farmette days

Here's a difference between Ed and me (one of many): Ed was raised in the heart of New York City. Sure, his family spent summer weeks in upstate New York, and in his young adulthood he sequestered himself in a shack in a forest in Tennessee for many months, but really, he was thoroughly a city boy. And then, later in life, as he neared 50, he moved to the farmette. It was a complete flip for him: like a switch shutting off the power grid, he woke up with his urban soul turned off. He became a country boy. There is nothing about city life that appeals to him. Really, I can't think of a thing.

For me, if someone asked are you more of a city person or a country person, I'd say that it's like asking if I'm more Polish or American. The truth is, I take on the mood of the place I'm in. I was more Polish until I moved to New York. Then, again, I was more Polish in high school in Warsaw. Now, living as I do here, for 50 years straight, I am obviously more American. It's not even close. Still, when I go back to Poland, I feel that Polish water engulfing me once again. I'm still American and I check into a hotel using American documents and most often I choose to relate to the clerks in English (which is sort of bizarre, but I cant help it), but I feel that same pulse of Polish history and culture as the Polish person walking on the street past me. I cannot ever completely let go of my Polishness.

And it's the same with city versus country. I was born in the city, but lived the first few years in the deep Polish countryside. I spent summers there. I felt the seasonal change in forests and meadows, along riverbanks and fields of wheat. And yet, My formative years were in the city. New York, Warsaw, New York, Chicago.

And now, here I am in the country again, with a country wardrobe of roughed up shoes and summer shorts and sweatshirts rather than nice sweaters, and snow boots rather than sleek leather shoes. And when it's time to visit a city -- I am at a loss. Do 71 year old women wear shorts on hot days in the city? Do I need sandals instead of rubber flipflops (which I hose down before entering the house, because they are always dirty, as are, therefore, my feet).

I'm going to be visiting a whole bunch of big cities in the next couple of weeks. I mentioned this earlier here, on Ocean. And every few days it strikes me that I am quite unprepared for that much city. The absence of sandals in my closet was just one example.

All this to say that this morning, after doing the dirty business of lily snipping (only 285 today! yay!), after picking off a few weeds and watering the tubs of annuals, after taking just a few photos...

I sat down to breakfast, alone, because Ed was on a Zoom call and I knew it would take a very long time for him to come down...

After all that, I filled a bucket in the kitchen sink with soapy water, I brought down nail trimming gear and a bottle of rather colorless nail polish, and I attacked my feet. Because, you see, if you do get sandals (mine should arrive in the mail today!), your toes will be exposed, and country toes do not look good on city streets.

It took forever! 

I cant even remember when I had the last professional pedicure. Maybe never? Sure, I take showers, I clip nails to some short form, I keep clean. But my summer country feet are forever working away in the flower fields and that look of countryness stays with them. I had to take charge and attempt that metamorphosis -- from country back to city.

By the time I finished (and a sharp eye will note that my feet are not completely country-free!) it was time to pick up the kids. Unbelievable how time flies when you're trying to juggle identities and fit one into a mold you think will be a correct one, given your surroundings! [I will admit that the other day I also took out the ironing board and ironed a pair of linen pants for my upcoming travels! Last time I ironed clothing? When I was still teaching, so maybe ten years ago. And I only think I ironed then! I must have! Teaching has a huge performance component to it and looking frumpy doesn't exactly give you stature in law students' eyes, unless you're a white male and then you can get away with anything.]

Okay, hi kids!

It's hot today! We dont dally outside for long. We do the usual, with perhaps a little more play today. Feeling frisky!

Toward evening, kids are gone, Ed is biking. And I take out my bike too. Just for half an hour, but I missed the feel of a warm sun on my back as I bike past prairie fields.

And when I come back, I see that my new sandals have arrived. And of course, perhaps predictably, they do not fit. And so instead of making supper, I get into the car and drive to a shoe store because it's either that or wear rubber flip flops along city streets for the next two weeks.

(success!)

You could say that this day was all about feet. Weird, but true.

with love...

 

 

return to chaos

I'm in three places at once and it's not even 7 o'clock yet. Lily snipping (I stop half way to attend to other business), animal feeding, then quickly, I bike over to Steffi's House to let in a guy who has to fix the internet wiring. While there, I hustle the Polish visiting tenant to pack up. He has to be out of there within an hour or two. (He's moving to the sheep shed for a month!) Ed needs to drive over with his truck and remove the furniture we found for him. The real tenants are moving in for the next year and the place has to be ready for them. Can I have the garage door opener please? It's broken. Oh no! I wish I knew that yesterday! I pop into Tati's for breakfast foods. Too early. Baked goods not yet delivered. In the meantime the Mosquito dudes are on their way to give another push to the swarms of mosquitoes at the farmette. We need to corral as many animals inside as we can. The skittish chicken is impossible! We chase her, tempt her with a stale croissant (their favorite) -- it's no good. She flies off to who knows where. The others are in the garage, messing the place up, I'm sure.

Do we even have time for breakfast? Just barely.

(is "watermelon" breakfast?)

The young Polish engineer arrives with his junk for the sheep shed, How did he accumulate so much junk in his brief stay here? Oh, that's right. He and his wife (now in Poland) had a baby. Babies breed junk. Ed and I take over a lawn mower to Steffi's, Ed loads up the  stuff for Goodwill. I mow the lawn there. It's a hill and the grass is tall. Too tall. The mower jams every two minutes. Ed fixes the garage door opener then takes over the mowing while I try to sweep the mud out of the garage. Hurry! We have until noon!

Okay, house is ready for the next move-in.

Go home. But not for long. It's getting close to grandkid pickup time and I still need to swing by UPS (a return), the pharmacy, and Madison Sourdough to pick up cookies for Sparrow and croissants for... everyone. Wait, shouldn't I finish tidying the garden? 

Thankfully, the lily count is now below 300.

(Some pics from this morning)

Okay, pick up kids. I offer no resistance to the push to get ice cream at Tati Cafe. 

 

 

 

 

 

Bring the kids to the farmhouse. Read. Eat. Play.

Return kids to parents. 

Is that it? I'm sure I forgot something. Hmmm. I know! Groceries! No time to shop. Put in an order for delivery. I dont care if the fruit isn;t picked by me. I just need food in the pantry for the next few weeks. 

Exhale.

Collapse.

Eat reheated chili. Drink a glass of wine.

Watch the macabre Ripley series, then finally, finally, a switch to the Olympics. On the couch. With a smile, and love... 

Monday tasks

It is a day to push things forward. With determination! Things are happening this week. I have to be ready for all of it. Moving day (not for me, but it may as well be that), a birthday (not mine!), a trip -- and before that -- a flower bed to plant, some weeds to pull -- all on my mind, on this partly sunny, partly rainy, and buggy once again day.

So forgive me if I am rather brief here. 

Someone recently asked me -- how do I keep the number of snipped lilies in my head? Because I rarely mix things up. I mouth the numbers so that an automatic counting process can take hold. It works. Except on days like today where I lose it all and suddenly find myself saying one hundred and twelve when I'm fairly certain that a couple of lilies ago it was already two hundred and sixty. But, numbers do not matter any more. The Big Bed is almost lily free by now (not enough sun to keep it going into August, thank you shady trees!), and the lily field by the porch is packing up as well, though the tall spider lilies are late bloomers and from their towering spikes alone I snipped a whopping 35 lilies. So, some late bloomers are still going strong, but most are done. And as you may have guessed, I am also lily-tired. Ready to move on to other aspects of summer.

The garden, from this day? I'm never tired of looking at it!

Breakfast, on the porch of course. It's a good day for it, weather wise.

(Friendly, on a stump)

 

 

(Unfriendly, who is actually pretty friendly, on another stump)

Aside from planting a redo of a flower bed (with 17 new plants), I do nothing that warrants mention here. It is an absolute chore day - the type that makes you feel like a kid checking off boring homework assignments. You know the kind -- coloring in the map of the world or doing endless division problems. 

Except that... well, I a little bit like the occasional boring days. At home, going nowhere except to the barn and back. And to the flower fields of course. Days that perhaps have too much computer time, but nonetheless feel like they tidy up my life a bit. Chaos returns tomorrow, but today was very simple, gentle, and sweet.

last July Sunday

Oh no! It's 6 a.m. already? Quick bounce out of bed. Feed animals. Clip lilies. 361 today. Good. Nice and low. It may rain. It's muggy.  New plants came last night. No time to deal with them now. One last look at the garden. 

(our ten year old peach tree has... peaches!)

Ed, I know it's early, like, really early, but I'm eating breakfast now. Okay, I'm coming down... Yawn...

I rush off to the Young Shakespeare Players theater. Dress rehearsal today, starting at 8. I wont be here for the performances, but I get permission to watch the rehearsal. All seven hours of it. 

(backstage: getting ready)

It's the full version production of the Tempest -- itself, not the longest of Shakespeare's plays, but you know how it is. You cut into a scene, make corrections.

Snowdrop is Gonzalo (165 lines). With a second small part of Juno (10 lines), which she was to play on nights she wasn't Gonzalo, but then the second Gonzalo quit so she has to cover all plays and switch in and out of Juno as well. It's a big load for a 9-year old first timer. (The ages of players range from 8 to 18.)

(as Juno)

Watching a rehearsal, to me, is even more fun than watching the real production. First of all, the auditorium is empty. And I can take pictures. I'm not nervous about anyone flubbing lines, because, well, who cares. And I get to see the kids become their parts. I've always loved this part of parenting and now grandparenting -- watching them become something. The learning, the transformation.

 

 

She's great of course, because she is mine, but too because she knows her part and her cues and she knows the parts of others, and she is both embarrassed and delighted to have me there, just like my kids would have been had I shown up for a rehearsal. You know, lest I do something that would mortify her, them.

They have a short lunch break. I go to Bloom Bakery and buy a cookie and a coffee... 

 

 

... then I come back to it. I've seen the Tempest several times, including when my own daughter was in it some thirty plus years ago. Same company, but back then, they did it in the park, like in New York, Shakespeare in the Park, only different -- in Hoyt Park, and it was buggy and the kids had to change in the dark, behind bushes and it was both great and magical and very uncomfortable. The group moved to an indoor space when one became available and I luxuriate in it now. 

And they bow... 

 

 

 

... and I go home, quickly.

No, not to plant, not to work in the garden -- but to deal with my mother's issues and then to quickly fix dinner because the gang is here for it.

Where did this day go? 

Ed, do you want to watch the Olympics? After that awful Ripley episode we need to put behind us? 

That is my last Sunday in July.

with love... 

the final push

Very early, I began to imagine how this day should look. I haven't family obligations and so whatever structure I give it will be my own. It sounds pretty leisurely and relaxed, but believe me -- I have a lot on my plate for this week. As I was thinking about stuff that awaits me, it struck me that I do not have summer shoes. Or sandals. I wear cheap rubber flip-flops around the farmette fields, and if the weather gets dicey, I have gardening clogs. When I visit my daughter in The City, I wear sneakers. In Scotland, I wore the same sneakers. And in Paris, I wore those sneakers. Mind you, they are very nice Allbird eucalyptus fiber sneakers: a gray tweed, almost like shoes. But not quite. They're sneakers. Honestly -- I do not have summer shoes.

So this day has to include finding a solution to this, because in a few weeks I will be in a city and it will be very hot and eucalyptus fiber sneakers wont cut it. Everyone will be wearing sandals. I should find some comfortable sandals, which is a challenge because a person who doesn't wear shoes does not easily fit into a pair once she gets it into her head that she needs to be in something made of leather.

Between 5 am and 6:30, I search the internet for comfortable sandal type shoes.

My day is off to a weird start.

Ed seems not to have slept much at all, so we bounce around thoughts about the day, about politics, about the economy. Light stuff! But by 7, I have fed the animals and am in the garden. I begin to snip lilies, though I don't get far because the Farmers Market beckons. 

 

 

(good morning!)

At the market, I need carrots. Maybe radishes since my garden ones have already bolted. I need flowers for the table!

And oh, are there ever flowers! 

 

 

Well, in addition to the foods of course. I buy a lot of produce and then a bouquet that has so many dahlias that it threatens to overwhelm any vase I may have. For $15, it's a steal!

From there -- to Madison Sourdough. Ed wanted cookies, I wanted breakfast treats. 

I did not notice until I got home that they confused the order, filling two boxes with just breakfast treats. Am I unhappy? No I'm not. I'll get him cookies later in the week.

Breakfast on our wonderful porch, where the mornings are so very fine and the sun dapples us with just the right amount of light and there are flowers all around us (in addition to the ones on the table).

(let's insert us into the picture!)

 

 

And now I throw myself into the flower fields. The weather is lovely and the mosquitoes are still on the lower end of the continuum. 

 

 

 

I finish the snipping job (415 today, so pretty much the same, for a few days now), and I tidy up the freshly dug up field, and I move some lilies that are blocked by towering phlox, and I weed. Oh, do I weed! I weed the lily bed, the bed around the secret path, the bed by the driveway. I even do a modest weeding job in the front road bed. And here's a big one: I weed around the sheep shed, pulling out dozens of six foot tall rag weed plants and a whole host of other junk that has pretty much taken over that area. Call it a final push to get the beds tidy for the rest of the summer.

I am, officially, exhausted. My arms itch from the ragweed. My feet are dirty. My toes look like something out of a village life storybook. No way will they look decent in city sandals!

And no way do I want to cook supper tonight.

No way do I want to do anything at all.

In my opinion, this is a perfect set up for Olympic watching and for a quick click through to get a pizza delivery. Nah, forget the pizza. We have enough lettuces to make up a decent salad. Add nuts and a cheeper egg for protein and voila! In the meantime, I make lists for the next week and I watch the light filter into our room through tree branches. You can really lose yourself in just watching the movement of branches, as displayed by the shadows doing their wiggle on the carpet of your living room. 

I need nothing more to make this day complete. Maybe an Aperol Spritz. And...

... Hey Ed, can we watch the Olympics now?