milestones, generational shifts, and highbush blueberries

Did you know that all blueberries are native to North America? Canada is the world's top grower of lowbush blueberries (the wild ones) and we are the main exporters of highbush blueberries (the cultivated kind). The ones I see in grocery stores in Poland are, in fact, from here and not surprisingly, they're called "borowki" which translates into "cranbaerries." Highbush blueberries are from the same family as cranberries. They're all Vaccinium plants. 

Morning walk on the most beautiful day ever. Perhaps this is Wisconsin's best -- the beginning of May. (I know we're not there yet, calendar wise, but we are ahead of ourselves this year. When I look at photos from just two years ago, everything was rather tame, whereas this week, we have an explosion of blooms outside. The lilac is catching up to the crab apple, the unique daffodils are still popping up, the tulips, though nearly done, remain radiantly colorful and of course, the plants in the tubs and baskets have happily embraced their new outdoor homes for the season. Til frost do us part.

(from both sides now...)

I pause at the sheep shed, ostensibly to feed the shed cats, but of course, none of them are anywhere near the place. Ed's work colleague, the one from Poland, moved in yesterday and with that fell swoop, the cats moved out. They are terrified of all humans (except for the two of us). I use the moment to chat with the guy, whom I would say is maybe a tad younger than my daughters. This generation of Poles is a world away from my generation. Sure, people born into the age of advanced technology are going to live in a new stratosphere in any country, but I feel that young Poles, especially the ones I know (mostly city raised, or at least schooled in the bigger cities of my home country) speak a language that is far removed from that of their parents. We, their moms and dads, are the postwar babies. The ones who suffered family memories of Germany's attempted destruction of our country. And we suffered the political upheaval that took place after the Soviet Union seized indirect control of our future. We were homogeneously of one religion, most of us traveled rarely. Gender roles were fixed far longer than in the western democracies. As my friend noted a few days ago, we can be described as a generation of scared introverts -- intensely private and often finding fault with life, with everyone who is not like us.  (I'm borrowing from others' words here -- I know too few Poles by now to feel confident in my own views on how they present themselves.)

But this next generation -- the one born as the country moved to a market economy and dusted off a dormant democratic tradition -- they're different. I see that in Karolina and her husband, I see that in our visiting friend. And though you can't shed cultural norms and values in one generational shift, I'd say Poles are doing a pretty darn good job of it. And really, that's a good thing!

Breakfast? On the porch! 

And now I'm off for my one year anniversary visit with my knee surgeon (well, not the robot who actually did the cutting and slicing but the control guy who directed the operation). Do you remember how competitive I felt after the knee replacement? I had to be at the top of performance standards at my physical therapy! I pushed that knee to do thing it was reluctant to do. It paid off. My fantastic surgeon said that the knee is about as good as they get. My knee bowed down, did a good bend and seemed to smile humbly at the words of praise.

See you in four or five years, my doc said. Four or five years? Do you say that to all aging patients? I tell you, I have myself a very optimistic doc!

And now finally, Ed and I attack the blueberry plants. These guys:

It's a process! Digging up the soil, mixing in the needed ingredients, putting down fabric for weed control, throwing chips on them -- it takes time. We finish putting in four and then pause, because Ed has machining obligations. Me, I have zero seconds to spare and I quickly move to my other project for the day -- digging out and moving a great bug chunk of the rhubarb plant. That baby is monstrously huge and it holds a prize spot along the path to the farmhouse. I want to move a lily to at least part of the space. Ed begs me to find a spot for what I take out and I do, but I warn him that I have already moved out clumps of rhubarb to various corners of the farmette land and we hardly use any rhubarb at all in the course of the year. Still, he begs, I oblige.

And now it's time to pick up the kids at school. 

 

 

 

Though our farmhouse time today is slightly limited (you'll see why!), I nonetheless convince them to take a hike across farmette lands. On a day like this, it's absolutely awesome in every corner of this place!

And we find some asparagus stalks!

... but I need to get them back to school by 5 (and so I hurry them inside for the usual food and books and play) because tonight is their music concert night. Each grade is performing a series of songs and of course, count me in on being in the audience, even though the kids are spaced in such a way that Sparrow is up on the stage at 5 and Snowdrop -- not until 6:30. In between? I hightail it to a coffee shop. It's way too late for coffee. I choose an alternative.

Here's Sparrow on stage, singing...

 

Here's Snowdrop...

And Sparrow playing an instrument...

 

And Snowdrop playing an instrument.

I'm not home until way after 7. And I have no clue as to what to do for dinner, but hey -- I ate a bag of potato chips and I can worry about more food later. We want to finish planting the blueberries!  

And we do finish. To a darkening sky.  Dinner? It's close to 9 by the time I fry up some eggs.

You could say that this day was a bit wild. Yes you could. Or you could say that it was intensely beautiful with all the goodness of the season thrust upon us. It was that for sure.

chips ahoy! (or -- be careful what you wish for)

Stunning landscape, blooming crabs, lovely May-like weather. Perfection. Truly a gardener's dream.

Cloudy initially, but it hardly matters. It's beautiful out there!

(the last of the tulips)

(yet another crab apple)

(wet from last night's rain)

(the last of the unique daffodils)

(magnificent!)

In my walk to the barn, I made a list in my head of all I could/should do today. The blueberries. We should put those in. Weeding. Always that. And I see some forgotten plants that could be moved. Spraying of the deer fodder (with our special hot pepper spray! It works!) -- hostas, strawberries, tulips. Yes, definitely. Need to spray.

And since we have all those wood chips, I should spread them over several beds that are showing many bare spots and plenty of spaces for new weeds to emerge. 

During breakfast (on the porch!)...

I talk to Ed about our various outdoor projects. He has been busy the last few days cleaning out the sheep shed. A young engineer (or programmer, or something) from Poland is going to be staying there for a couple of weeks and the place needs to be made habitable. (I mean, I wouldn't overnight there, even in its cleaned up state, but then I'm older and fussier. There was a time where I did sleep in the shed, with Ed. Those days are, thankfully, behind me.) I do all the work in the flower fields, though Ed does help with the occasional heavy duty job. He calls the flowers my "hobby." I dont quite agree with that definition. It's more like a challenge: to give a helping hand to blooms that need it, to more fully realize nature's potential. It's making room for the little guys. Getting rid of the bully plants. The invasives.  But I do agree that this is my project. Still, I need his help in loading up carts and wheelbarrows with wood chips.

And so this morning, we set to it: he loads and I spend several hours with a pitchfork, distributing the chips in two flower fields -- the glorious one near the house and the front one along the road. (That last one has been neglected for years. Between the drought, and the slope, and the winter road salt, and the encroaching maple roots and branches, it's been a pretty challenging space. This spring, I'm trying to restore its vitality.)

 

(busy bees...)

 

 

It's good for your upper body strength -- Ed tells me as I heave another pitchfork-ful out of the cart. And I agree with that, but it's also true that I don't actually exercise my upper body musculature with any consistency and so for me, this morning's work is tough! Load up, heave out, sprinkle nimbly between plants. Load up, heave out, sprinkle nimbly among plants. Over and over again.

...until it's time to pick up the girl at school.

That smile you see in the photo? It lasted all of one minute. Maybe less. There had been a grave injustice committed toward the end of the day by the teacher and Snowdrop was crushed by the unfairness of it all. It's tempting to dismiss it with a "life's unfair" kind of response, but if you think about it, aren't we all crushed when someone whose respect we need in life points an accusing finger at us with a string of unfair comments and characterizations? 

We talked it through, weighing her options. Confrontation? No, that's not Snowdrop's style. She tells me what would please the teacher most is if she lied and admitted to doing something that in fact she did not do. Well that's not right either! In the end she settles for moving on. 

(a distracting playground pause on the way to the farmhouse)

 By the time we pull into the farmette driveway, she is her old cheerful self again.

 

Monday is our nonstop reading day and today we started in on a new book about a Jewish girl forced to take on a different identity to survive the war years in France ("The Night War"). Heavy stuff, but of course, you can't avoid heaviness with kids. And maybe books like these give perspective. Suddenly the school injustice seems, well, inconsequential.

 

Evening. There's a cool breeze, but still, it's beautiful out there! Looking out our kitchen window, you can't help but smile. Lilacs are days away from blooming, and the crab? Ah, the crab!

You can never tire of it. All of it. The unfurling of gazillion petals in a season of flowers.

rain

Our bucket shows that the night's rain was intense. We missed the dangerous storms that plowed through the Great Plains, but we got plenty of thunder and rain. And the showers continue -- all day long.

Perhaps the only pause in the relentless patter of rain comes in the early morning, when I step out to feed the animals. It's an otherwise very pretty day, if you concentrate on the plant life rather than the darkening skies, and I would have loved to spend it in the courtyard, in the shade and light fragrance of the crab apple, but I only get this one pause in the otherwise wet day and I use it to pick out the weeds that have doubled in size in the course of this one rainy night.

I do give at least a few minutes of my attention to the beauty of all that's around me right now. By some markers, the first week of May -- with that crab apple tree and the emerging lilac flowers -- is the most awesome of them all, because it's not just about the flower fields. It's about all that grows and blooms, whether you're looking down at the fields, or up at the bushes and trees. It's all perfectly sublime.

(stepping out into a la vie en rose...)

(this tree's best moment is now, before the blossoms are fully opened)

(we don't have just one crab apple on the farmette lands... here's another)

(but this one, at the edge of the path to the barn, is our queen of the week!)

The rain then comes back and it's a cool day, so no porch breakfast this morning. Back to the kitchen.

And back to reading and writing. I should relish the break, but what can I say -- the grass is always greener over there, where you cannot be. I miss my gardens!

 

In the later afternoon I start in on dinner for the young family. That, at least, is not weather dependent. I cook the usual, and it is, as always, great to have them here.

 (someone does not mind rain...)

(and if she can walk up the secret path, so can Sandpiper!)

(dinner, inside of course)

Tomorrow -- it's back to outdoor work. I expect the weeds have been doing a celebration dance with all that rain. I wont let them win this round! 

And a happy end of April to you too!

with love...

repetition

You know how older people tell you the same thing over and over again? Each time as if it were something new, something you hadn't grasped or even heard before? Well, guess what -- I think we all live and thrive repeating ourselves in much of that we say and do. Perhaps younger people reign it in better, but fact is, we all appear to like repetition! And people living in northern climes are programmed to love it even more -- we are seasonal in our behaviors. Winter's here? Okay, let's rearrange the closet and bring out the hygge candles. Springtime? Let's photograph those tulips and after that, fruit trees and after that, the lilacs, because each one has its best moment and then fades, until next year, when it again will have its best moment and we will again focus our eyes, our lens on the emergent blooms.

Ocean has a lot of repetition and not only because my days are rather similar and writing about them forces a kind of mechanical thinking about what took place. It has repetition because as a person who loves the outdoors, I'm glued to the screen that is the great big earth outside (or on a normal day -- the farmette lands) and I walk through the steps that are seasonally appropriate. And so in one month you will see the same corner of a flower field, again and again, because that is what I am noticing right now (and it may even remind you of a series of photos taken of that same corner, at the same time last year, or the year before). It's deliberate, because I look for those same blooms each year, often in the same places. And in a few days, or few weeks, I'll turn my attention to something else. And this continues all year long.

There is a lot of excitement in the new, but there is also a lot of joy in the repetition. I loved the concentration of crocuses. I loved our daffodil clusters.  I'm loving the emergence of very pink, bursting buds of the crabapple! And yes, you will see a lot of crabapple blooms in the next few days. It is approaching its most radiant moment and it is so very beautiful!  Let's stand back in reverence and feel the enchantment, the magic that unfolds.

 

Okay, but first, the morning walk. You have farm animals, you better like repetition because you surely have to endure a lot of it.

Oh, but it is such a stellar walk right now, in the last days of April!

This very warm day deserves a special breakfast. From this place (familiar, right? I keep going back because it's so good!):

The day is steamy warm. Windy but outrageously June-like (high of 78f or 26c). And so finally, finally, I can throw down a tablecloth and we can eat breakfast on the porch! And if that isn't heavenly then I dont know what is.

The plum trees and blueberry bushes have arrived, but we are slow to put them in. I clear out some sticky weed from one of the meadows (another nuisance weed, aka goosegrass or sticky willy), I plant a clematis, and a dozen gladioli bulbs (gladioulus murielae) for those white, late summer blooms, and I finally decide to put my alyssum flowers in a hanging basket. I love the smell of those dainty white blooms, but if I leave them anywhere at chicken eye level, then the hens will eat them all. They absolutely adore those flowers!

Too, I snip off some dried limbs from the many trees that line our walkway to the barn. When you take as many photos as I do each day, you notice dead branches and runners that really should be snipped off!

And wood chips! We've been waiting for a free delivery from any one of the tree removal people in our area and yesterday our most reliable guys delivered a half a truckload. So I spread a bit in the new flower bed and I fill in gaping bare spots in the older beds too.

And I weed. A lot. The creeping bell flower. Always there's the creeping bellf lower. To the racket of the singing Robin and the Song Sparrow and the Goldfinch.

Finally we set out to plant the fruit bushes and trees -- plum trees first. They are just thin sticks and so I dont think we can hope for plums in the near future, but gardening requires patience and a fervent belief in a better future. Ed and I aren't invested in having large harvests, but we're curious types and we try new ideas and yes, there's always the repetition of tasks, but there's also the novelty in the result. Because we can't ever be sure about anything out there. A storm may come and damage everything. A drought may weaken most of the new plantings. A knee may give out, a lung can collapse, a tic may bite (we've found three so far this year, which is sort of a high number for us). We worry about none of this. We think instead about the flowers that will some day (maybe) bloom and the plums that may some day appear.

We dont stop working until the rains come in the evening. We'll work with the blueberries tomorrow or the next day. Right now, I can't say that I'm sorry to see those big clouds roll in. We need more rain and the two of us need a break!

With love...