Sunday

Let's start off with how I feel (because it very much guides the rest of this day): well, apart from being absolutely certain that I must have inadvertently eaten a cupful of grapefruit rind (that bitter taste!), I'm really not bad at all. The fatigue has abated, and the cold symptoms -- well, they're at a consistently low level. So much so that on a normal day you would say -- I must have dusted too vigorously, hence the light aggravation! Well, I wouldn't say that, because I have grown slack with farmhouse dusting, but a normal person who keeps a very tidy house might say that. So basically, things are progressing well I think.

Nonetheless, I can't say I'm motivated to be a Very Productive person. I keep cooking things that can be reheated over three dinners in a row, because not eating with Ed makes me lazy in the kitchen. And, were it not for those darn rings on my smart watch, I'd probably not be in a hurry to ride or hike or get off that darn couch. It's very comfortable in our living room. (Ed claims it's also very comfortable in his sheep shed, but I bet you anything that the minute my quarantine is over, he'll be leaving the luxury of the shed to rejoin me in our farmhouse.)

I am up at the usual time. It's cold outside, but of course, it's the middle of October so no surprises there. Chicken feeding time!

And again, I give Ed a nudge through the sheep shed door to feed the five cats who eat there, even as I then have to hurry to feed the "leftover" cat in the farmhouse (Unfriendly Snowflake). She has been banned from the sheep shed by some of the others. I do not know why. Life can be very unfair to cats.

Breakfast, to the tune of that song from 1971 -- Alone Again, Naturally (although that is a super depresso song and I am anything but depressed, but still, the tile is fitting! I mean, solo breakfast, with wilting flowers!).

I do eventually go out to do some work in the garden. I'm very unmotivated. This is not unusual -- October garden work belongs to those who really give their life over to the project of gardening. The rest of us -- we do it because we have to. I have to take out more weeds. I have to cut back some of the spent flowers for a winter look. I have to (eventually, once they arrive) plant the bulbs. So this afternoon, I do a few of the "I have to's."

Oh! Look at our quince harvest this year!

I planted the quince trees after my last visit with my father before he died. He had poured me a superb drink that Poles love -- mix quince and sugar and vodka in some combination that I can't remember and let it steep and you have yourself something quite delicious. So I planted quince trees and they are finally bearing fruit.

The problem is, I don't have the kind of dinner parties where you bring out a vodka and quince digestif at the end to show off your home liqueur production talents. And to sip it myself? That just seems sad and unnecessary. So, Ed took over some of the quince to a local bakery (Sugar River Country Bakery, the guys you see at several of the Madison farmers markets) and they played with it and liked it and so we are supplying them with our good crop of quince this year.

In the late afternoon, I go out biking again. With Ed. It's a glorious day for it! (All but the temperatures which remain on the October cool side.)

(our awesome bike trail... Ed was supposed to be in the photo, but he sped up and disappeared into the thicket while I was pedaling and balancing the camera for a shot!)

(back on the rural roads... to the lake!)

(now there's an older couple's fine way of passing a Sunday afternoon! staring at the lake! So peaceful...)

(back on the roads: home again...)

The wind is strong and I can't say that I'm not tired after the ride (love those double negatives!), but at least I have no feelings of guilt as I retire for the rest of the afternoon to the couch. In the meantime, Ed finishes planting pawpaw trees. In many ways, it's not an unusual autumn day for us, but there is an absence of family that is palpable. And of course, an absence of Ed in the evening. A few more days! Just a few more days!

I lose myself in beaming over the good election results in Poland. Democracy prevailed. Oh yeah! A good day, I think, for the future of my home country.

with love...