Friday

You have to pull out all the stops to like a day like this: wet and cold and gray, with an exclamation point! Snowdrop said yesterday -- I like snow, but I like it when it's clean and fresh and not soggy and dirty. Well said. Unfortunately, we are in for a spell of soggy and dirty. Consider the morning walk to the barn:

I brought the last of my tubs of forced bulbs to the breakfast table. All the stops, I tell you!

It is impossible to get excited about a walk in the park, so I head out for just a few minutes, with my rain jacket, into the new development. With a rain jacket, in January, in Wisconsin! It really messes with your sense of time and place, but there you have it -- we are stuck in a cloud of weird warm soggy air.

I do try to focus on garden planning, but I have to say, I'm only modestly excited about it. As my beds shrink from the encroaching shade, I feel that my aspirations also have to shrink. Too, I'm no longer expanding the reach of my planting. Last year I barely kept up with the fields currently under my care. (Well, truthfully, I did not keep up with the ones furthest from the farmhouse. In the fall I took the tractor out there and mowed down the weeds that had taken over!) Still, I will admit to being excited about the coming of the growing season. This winter isn't exactly tough on us here at the farmette, but nor is it a stellar one, with the crisp landscapes and pale blue skies that we love so much at this time of the year. So yes, l'll be looking forward to spring along with everyone else. Two more months!

And in the afternoon, the kids are here, for their usual Friday eat-read-violin-ballet sequence. 

The pick-up, the time at the farmhouse -- it all seems like a repetition of the same each day, doesn't it? In truth, it's not. Snowdrop and Sparrow are getting older and the conversational dynamics are changing. Snowdrop raises topics that dont deserve pat answers and cant be sidestepped easily. Too, we're continuing with a book that puts us right into the bombing of England during World War II. Another set of issues for us to talk about. Sparrow tunes in, tunes out. You never know when he is fully present, in the way that younger sibs are even when you're talking about stuff that is beyond their immediate comprehension. War? Child abuse and neglect? What does he make of that? And the more mundane topics -- class dynamics. His are difinitive recounts: he has a good day with friends or he doesn't. And the "not so good" days are never bad, it's just that nothing stands out in his memory. So we juggle it all and in doing so I watch these two grow up and I have to say, this, to me is the best part of parenting or grandparenting -- when you can help these young ones sort through perplexing topics so that there is always clarity and hope for them.

I come home late on Fridays. This is the perfect day for reheating foods. And I do. And it feels warm and comforting to sit down with Ed over bowls of farro, as we laugh a little at funny moments of Ted Lasso on the big screen. The week is done. All's fine with our little world. 

with love....