Tuesday

You know the definition of eerie: strange, uncanny, sinister, ghostly. It's when the cats creep, low to the ground, rather than walk. Stealthily rather than briskly. When you find a couple of food tins on the path to the barn, so you know that someone had gotten into the sheep shed. A thief. An animal thief. It's when the weather is too warm for October 11th, and you check the weather forecast and you see that storms are heading our way. Cracking popping storms. Maybe. It's when one of the barn cats that never ever comes our way, to the porch, let alone into the farmhouse, makes his way to the porch, and into the farmhouse. And the winds howl and the lilies defy you at every turn, blooming once again, ignoring the coming of winter.

Eerie.

Even as the landscape around us looks so normal and innocent, unthreatened and calm.

Breakfast. I wait for Ed. He sleeps, doesn't sleep, says he wants to sleep, in the end comes down and joins me.

I will myself to finish up at least a basic weeding of the beds. I work up a good sweat. It's that warm outside. 

Ed asks -- want to do one last kayak trip?

No, I can't. No time. Besides, I'm spent. Weeding in this dry clay soil is tough work. You go.

He wont. He wants do something together. I'm hearing this theme a lot lately. 

We go for a walk. A beautiful walk, because, well, it's mid October in south central Wisconsin. 

But half way into it, the weather shifts -- from partly cloudy to drizzly and wet.

Weird. It was supposed to stay dry until evening. Hahaha! Caught you by surprise, eh? 

We don't care.

(this will definitely be the last photo you'll see of me with my trusty glasses)

I pick up Snowdrop at school. She's wearing pajamas because it's school spirit week and for some reason the schools consider pajama wearing to be a perfect act of solidarity. The kids love it. Snowdrop loves it. 

But we are in a hurry. Barely enough time at the farmhouse to make progress with a book she desperately wants to finish. Can't do it. It's ballet day. And things get twisted here. Her tights get muddied. We need to do a clean up and redress and then there's that mandatory bun! But, Snowdrop stays on task.

I can't believe we make it to class on time, but we do. I am so proud of us!  

(her school friend is also in this class -- reason enough to always come into the studio with the biggest grin)

Class ends, she goes with mom, I head home where the cats are vigilant (why?) and the chickens are hiding and, well, it's eerily still. I can imagine an owl somewhere in those tall pines watching over us all, waiting for her moment.  

I walk briskly into the farmhouse and turn on a bunch of lights. Ed looks up, looks down again. Day is winding down. I take out the big yellow soup pot and get to work on supper.