summer days

I think we're peaking in terms of summer pleasures and vexations. Big storms did pass over us and we kept out power, but many of the tall phloxes toppled and, too, the mosquitoes rejoiced. Party, party! Let's get out there and bight their noggins off! On the other hand, we got nearly three inches of rain. I hereby proclaim the farmette summer drought to be officially over.

Up early this morning. A few minutes after six. The goal is to get things done, but without hurry! I feed the animals and snip most of the lilies, leaving the Big Bed for later. I'm incapable of not cleaning up the spaces around me as I exit and enter the farmhouse, but at the same time, I want to get to the farmers market early today. So, a partial snip and a few moments of meditation as I take in today's flower performance.

Now to market.  My list is medium long: corn, for sure. I love our local Stoneman's (less than two miles up the road from us) but they have been slow in getting their season rolling. I have to think that they planted just a tad too late to catch the early spring rains. So, while we wait for their corn, I want to pick up some other exquisite ears, and no one can lay claim to that honor more legitimately than Mary at Bee Charmer. She mainly does honeys and I have several of hers. But, I know from the years when I was the market forager for L'Etoile restaurant (noted in a NYTimes article here), if you want to rave about exceptional corn, you can do no better than go to Mary's stand, where, behind jars of honey, she'll have this week's haul of sweet corn. 

I'm there before 8 and still she shakes her head. L'Etoile beat you to it: they took all the big ears. Of course they did! The forager is out with her (or his) cart just as the market opens at 6. Damn those early restaurant people! Still, she says she has a couple dozen left and the ears are pure heaven, if a tad small. Without hesitation I say yes to a dozen and within a minute, another person in the know comes up and picks up the last of it and there you have it. 

Another item -- haricots verts. French green beans. 

I realize that I really need to double up on my market buying: spin around once to look, a second time to buy. This, to me, is one tiny fault with our market set-up: you cant easily meander from stall to stall, you have to do the whole circuit, and it's a long walk. Too, by 8 in the morning, the sidewalk space is limited and you are at a crawl. I jump out to the street for part of my walk around, but I pay the price for shortcutting: I forget to pick up a box of red currants. And I really wanted a box of red currants for weekend baking.

Other purchases? Apricots and the last cherries from Door County. Flowers from my vendor -- I go with glads today!

Blueberries from JenEhr farm. I ask the seller -- where's all the rest of the farm's produce? They retired from farming. Just blueberries! I suppose we all eventually retire!

Okay, shopping done in forty minutes! Not bad. But I do miss pulling a red wagon. The bags get heavy!

And as long as I am downtown, I hop over to Madison Sourdough, because I so love having a fresh croissant for breakfast!

It's considerably less hot and humid today than it was, say, yesterday. Nonetheless, the bugs are out and the sun does heat things up a little. Ed and I clip some sagging branches, I finish snipping lilies and now it feels like I've done my bit of summer work. Enough for now. 

In an afternoon of reading (because summer is for an uptick in reading, a special kind of reading that allows you to be swallowed up whole by a story), I come across an article gently suggesting that we should try to give ourselves a period of time (a week? a month?) where we do zero multitasking. No listening to the radio while you cook. No half listening to the TV while you're folding laundry. No listening to anything while you're racking up the miles on the jogging trail. The author of the piece suggests that it is a more difficult challenge than you might expect.

Is it? Ed has always claimed he is a terrible multitasker (so, a real "in the moment" guy), whereas I've always thought I was pretty good at it (the author would dispute that, since according to him, no one is good at it). I could cook dinner, listen to kids talk about school, catch a news story on the TV. All at the same time. Heck, raising kids, doing full time work, cooking dinners, volunteering heavily at the kids' school, planting perennials, moonlighting at L'Etoile -- this was once my modus operandi. All in one day, with lots of overlap. 

But I dont do that anymore. I never listen to anything when working outside, or when walking or biking. And when I travel, I often tune out completely while in my plane seat or at the airport. No music, no movie, no book. Head runs on empty, like taking the plug out of a full bathtub. 

I'm thinking that at certain times in your life you have to multitask. It's a requirement for getting through excruciatingly packed weeks. Think: five days before Christmas, and you're the primary parent, cook, decorator, and Santa person and you have a work assignment due. Sure, tell me that we all should shed some of these responsibilities and opt for a simpler life. Maybe live in a log cabin, all in one cozy room. And still, someone has to chop the wood and make the garden grow. There's no escaping it: life can be one long todo list! 

But, that was then. I'm in favor of being in the moment now, at 70. I dont have tinnitus, I dont have miserable thoughts threatening to converge in an empty head. What a luxury!

But it is a luxury. You multitaskers everywhere -- I am completely sympathetic. Put on the music (or a podcast) while you fold laundry. You deserve the joy of combining pleasure with drudgery. Leave the empty headedness to us retirees and to people writing articles for the NYTimes.