Saturday

Morning walk photos are getting to be a challenge. After a season of radiant flowers, the drying flower fields seem limp and brittle. I am facing the six month long quest (from October through the end of March) for interesting farmette images: what's out there for you to see, for me to admire? You really have to look hard and sometimes nothing seems good enough.

If I seem cranky, it's because I had the same reaction to my vaccination that I experienced after the very first one: a spiky fever and sore everything. That pretty much describes my night. In addition, some machine in the basement started to beep intermittently and I had no idea which one nor what I should do about it. The farmhouse is full of stuff like that: machines and gadgets that only Ed could possibly deal with. This particular annoying beeper would go into silent mode the minute I entered the basement. A few hours later, it would start again. Cats watched me hobble up and down, shivering from the fever, frustrated with my own incompetence. Is it the humidifier? The flooding monitor? Couldn't be that -- there's no water anywhere. Back to bed, huddle under ten blankets, wait until dawn.

By sunrise, those vaccination side effects had mostly receded and the beeping had stopped. So yes, I'm fine, great, fantastic. Just awfully tired.

Breakfast, alone. This could well be my last one on the porch. The cool-down will start tomorrow. I take my time today.

The cats are in their fall hunting mode. They regularly bring in mice, sometimes alive, sometimes dead, sometimes already half processed through the digestive system. This morning I heard a rickety sound on the porch and found a huge frog again. Mice I do not rescue. Frogs? Yes. And as I usher the beautiful big guy into a box then out the door, I think about how farm-like this place feels right now. The animals. The fields of grasses, the orchards. True, there are no sheep, cows, goats, crops for the market. But there is nothing city-like or suburban about this place. It feels like a page right out of the Farmers Almanac. 

The morning moves quickly. I didn't go to the downtown market today and still, by the time I clear the breakfast dishes it's 11. And I have a whole bunch of mowing and weeding to do. So much for reading a book and doing nothing. 

I start in on the chores from the top: I want to clean up the glass porch roof. I used to do this several times a year but now I'm down to just once -- now.  Typically I take this on with Ed nearby, in case I slip off the roof and break my neck, but the cold, possibly wet weather is coming and I do not want to put it off any longer. 

Getting the hose up there is challenging enough. Scrubbing down the panes with a bristle broom? A workout!

And as you can see -- I did not break my neck because here I am writing to tell you about it.

From the roof to the fields. I get on the tractor mower and go after the overgrown farmette lands, concentrating first on the meadows. If you read about meadows and prairies, you'll get a lot of worthless, or at least mixed and inconsistent advice on how to manage these so that they produce flowers and grasses rather than weeds and thistles in future seasons. Yes, ideally, from the point of view of flower stimulation, I would have poisoned the earth, eliminated most of the shallow rooted weeds and started a fresh. But that's not us. Too much work, too many chemicals and frankly, too many weeds left behind. Instead, I sow seeds, I mow in the fall, and I pull out the most visible obnoxious weeds. A futile effort, to be sure, because so much gets left behind, but it's good enough! 

And let me just say that mowing down meadows as well as some of the land that we otherwise leave to grow whatever horror takes root, is just about my least favorite farmette chore. The land is rough and uneven and the tractor mower bounces crazily in every direction and you know how much I dislike things that bounce, spin or otherwise make my stomach heave. This time, after mowing down the meadows, I attacked just a wee portion of the land to the west of the barn, taking down ragweed that had grown to a size seen only in sci fi movies. Those plants were more than six feet tall! I plunged in with crossed fingers, getting stuck only once (and who is going to bail me out if I cannot manipulate the machine and get it home before the rains come down?).

Afterwards, I note that the vaccination is still putting me in the land of the "very fatigued." The farmette chores, added to it, put me in the land of the "very very fatigued." I sit down on the couch to rest and promptly fall asleep.

This is when the storms come. Out of nowhere! We were to have a hot and sunny day and boom! Thunder strikes and it's all wet and suddenly quite cool.

Dinner is going to be around the kitchen table. Why is this even significant? When Ed isn't here, dinner is often on my lap! But we're having Sunday family dinner today -- the young couple has other plans for tomorrow. Kitchen table it is.

And it is honestly, exceptionally delightful to have them here, given that Ed's away and it's too quiet in the farmhouse! 

Well, it was too quiet! The kids play, the grownups sit back, chat, exhale. Eventually I go out to put away the chickens for the night. Yes, all three are interested in helping me, though only one is bold enough to actually try holding a flapping chicken. Those birds are strong!

Oh, and eat. We do of course eat!

However did I think that today would have been a good day to sit back, with a book and a cold drink? It would have been such a waste. Much better to put off a restful day for when the rains come down hard. Maybe tomorrow? Never know...