Saturday

The warm spell is here this weekend. A beautiful Second Summer. A gift that always comes to us in Autumn thanks to a shift in the jet stream (so I'm told). I pull on a pair of shorts once again. Heavenly weather!

On my morning walk, I look for color. Inevitably the annuals are the showoff queens now. They introduced the growing season and they will end it with the first frost. From what I can tell, that first frost is not going to happen in the next half month.

Immediately after dealing with the animals, Ed and I bike to the downtown market. The ride is with the prevailing wind and so we get to the Capitol Square in record time -- 35 minutes. (A bit longer on the return! To be honest, a lot longer!) Ed asks -- what are we buying? I answer -- nothing. I'm leaving on Monday and I have already cooked up containers of chili for him. And of course, he has the steady stream of melons plucked from the farmette lands. We are set, food wise, for a while. Still, I check in with one of the farmers about winter spinach delivery and of course, I admire the flowers. Plenty of beautiful flowers!

There is an "off the square" event today -- it's centered on cheese. You do know that Wisconsin is responsible for producing 48% of the country's artisanal cheeses? So wipe out the idea that it's California or Vermont! (We also do produce most cheese, artisanal or commercial. All those American Muensters and Cheddars and Mozzarellas? Mostly made here, in my home state.)

The cheese event is fine -- lots of samples from maybe a dozen or two cheesemakers. We each pick a couple to try and then we move on. (Someone asks -- do you want a photo of the two of you? It's such a good view!  And then they chop off the Capitol building.)

To Madison Sourdough. For their croissants.

And now back we bike, against the wind, for breakfast, on the porch!

So warm, so very warm. I stay on the porch. A Zoom call with my friend Bea from Warsaw, more paragraphs added to my GWP2.  So beautiful outside! So very beautiful!

I do weed. Some of the fields close to the sheep shed, so that I am not totally depressed looking at them come spring.

In the evening we had booked a dinner out at One and Only -- a name that surely would turn off anyone looking for good food! But, what's in a name? I had noted that they have mussels on the menu and Ed is up for a Moules Frites dinner.

Sublime! When you don't eat out so much, and when you finally rouse yourself up and out of your home base, and if you love watching someone enjoy his moules frites, well then, what else could you add to make an evening special? Cant think of a thing.

Oh, wait a minute. Evening's not over? After a dinner out, there was more? 

There was more: we had been chatting about (more like laughing at) an article in today's paper about the hardships of old age. The stiffness. The physical challenges. The time it takes just to get up and out of a taxi. And I commented to Ed that he has less trouble with stiffness than most people his age, despite the fact that he spends a heck of a lot of time on the couch. Sitting. He protested: I dont sit, I lie down! There's a difference. I told him he was lucky to grab so much space on our one couch. I can't lie down because he's already claimed it. He suggested I stretch out on the love seat. The beaten up, torn by cats orange love seat. I had a quick answer to that one -- it's too short. I learned that after my knee surgery. I could not stretch out. 

This is how we moved right into looking up used couches on Craigslist and on Marketplace (on Facebook). We were lucky in finding our one couch this way. Could we be lucky again and find a second one (ditching the battered love seat) too? 

It took forever. I was reminded of the warning I'd once read to never, ever bring used couches into your home. Still, Ed will not agree to new furniture. I know him well enough -- it'll have to be used, or we stay with the old  battered orange love seat. Of course, the listings are horrible. You couldn't pay me to bring 99% of the stuff that's for sale into our home. But every once in a while we came across acceptable compromises. We put out a few feelers (Ed insists on bargaining). Perhaps we'll get lucky. Or not. Either way, the search was an unexpected adventure, for the end of September, for the end of a lovely day.

with love...