end of May

How to summarize -- the month, the day, the season! On balance, it has been grand. And I'm not just saying that. It really has been fabulous. In the gardens, the soil, loosened by rains, heated by sunshine, and enriched by compost has really boosted the perennials. Last year, they struggled. This year? They are strong! Pushing out new growth! (So are the weeds, but I'm --mostly-- on top of it.)

I've been busy -- my mother's issues have filled morning hours (and the afternoons and evenings have not been unaffected), but despite what she will tell you, she is in a good place right now. Much of her well-being depends on her. Not on her caretakers, not on me. You have to prove to yourself that you're able to do more than you do each day. This is as much true for her as it is for a young child or you and me. If you only see, feel, talk about the slide, well, chances are that slide will accelerate. (I visited her today. She is as she was. Convinced that no one is properly attending to her. That her once miracle child is a miracle no more.) 

I've been busy with the grandkids too, and busy with outdoor work, and busy sitting on the couch in the evenings with Ed. It all has a place in my day, my life, this month. Such a beautiful May...

 

And now, my morning -- a promising one with a hint of sunshine and lots of warm air...

((Can you even see the sheep shed behind all that new growth??)

Breakfast is deliciously leisurely...

And after the visit with my mother, I shop for groceries, admiring the incredible wealth of produce that is available and wishing most everyone could just reach over and grab containers of berries and California cherries and lettuces and veggies and all the rest of it.

In the early afternoon, I weed, of course, and I'm reaching into the more distant beds -- a sure sign of my confidence that things are thriving and that I can expand my field work. 

And the kids come to the farmette, all dressed up, because it was  "fancy day" at school...

And we have plenty of time to play, read, the usual happy stuff.

(still purple...)

We always end our farmhouse time with a Bluey episode on TV. If you dont have kids around you then you may not know this Australian cartoon. There are a million episodes (well, maybe a hundred) and the kids have seen them all, probably several times. It's way below their age, except that it isn't really, because the show is funny and delightfully real, even if the characters are.... dogs. Importantly, from my perspective, the episodes are very short: eight minutes each, so we can do one, or two and the kids feel so privileged that they get to watch something that is so... sweet and inconsequential (though with good life's lessons!).

 

In the evening, I finish weeding and chipping the distant bed. It's so satisfying to finish something that may well have suffered neglect for the rest of the season (and few would have noticed)! I didn't have to do it. But it's done and that's so wonderful.

I come in to cook Fish and roasted cauliflower for dinner. (The cats are excited!) And chocolate. My last bite in May will have been a square of chocolate. With thanks for a truly beautiful month!

with love...

there's always that bright upswing

Clouds gone, sun's out, there is just that perfect amount of warmth outside.

Some peonies are finished, but others are just starting.

I have no appointments, meetings or demands on me for this morning.

How good is that?? 

The walk to the barn is early, leisurely, pretty. I take my time to look around.

(the peach orchard and the strawberry stand)

(meadow flowers)

(sunshine)

Breakfast, with Ed, outside. He has a zoom call. I have nothing.

Can you believe it??

I suppose I should turn to my very neglected to do list. Or not.

I go back to the flower fields. I do some quick fixes. And I do a major weed pull in the Big Bed. And that takes up the whole morning because, well, the Big Bed is ... big.

At breakfast, Ed and I talked about our work on farmette lands. There are three acres here, and all the flowers planted are my domain, and all the trees added to the new orchards are mostly Ed's domain, and the mowing of paths is mine, and the cutting down of dead limbs is his, and wood chip distribution is shared. He'll chip the courtyard and the tomato fields and the fruit trees, I'll chip the flowers. Maintaining it all is one heck of a job, though this year we are helped by a steady amount of rain and an early start to the planting season. 

As the summer season progresses, I will reduce efforts to keep all fields in order. I'll concentrate on the beds that are visible from the courtyard. The ones close to the farmhouse. Does this make any sense? I mean, all but one of the flower fields are visible only to us. Why neglect, for instance, the ones by the sheep shed? 

I suppose the progression in growth -- from young plants (in the spring), to middle-aged (in the summer) to old (in the fall) -- is not unlike the progression of age in people. When you get older you vision, your travels, your interests tend to be drawn in tighter circles around where you are. You settle into your comfy (well, the hope is that it's comfy) little world and you give up on trying to understand everything and everyone. So, too, with gardening, by the end of spring, I move away from trying to get everything in order. Just the stuff closest to me, closest to my heart.

And now it's time to pick up Snowdrop. It's a little bit different today: she gets to do something she has been wanting to do for a long long time: color her hair. Purple maybe. With black streaks? No, with cerulean streaks. Or maybe green? Being "the correct grandmother" that I am, I try to exert a little influence -- away from the dark and scary! But, in the end, it is her experiment. She just has to agree to a haircut along with the color. All this we accomplish right after school.

(before)

(after)

It takes a while to paint long hair purple! Like, the better part of the afternoon. By the time we are on the road, I got a message alerting me to a jury verdict in the Trump New York case. I couldn't stop the car, so I handed the phone to Snowdrop and she read the updates, one after the next. An interesting way (and legally very educational!) for Snowdrop to learn the ins and outs of felony proceedings! 

Even with our shortened time, Snowdrop does want to stop at our local farmers market. For the cherry pie! For the sheer fun of it!

From there -- to the farmette, where the late afternoon sunlight plays with her purple hair...

 

And only then -- to the farmhouse. For a very late snack. And a very brief reading session. 

Evening. You almost want to give up on couch time and just stay outside, the light is that beautiful! 

 

 

 

A few minutes, then hunger and tiredness push me inside. Easy day, easy dinner, easy evening. 

Yeah! How good is that?!

 

another rushed morning

How are my flower fields faring? I don't know! I've been away from them for too long! (In May, three days is too long!) And this day is so lovely and yet again I haven't the time to dive into their thicket, to prune, remove and correct the errors that are still fixable, stakable, transplantable, removable, weedable (are these even words??). No matter. Let's enjoy the brief walk to the barn together...

And now if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment to run to (so that breakfast is hurried...).

Back so soon? Great. Next meeting for today is over at my mother's nursing care facility. Staff brainstorming how to address the onslaught of negativity. Nothing new there. She remains still hostile, still miserable, still calling me, telling me who did what wrong, and what a disappointment I am for her. Why? Well, who knows why, really. Probably because I am always there. Who else will listen?

Back to the farmette. I have time for either a leisurely lunch or a hurried gardening session, but not both. I choose the latter. Because, as many have said before me -- gardening is really, really good for you. I've known that since I was a babe! (Caveat -- unless you hate it and then I really do think you should find something else to fill your spare time. There is nothing worse than a sour gardener!)

Kids now. The oldest (third grader Snowdrop) had a field trip today to the International Crane Foundation up in Baraboo (about an hour to the north of us). Oh, school field trips! Do you remember them? You look forward to that break in classroom routines and you love, love, love having all that time with your friends. Does the destination even matter? Snowdrop had a great time, cranes or no cranes!

Sparrow takes it in. I can just see his mind churning as he listens to his sister's stories and tries to prepare himself for being faced with these big kid challenges sometime in the future!

We read for a long while. Sometimes I wonder if I have regressed in my book reading -- I love my pile of novels on my night table, but my enthusiasm for Snowdrop level books is positively bursting at the seams. I cannot wait to see how the plots in her books will resolve themselves!

(this is their favorite activity to do in the five minutes it takes me to get their food together: Ed's computer)

 

 

Evening once again. Ed is on his bike, I study the garden... it's okay, it's okay... right? Not too neglected?

 

 

 

I'm cooking soup. I think about the month. Calmly now. I'm getting better at putting the turmoil behind me.

We still have a few days of May left. Wonderful.  I'm not ready to let go of this month. May is so very beautiful!

with love...

still May

I think it's coincidental. I think there's no truth to the idea that it's somehow deliberate. Maybe I'm amassing data to support a theory, because I've already bought into the veracity of this theory. Still, it does seem to me that the most beautiful month, which in Wisconsin has to be May, often strives to remind us that beauty comes with challenges. Serious life's challenges. My four gravest illnesses all came at me in May -- just as an example! And this year, I have my mother's cognitive decline to grapple with. All of it, this month, an otherwise perfect month, a merry month of flowers and sunshine and butterflies and meadows.

Much of the morning is devoted to my mother: several phone conversations with staff members, a visit -- all in an attempt to figure out what's behind her stream of acute criticism that's coming seemingly out of nowhere. One theory is that she suffered what's called "hospital trauma" where something went wrong and she spiraled it into a big event and then it spun out of control. There are other theories, irrelevant for Ocean purposes, though I'm fairly certain that I am right now a contributing factor to her woes. I'm pretty sure that my unwillingness to accept without reservation her assessments of her sorry state is a major blow for her. I always tread on thin ice when I do not feed into her iron-clad narrative. In the past, when I broke down and pushed back against her stream of complaints, it's never ended well. I discussed with the staff whether perhaps I should just accept all her stories, because, well, she is 100 and if that will bring her some satisfaction, then why not?

I suppose the answer is one that the social worker gave me: I need to protect myself in all this as well. Feeding into a fiction seems, at least in theory, harmless, unless that fiction is completely at odds with my own feelings about what is real and what is just an imagined story, unsupported by the reality within which we have lived for a long, long time. I've always thought it's best to just stay quiet, to listen without commentary, even when attacked. And now here I am, thinking that maybe staying totally silent in the face of all that's thrown at me, at the staff, is perhaps not the right way to proceed after all. Maybe I shouldn't be such a wimp! Ed has so often told me to cut short and walk away from any conversations that I don't like. Just hang up the (proverbial) phone -- he'd say again and again. And most often, the wimp in me would say -- it's more trouble to do that then to just listen. Total wimp!

I did have a few minutes in the garden in the early morning, not much more than that. (It did not help that the rains returned in the afternoon...)

And I did have a nice coffee with a friend downtown. And Ed and I ate breakfast bowls of fruit in the afternoon and pretended it was our morning meal. Sweet guy, not used to so much emotional craziness, he is nonetheless a good person to have at your side.

And then it is time to focus on the grandkids, who just loved the fact that it was hat day in school today!

Snowdrop has her Shakespeare lines to memorize every day now and so we work on that. So far she is full of enthusiasm and not buckling under the pressure (154 lines by July 15th!).  May her resolve stay with her!

In the evening, I read about the Diverging Diamond Interchange. What -- you've not heard of it? I'll link to a story describing it, only because the picture there gives you a visual map of how this works and I myself needed the graphics to fully get the set up. It's an idea developed by a guy who all his life loved to imagine and create traffic patterns. Even as a little kid, with Matchbox cars. And he had this great inspiration -- to avoid the hazards and long waits in a left turn, he suggested a diamond like pattern, where you go to the other side of the road before you make the turn. You can see the design here.

My own car accident happened due to just such a left turn (with a rogue car coming at me from the parking lane). Imagine, a less dangerous turning option! Thanks to a guy who liked to play with toy cars. You have to marvel at human ingenuity and creative impulse.

The clouds break up. There is a stunning sunset, but our trees are too dense for us to fully take it in. How about just a tiny glimpse?

 

 

 

Remarkable month. In all ways!

with love...

Memorial Day

The unofficial beginning of summer. The day of remembrance. A day of online sales, a day of community pool openings. For many -- a day of bbq's and family gatherings.

It's a little cool, but nonetheless, it's pretty outside. Light breeze, a few clouds. Short sleeve weather.

For me -- a day to finalize all aspects of the move for my mother: go over every item and put it in one of three piles -- to add to her new rooms, to leave behind for trash, and to donate to people we know who would make good use of it. 

But before I start in on that, I go about my usuals. Yes, there is breakfast...

 And before that, I do my rounds. Chickens, cats, flowers.

Like a doctor tending her patients, no? Checking their health, making sure they have the conditions to thrive. In the case of flowers -- monitoring them carefully, for disease, soil moisture, support needs and presentation, so that they may show us their best face in their period of bloom.

Showing your best face! It reminds me of when I was very little, someone (my grandfather? my father? I don't remember) said to me -- wipe that frown off of your face. Because what if your face froze now? You'd have a frown for the rest of your life!

It was a bit of a tease and I'm sure I didn't take it seriously then, but these days, I think there may be a thin layer of wisdom in those words. It's not that I think that faces freeze, but I do believe that expressions that you resort to with some frequency in the course of your life become entrenched and by the time you are old, you fall back on them with some regularity. You lose the flexibility to cycle through all options and you go to the one that has served you well in life. That scowl? It worked before, out it comes now, with some choice words for emphasis. Target and ready audience? Well, there's your daughter for example.

My mother doesn't have Alzheimer's but I did find some useful advice on the Alzheimer's Association's website for those who are with patients who are, well, grumpy. (And worse.) I read the following:  Many will experience major personality changes. A sweet, gentle person may behave sweeter after the on-set of Alzheimer's, while the “bossy” kind may become even more controlling. So, what you were before, only in mega doses. The recommendation is to not reason with them, or confront them.  I sometimes forget about the "don't try to reason" part! Still, the constancy of that scowl and those harsh words, reserved especially for me, reminded me so much of the childhood warning -- don't frown, because maybe your face will freeze and you wont be able to get your smile back.

 

Later, much later, Ed and I explored a county park we'd never heard of before -- Anderson Farms Park, just about ten miles south of where we live. We thought we had done them all and yet -- here it is, on a map, a completely new terrain for us.

Was it worth the (ten minute) drive? Yes it was. (And not only because it is such a pretty ten minute drive! Past this meadow with grasses that are almost as tall as the longhorns who graze there!)

The Anderson Farms Park itself is a little more manicured than the county park just up the road from us, but the effect is lovely. A prairie extends through its belly and right now, the wild indigo plants are putting on quite the performance!

We actually sit down on one of the benches just to look and admire it all.

There are several paths through wooded areas and these are good as well, though we are close enough to a development that we hear the sound of the lawn mower. It's understandable that someone would be running the machine on a holiday afternoon, but still, it does interfere a little with the sensual drift of a walk along a forested path.  

Yet a third loop leads you past an orchard. We could not find any fruit trees (except for mulberries and they dont really count!), but we did pass a lovely wheat field. The wheat here is used as a cover crop but for me, the associations are strong with my childhood in the Polish village, where wheat crops and potatoes dominated the farmlands around us.

We pick some of the invasive Dame's Rocket to take home for the kitchen table. The Dane County Parks encourages you to pluck these flowers for exactly that purpose. The more you pick, the prettier your bouquet, and the healthier the park meadows and forests will be.

Evening at the farmette:

There's nothing like it! The light fades very slowly. I fix us a supper of shrimp scampi and tons of asparagus. I put the flowers on the kitchen table. 

 

 

And we have ourselves another quiet set of hours at home. Sleepy from our walk, full of gratitude for living in such a beautiful corner of the planet.

rainy day Sunday and more advice which really isn't advice

Here's an admission: my mind works in lyrical form. Everything around me is a trigger to a song lyric from the past and if I am feeling good and content, I will hum the tune that accompanies the moment. My friends noticed this last week when we were working on the puzzle together. Blue sky piece? "Not a cloud in the sky, got the sun in my eye..."  Is that part of the grass? "Green grass, 'round my window, young leaves..." You get the idea. When I work in the garden, my mind stays clear of worry and clutter because it is too busy tracking songs in my head that fit the scene before me.

Sometimes, the lyrics get a little twisted and bent out of shape. Like this morning, when the rain came down (and I know it will be with us all day long), my mind launched into "rainy day Sundays always get me down..." even though the song is really about rainy days and Mondays. (Carpenters, 1971). 

No, I'm not down. Not at all. But I think about those who are and how they got themselves into that tailspin (so often not of their own making, but sometimes maybe just a little of their own making). Foul moods are frequently out of your control. The National Institute of Mental Health states that more than 8% of all American adults have had at least one depressive episode in their lives. I bet that number is even higher. My hunch is that many people feel and act depressed and they don't even recognize it for what it is.

I don't know anything at all about these things. No training on these issues, no inside scoop. But I do know about the effect it can have on a person to be around someone who just cannot get their emotional state to rise above the depths of despair and displeasure. So that you're always on the receiving end of their felt or imagined crises. It feels like you can never escape it: that person's negativity is always threatening to flood you and drag you down with them. What to do? Shore up your defenses. And do all you can to build your own happy world.

So, on this rainy but not gloomy day, I throw out yet another piece of advice: I've long known that it's on you to learn how to be happy,  (Ed will remind me of this periodically, but I know it without his prompts.) Possibly the greatest skill you can develop in life is to accept full responsibility for  your own emotional well being. Yes, it may be their fault that you're anxious or dispirited, but don't wait for the fix to come from them. It's on you to then learn how best to live with joy, despite everything. Don't get sucked into making excuses and pointing a finger at the one who pushed you to the brink. Find a way to rise above it. Don't just engage in the blame game. Which, by the way, rhymes with the "Name Game!" You know, Nina Nina bo bina, banana fana for fina, fee fye mo mina..."

 

So, rain, eh?

A brisk walk to the barn. The cats aren't happy, the hens aren't happy. But it's a gentle rain (for now), so I can pause for a picture or two without getting very wet!

I drive then to Batch Bakehouse.  I like their cakes for celebratory occasions and I ordered one for this day because it is (actually was, but plans are for me to celebrate it today) Sandpiper's birthday. Chocolate with strawberry frosting. I used to whip these up by myself, but honestly, I just haven't the time these days to bake much of anything!

(While there, I could not resist some more breakfast treats.)

Breakfast is in the kitchen. Cozy trumps wet and cold. Two cats join us.

And eventually I again check in on my still anguished mother. Some of the care providers think she may be calming down, but I dont see it. She always saves the best for me. The one who "doesn't understand," who let her down, who is allowing her "to die in misery," who attacks her, abandons her, who talks too quietly ("I cant hear you!") and then too loudly ("stop shouting"). Who for a short while was "a miracle child," but is no longer much of a miracle child at all. Briefly "beloved," now merely the "cruel" one.

Still, the hope remains that she will return back to her old ways, such as they were. Once again I wish I could scour her old room to see if I neglected to bring some items she may deem necessary to her survival. Sometimes something as trivial as a box of toothpicks can be seen as life-changing. I know some of such items, but not all. Again, I get no help from her and so I return home, knowing that I have one more chance (tomorrow) to bring over something we may have inadvertently left behind in her old room.

 

At home, I cannot take out the tractor and hack away at burdock because it's been pouring rain. I consider a stiff drink. Well that's not a healthy response! Instead, I turn my attention to fixing dinner for the young family. 

 (here they come!)

 

 

 

It's a birthday dinner!

 (Sandpiper, at the head of the table)

 

Sandpiper is now officially three.

Sandpiper: you hear so little about him here, on Ocean! Luck of the birth order. The geography. The age of the grandparent. He was born when I was a fresh 68. He is thus three to my 71. I move, think, behave differently now than I did, say, when Snowdrop was three. I'm reminded here of my conversation with the girl two days ago when she asked me during one of our numerous car rides together -- gaga, would you rather take a car trip across the country or go on a trip to a European city? I said, without hesitation -- a trip to a European city. (The kids looooove playing "would you rather" games!) I felt I had to explain: Snowdrop, I have taken hundreds of road trips. Mostly as the designated driver. Across America, to the coasts and back, with little kids, alone, with big kids, with u-hauls, many many times. After a while, when you're driving, the highways all look the same. At a European city, I could go to a cafe and sit and do some serious people watching! Add a museum, a park -- it all sounds great!  Snowdrop responded -- you are such a perfectly correct grandmother! You fulfill the image of a sweet old lady so well! 

I took it as a very beautiful compliment.

But Sandpiper is just barely three and he is lively and as demanding as any three year old. He flies through games, finds joy in many toys, often all at the same time, and he is adventurous in just the ways grandparents find terrifying: he will scale furniture, climb rocks, swing high with feet flying. It is small surprise that I see him mostly when there is another grownup to help with the supervision, especially when the two sibs are also in the picture. 

 

(grandparents are for getting their grandkids very large stuffies!)

Still, today is his day in my book! With all that liveliness comes a heart so full of love, a face so radiant and bursting with smiles, that your heart melts at the mere sight of him.

Happy happy year ahead, little guy!

And the rains come to an end and the day does as well, with Ed, on the couch, loving every minute of our sweet, quiet time together.