. Small stuff, deeply felt. Is that what living in the moment is all about? It must be.

All this and a visit from the UPS man too. What a day!

In gratitude, I spend the afternoon clearing out stuff from the farmhouse -- a favor to myself, but especially to Ed.

With so much love...