birthday celebrations, completed

That was some weekend! Horribly cold weather, sore knee, exceptionally beautiful everything else! This morning, my older girl served brunch to the whole lot of us -- with an added friend and her two children. So now there were seven little ones, all well under 8, doing what kids that age do best -- scattering toys, dressing up, dancing, eating big fat bagels with or without all the bagel stuff us grownups love.

Here's our day then. Or, a sampling of all the wonderfulness that was heaped upon it! (Well, except for the weather. And the knee.)

(Heading out: the cane got very muddy.)

(At my daughter's home: a welcoming committee!)

(Another day of birthday presents! the boys help me with this one!)

(I join the kids' table. I'm only 70 after all!)

(Dress up time! My cane enters the act...)

(Can you do housework in a long gown? yes you can!)

(there are four moms in the room; here's the youngest one!)

(Cousin dance!)

(And more of cousin dance!)

(Tired, but happy -- that probably describes us all! Sad to say good bye to Juniper and Primrose...)

("We'll block the door and not let anyone leave!")

(Back to the farmette... The pears are blooming... We're looking forward to a warmup this week!)

Evening quiet. Ed sleeps, I run through knee exercises. For dinner, he and I fill up on leftover steaks frites from yesterday's meal. We dont ourselves cook or load our plates with beef, but we make an exception when kids leave us reasonable portions of their tasty restaurant beef dishes!

And so ends a fantastic April of celebrations! It could not have been a finer birthday. I'm left with a computer full of photos and a heart spilling over with love.

Time to rally and make the next month a good one!

family birthday

In this family, you don't check off your birthday until all relevant parties have had a chance to celebrate it with you! Today the Chicago young people are coming up and along with the Madison young family, and of course Ed, we are going to have ourselves a party, puffy bruised leg and all! At the end of this weekend, I will be officially 70.

The days now are cold and a tad wet, which perhaps is a shame, but hey, I'm not much of an outdoor rambler right now anyway. The key is to make the house warm and welcoming. I'd worked on that before the surgery. This morning, I need only get myself ready, which believe me, takes for-ev-er! Too, I would like the place not to look like a hospital ward. The cats are already freaked by all the additional equipment. A cane terrifies them all. The big square walker sends them flying out the door. They're okay with the ice pack machine, only because it doesn't move. But add to the decor all those bottles of pills (and a dripping ceiling!) and you really have a yourself a messy situation. So we try to fix that up a little. Flowers help!

Breakfast with Ed.

And then they are all here! From the youngest up!

I had an idea for this day. It's perhaps a touch funky, and maybe a bit out there, but I had this image: all my grandkids have a lot of Polish in them, even if they have never (yet) stepped foot in that country. What if, what if, I got them something that we value back in Poland (especially if you head away from the cities) -- what if I gave them traditional and authentic Polish folk costumes?

I'd ordered them in early March, rather blindly because the sizing is crazy different than what we have here. The little ones are not even two years old, so they got a modified version of the full garb.

And what if they all dressed up together and I could take this celebratory photo today, a photo of my partly Polish grandkids?

Yeah! 

At the farmhouse, my daughter fixes lunch and we squeeze in around the table without adding a leaf. What for, we can all fit!

In the evening we go to Sardine for our celebratory dinner. Honestly, yesterday I was thinking this was going to be tricky. I could not sit up with my leg bent for more than five minutes! But today things are looking so much rosier! A dinner out at our beloved restaurant, en famille? Yes!

And yep, there is a cake. From my beloved Madison Sourdough...

And here we all are, together, which makes me so very happy.

Thank you kids, Ed, thank you grandkids. For everything. With so much love for you all!!

adjustments

Thoughts on being 70 and having a new knee put in:

In the middle of the night, I get up (very awkwardly) and shuffle my walker to the bathroom. Ed, who is still downstairs, says that it sounds like the scratchy noises of ghosts in a haunted house attic.

I was told it would take a while to reclaim a good night's sleep. "Every day you will add an hour." Turns out to be true. I'm up earlier than early.

Since Ed now has to feed the animals in the morning, he comes down with me and we bump into each other a lot in the kitchen, in part because there is a chair with a drip bowl in the middle of the kitchen floor, in part because I have a clumsy walker, and in part because we are not used to navigating the small kitchen space at the same time in the wee hours of the morning. 

I am surprised to see that I am better at (assisted) walking than I am at sitting or manipulating my leg. (Manipulating it is the worst!). This means that I have no problem fixing breakfast, though I haven't the dexterity of yore. I spill blueberries everywhere. No, I cannot easily pick up berries from the floor. Ed tells me I have to "rein in my clumsies" in the days to come.

Normally, we eat a late breakfast, but this wont do in my post-op mode. I have a thousand pills to take and they all prefer to be taken with food. So I start alone, but pretty soon, Ed gives up on sleep and joins me. 

Not for long though. Someone has to clean up after Dance. [We have a bulimic cat: she cannot resist eating any food left out for others. And then she throws it up because it is, of course, too much. If we keep track of her access to food, all's fine, but if she lands something unfinished by, say, Pancake, then we're in trouble!]

Doing exercises takes soooo much time.

Ed dutifully refills my ice pack machine with his home spun supply of ice. I am so surprised at how sweetly attentive he is to all my needs. Always good natured, always asking what else he could do. Like him, I value independence so I don't ask for much help. Still, he is a good tender of a very busted up and stapled in knee!

Sometime in the early afternoon he proposes we walk. I am actually supposed to do that in short spurts, but I can't imagine what he would get out of it: I drag long like a reluctant snail! Still, he insists it would be good for the both of us. I need a smooth surface for my walker so we go to the new development where he studies the newest construction methods and I shuffle slowly along. Exhausting? You bet!

I am not using the camera much, but I do take a pic of the flowers on the table. They're nothing more than grocery store flowers, but in spring, even those can be sublime: peonies and tulips! Magnificent!

What's blooming outside right now? The same thing that's blooming inside!

I do squeeze in a bit of gardening! One pot, at the front of the walkway to the house, has every bloom in it chomped off by the chickens. That cannot be! I stick in a cosmos and cross my fingers that the chickens will leave it alone. How do I get down to ground level? Same way I did with my busted knee before surgery: spread legs very wide and bend at the waist. It can be done! Though I wouldn't recommend it unless it's an emergency. Replacing an entryway decimated flower is an emergency.

Tomorrow is a wild day, in the best of ways. I mean, you're only 70 once, right? 

going home

Honestly, my overnight at the hospital feels luxurious. The structure itself -- a branch of the UW Hospitals and Clinics -- is new and at the edge of town. The staff that cares for me is energetic, very professional and totally kind. The food choices are good and someone other than me is buying/cooking/cleaning it up. My bed goes up and down, the view out onto the forest is lovely. Pain is readily controlled, and I have time.

And what do I do with that time? I worry about my garden. There wont be frost (knock on fake wood!), but none of the new transplants like it when the wind blows and it feels very cold. We have one more weekend of chilly weather and I know I have some unhappy campers out there. Just a few more days, I want to tell them -- hang in there!

The night was, of course, wakeful, but who cares. Drifting in and out of sleep can be relaxing. My legs are wrapped in some kind of gizmo that blows up like a balloon every minute or so -- as if someone was taking deep belly breaths next to me, squeezing me as they expand, releasing when they exhale. Rhythmic, comforting. The fake knee leg also has an ice machine attached to it. I get to keep it, even though ice at the farmhouse is very hard to come by.

Breakfast? Oatmeal! Okay, not as good as my own, but this one was placed for me on a tray in bed. When was the last time that I had breakfast in bed?? (Admittedly, I don't really love eating in bed, unless that bed goes up and down and a tray is wheeled to me, in which case I am totally delighted.)

In midmorning, the PT/OT person shows up in my room to help me live with my new knee (made of titanium and plastic, to the best of my knowledge). Tricks how to put on socks. Tricks how to navigate steep stairs. Exercises to do 7 times a day. Others to do 3 times a day. Walkers, ice pack machines. Phew! My vacation time is over!!

By noon, Ed shows up. I can see his eye scanning all the equipment! But, he has taken on the burdens of taking care of Gorgeous and so we pack it all up and, along with maybe 100 bottles of medications, we take it all home. With me, learning how to gingerly get in and then out of the car. And then up one step to the mudroom. And another two to the kitchen. And that's it folks! I need to sit down!

Of course, much as I appear to be the center of familial attention at the moment, there's a lot going on in the lives of others and I spend some time catching up on that in the afternoon. Until I can catch up no more and I plop down with my tea, not on the up and down hospital bed, but on the old and somewhat destroyed by cat paws love seat.

Photos? What possible photos could I take on a day of institutional decor, cars on highway and then finally of home, pretty much from the vantage point of the love seat?!  My knee is puffy, sort of like that of a Pillsbury dough boy. I know! Let me go out and attempt to water the tubs. This is a challenge: to get myself and the walker out, to hang the big camera around my neck and then to drag the hose to each pot. While leaning on the walker. Which is being wheeled on wood chips. 

The chickens are wondering -- what is she doing??

I manage!

The doc had said -- whatever you do, do not fall! I take that direction seriously because he is a man of few words and so anything that comes out of his mouth is indeed important. I move slowly. And perhaps I overdid it. Who can tell. (I let Ed water the porch flowers. I cant manage the porch steps! Yet.)

I return to my spot on the loveseat, plug in the ice pack machine and exhale.

The house is clean. The fridge is stocked. I am home with my new knee. 

new and improved

When you fix old stuff around the home, often you're in for an upgrade. We need a new thermostat in the farmhouse. The new one will be fantastic! (Well, at least it will look more fantastic than the old one, which already was pretty cool.) When I sold my ancient car and bought a new one, the improvements on the new one were epic! New eye lens? Better than the old ones!

The same cannot be said of knees, I hear. My doc told me that one fifth of patients are totally dissatisfied with their new knees and that's because they expect the replacement to be so good that it's as if you got a new car working your joints for you! At best, he told me, you can expect less pain, though also less flexibility. So I bent my leg at the knee fully today many times knowing that this would likely be the last time I am able to do so. For the heck of it -- bend, straighten. Bend, straighten.

But honestly, I did not pause for much this morning just because of that very brief window of opportunity that was granted to me by virtue of the late morning scheduling for my hospital stay. 

Very early in the morning I rush. To feed the animals. 

(still empty tubs...)

Then I make myself a cup of  coffee (Columbian Arabica because it has red fruit flavor notes and I'm missing my bowl of fruits today!) and tea (Patagonia super berry because it has super duper healing powers. They say...). That is all I can have today.

And then, gloriously,  I get to it! Ed helps me transfer the flower baskets to the porch and the flats of annuals to the picnic table and I begin! I have 2.5 hours to do my work!

(Was there frost last night? Yes there was! It all melts by 8 a.m.)

(baskets, finally on the porch!)

And I get it all done! Tubs are rather minimalist: most have just two or three annuals, but they will expand in size and besides, I can add stuff later. I do put in a pot of just alyssum, because I know the chickens love it so and sure enough, within minutes, they're munching away. By the morning's end, the flowers will be mostly chomped off.

I also plant some creeping vines and I bring out the overwintered pots of (rather spindly for now) impatients. Finally, the farmette landscape is looking colorful and grand! (Please please please let this have been the final frost for the season!)

No ambitious photos though. I have to load everything onto blogger quickly! And I still have to scrub down and get my stuff in the car and drive over (with Ed) for my 11:30 check in.

Later:

Ed drops me at the hospital, I wave good bye and settle in to wait in the lobby. I see a tiny ant crawling up my arm. Oops. Must be from gardening. But there's another. On my purse. And another, in my purse. Oh boy. The farmhouse ants are looking for a nest home. Have they found one in my purse? 

The nurse comes to get me, I'm frantically picking out the last of the ants and taking out the caramel in the bag, which is what first caught their fancy. Can we start off with finding a garbage can?? 

In all, the wait isn't long. In fact, the nurse tells me I'll meet with my doc then my anesthesiologist soon because the doc is running ahead of schedule. Ahead of schedule?!? And the name of my robot, the one doing the actual replacement is Cinnamon. 

Later:

I'm in my room, in that wonderful dozy state of half sleep, completely mollified by medication and a superbly attentive staff. I have a view onto a forest and they say by evening deer will come to graze here. 

The surgery (they say because I surely do not remember any of it) went well. Now will come the hard paint of managing a new knee. But that's for another day, another week. For now, I am starving for my supper, and still dreamy-woozey, and so very grateful!

with love...

mad dash to the finish line

It's nuts to do gardening in such a frantic way, but this is my lot this year! (You dont have to remind me -- it is my choice.) Three updates that I take seriously: first, the drips from the ceiling increase then decrease then increase in frequency once again. Ed has concluded that this is in sync with the water pump activity and thus it portends of a further leak somewhere in the pipes. In other words, the kitchen ceiling has to come down. Not before your surgery -- he assures me. As if it ever will be fun to live with that mess!

Second update-- the expected lows overnight will be at 32F (0C). Well, 30F according to my smart phone's more pessimistic forecast! That's a degree (or three) too cold for most of the annuals. Bummer luck. It means that I can't put anything out today. Except the ever reliable early spring pansies.

But, the third piece of news is that I have to show up at the hospital, bathed, starving and ready at 11:30 tomorrow. That means that between 8 in the morning (when it will be the coldest for the day and indeed for the whole rest of spring) and 10:30, I will have some planting time! I doubt that I'll get everything in, but I will speed like a woman possessed and do as much as I can.

Today is equally crazy rushed. I must change all the bedding (hospital request). I must stand outside and wave my arms frantically (this is what we do with the spring time hawk attack -- we have six large ones circling over the farmette lands as we speak). I must do the last grocery stockpile. And I must purchase the remainder of the annuals and fit them in as best as I can into the mudroom.

But first, the morning walk...

And breakfast (photo-bombed by Dance!).

Ed comes with me to pick up the remainder of the annuals at Koepke's. Our mud room is very colorfully cluttered at the moment!

And here's what I can also accomplish today: I think I'm safe sowing the seeds in the meadows. And in planting the sunflower seeds. And the cosmos. They need to stay away from frost, but with a low of only 31F I think we are safe. 

So this is my morning. Crazy busy! Meditative gardening? Hahahahaha!

In the afternoon I pick up Snowdrop. 

Her mom is away for a few days and her dad is handling the ship and so we decided to skip dance to help with coordinating the drop off/pick up stuff. This is a treat for me as I at least dont have to rush her to dance and instead, we do a very indulgent reading session. I do sneak out to plant the sunflower seeds and when I come back I see that Ed is showing her his baby drone. Which she loves!

And now it is evening. I cook up chili, because this will give us meals for at least three days. And as per instructions from the hospital, I have my glass of wine at 8 p.m. I am so obedient!

Tomorrow I'll see if I can twist arms for an early release. If not, I'll try to post from my bed. Once the new knee is in!

With love...

Monday

I think I'm losing the battle but winning the race. Or maybe it's the race that's lost but the war that is won? Here's the reality: our last potential for frost appears to be -- Wednesday morning. That's exactly a day too late for me. It means that none of the annuals can go in until then. It means that I'll have to keep all the baby flowers and blooming baskets in the mudroom until I come home with a new knee and then someone else will have to bend down and put in score of little plants in sweet, perfect arrangements because honestly, I don't think I'm going to be capable of doing that in the next several weeks.

Of course, in working with nature, you must adjust your expectations. You plan on X, then Y happens. So, I can't fill the tubs today. Fine. I have plenty of other outdoor work: I got the replacement bare roots for the ones that failed (due to the premature shipment). In they go. I fertilize (with a lot of guilt) lightly (and only once a year) some of my day lilies. The old ones need a boost. And, there are the never ending weeds. Add to it a flock of chickens that are out to destroy every plant I ever put in (during this season it's really hard to love free ranging chickens in your garden!) and repairs that are constantly needed to newly exposed roots (grrr!) -- and my morning is very very full. Even without planting the annuals.

Yes, there's the walk to feed the animals...

Yes, there's breakfast...

Yes, there's another laundry load to work through...

But mainly, I do work outside. While I can!

In the afternoon I pick up Snowdrop. We pause at the Pond by her school to watch that magical sights of the white pelican migration. Last year they stopped here on May 6th. Why are they here in April? Are they hoping for warmer temperatures? Us too!

I take Snowdrop then with me to my mom's place. I want to install a new and better phone at her assisted living home and Snowdrop always likes to tag along on these errands. I haven't posted a pic of my 99.5 year old mom in a while. Here she is, with her great granddaughter:

My mom likes to give gifts when the great grandkids stop by. Today she handed over a portable radio that she no longer uses. I protested to high heaven. A radio is such a device of our youth, so unfamiliar to this younger generations. But, Snowdrop is mildly interested. Maybe I'll take it to show and tell in school! -- she tells me.

At the farmhouse, we settle into a routine that surely will change in a few days. 

It's all, of course, a mystery to me -- what I'll be able to do and when I can resume a normal schedule -- so I am preparing for the possibility of not being able to do anything at all. I posed this question for myself: if I can't walk or bend or twist and turn starting Wednesday, what should I do now that I wont be able to do then? The list is long! I'm surprised at how much my day depends on my ability to move around!

Evening: an easy supper of leftover, lots of chocolate, lots of lovely moments on the couch. Now that wont change! And that's such a nice thought...

Sunday

Now comes the squeeze: the last frost day appears to be this coming Tuesday. if that's the case, then the time I have to plant the annuals is... Wednesday at dawn or after surgery (meaning -- it's problem). My list of all that I have to do now (because I wont be able to do it after Tuesday) grows long, my time to check off items from it grows short. And in the meantime, the ceiling in the kitchen drips water and Ed ponders the next step. He tells me -- the time between drips has increased by 29 seconds! That's a good sign! Okay...

Outside, as expected, it's cold. Still, the walk to the barn is pretty, albeit fast-paced. Not your lingering weather.

But I do sidestep into the young orchard. Our local paper signaled that this is the time to visit the Arboretum for the cherry bloom. Why go there, when I can get the cherry bloom here!

And the plum bloom from our plum tree that has never given us a single plum!

Breakfast, to the tune of drips, now every 64 seconds.

I clean the house then. Quite thoroughly. Who knows when next I can do this! And the car! It needs a vacuum job and a dusting inside. Fun stuff, no?

In the evening the young family is here for dinner.

Unfortunately by the very late evening, the drips from the ceiling accelerate to every 55 seconds. That's not good! We watch our favorite show to distract us from that steady drip that portends of troubles ahead! Small, easily solvable troubles, I hope!