beneath the surface

Just a cold, very cold March Saturday. Likely the coldest day we'll have between now and, say, November. So, really cold.

I go straight from the shower to feed the animals in the barn. My hair freezes instantly.

Very cold. 

Still, I had put in an order at Madison Sourdough, so I get in my car, regretting that I'm wearing only a hoodie and that my mittens are inside the farmhouse. Lake Monona is mostly thawed, but the nigh freeze has put some ice back on at least part of the waters' surface.

(out the car window)

A warm bakery is like a slice of heaven.

And then we eat breakfast. I tell Ed that wild horses wouldn't pull me out again today. 

He is a little disappointed in both the cold and the wind. Yesterday, Amazon delivered his purchase of a drone ($26). Last night he drove us all (meaning me and the cats) nuts by practicing navigation inside the farmhouse. He has this idea that he can use it to send a fish line over the high limb of the tree where the saw is stuck. Eventually he can feed a rope along with the fish line and pull on that to bring the branch down. But he cant do any of it on a cold windy day.

If you think this is a bit of a wild idea, let me assure you that Ed has a lot of ideas and they run the range from designing solutions around real or imagined problems to implementing strategies for effective ... well, whatever! 

Perhaps it is unfair that in Ocean, I focus on the daily silliness that really forms so much of our daily life together. I bypass the more serious work that takes place here. For example, right now, Ed has (basically singlehandedly) taken on the redesign of the precision metal milling machine manufactured by the company that he and his former partner founded. If his ideas succeed, such machines would enter a whole novel level of production capabilities. He may even strike a few punches at the one competitor in the market place -- a company that PBS accused last week of continuing to do machining business in Russia, despite the war waged by Putin against the Ukraine. I don't write about this stuff because it's his story and one I'm likely to get wrong in the details (despite his patient explanations, I will never fully grasp the language of machine design). Besides, it's more fun to describe the cinnamon rolls we share for breakfast. Still, beneath that very scary bearded countenance, there rests a very sweet and brilliant soul.

That sweet person nudges us to go out and walk, but I stand firm. It is just too cold.

(even the birds look like they're shivering, which, believe me, is very hard to capture in a photo)

I hunker down to my reading and browsing until guilt overtakes me. 

Fine, I'll walk.

Twenty minutes later I am at home again. I mean, winters here are significantly colder than what we have here today, but I'm done with winter and I stored away my warmest jacket. I'm not impatient with the slow crawl toward spring, I'm just not going to pretend walking with an arctic wind in my face is fun anymore. Save it til November!

In the evening I have to make a frittata. It's the only dish I prepare that uses up almost a carton-ful of eggs and our girls are producing like possessed. Why we signed up for another hen come June is a real puzzler -- I guess we really did expect to lose one this winter! Thankfully, once the outdoor farmers market resumes (in four weeks -- can you believe it!), we'll start trading eggs for cheese again.

In the meantime, out come the spinach, the mushrooms, the corn, the cheese, and... the eggs.

Tomorrow, we'll cross the freezing mark into spring like territory once more. Each day brings us a little closer to the splendid growing season.