...back at the farmette now, up an hour (or two?) before dawn. And that, my friends, is too early. Even for me. But, there's much to sift through these days and strategizing and planning (and fretting and fuming) often percolates up to the surface in those wee hours of the morning. And then Ed comes up (having fallen asleep downstairs on the couch), and we get to talking, and before you know it, he says -- I guess I should hurry up and fix the truck because it sounds like you'll need it, and I may as well open up the coop and feed the chickens. And soon after, I join him outside.
So what's happening in the garden after last week's heat wave and Tuesday's storms? Well, predictably, the weeds are tripping over themselves in their attempt to take control of the flower beds. But, if you look up at the flowers (instead of down to the ground where the weeds proliforate), you see the late May explosion of peonies. It should be a splendid farmers market this weekend -- the peonies have arrived!
Their tight, sticky buds are bursting with pinks and whites (and even the rare yellows).
You have to love the ants that make their way up to the sap that covers the buds! Some people are put off by discovering that peony buds invariably have a parade of ants crawling up to the flower to enjoy a drink of peony nectar. In fact, the ants are a good thing -- they protect the blossoms from more destructive insect species.
The peony blooming period isn't long and the plant takes up a lot of space in a flower bed. This doesn't bother me: I have enough stuff opening up in the weeks after their bloom. The flower fields are not going to be without color. And I have plenty of room, especially in the Big Bed for their expansive foliage.
Okay breakfast, on the porch.
And here's a pleasant surprise -- well, a tiny bit pleasant for me! My daughter's washing machine broke for good. You always find out this stuff just when you have a build up of dirty laundry! And so she brought her family's laundry here to clean, joining us for a few minutes on the porch.
It is a beautiful day! It's impressive how quickly we can move from good to awful to good again. (Well yes, I suppose then back to awful, but I'm not there yet!) This morning definitely belongs to the very lovely.
And so I weed, waiting to hear how my mother's transfer from Rehab to a skilled nursing facility (same complex, different room) took place.
I suppose I could have predicted that the transfer would not happen smoothly and indeed -- would not happen at all today. The roadblocks she is putting up are severe and the staff decided to give her one more day, with perhaps me picking out some stuff of hers to install in her new home so it would feel more like her own space.
So I spend the rest of the morning and all of the early afternoon staring at my mother's room back in assisted living, and I pick out things that I think she would regard as indispensable and uniquely her own. Photos, pictures, a quilt maybe? Her lotions and shampoos, her volumes of notes and written pages. He pencils and pencil sharpener. I think she is attached to that. Her grounding contraption which she swears contributed to her long life. I go through her closets, her dresser, her shelves and I pile the stuff on the bed (from where they will pick it up) and then I turn my back on it all. The optimal situation would have been one where she would help with these choices and decisions but she is angry and refuses to help, and so I'm left, as in all previous times, to guess, knowing damn well that I will be held accountable for all the choices I make that are not ones she likes. I have always been liked most when I solve problems following her directives to the last drop. Not so much otherwise.
I peek in on her at the Rehab Center, but I dont go in. If she sees me, she will unleash the same emotions that destroy her calm again and again. It's better to leave her in a quiet state. Besides, I have kids to pick up at school.
Sweet kids. Lovely and loving, no matter what.
The evening at the farmhouse is spectacular. Sunny and warm. True, we are getting severe storms again tomorrow, but I have to think they wont be of the magnitude that we had on Tuesday. Driving through Madison, you see so many trees uprooted, so many fallen branches, that you have to marvel that no one was killed or even seriously hurt that stormy evening. But tornadoes are infrequent here and severe storms without those powerful wind turbines are something we get used to during the warmer seasons. Severe, but not damaging. One can hope!
And in the meantime, Ed and I push open the patio door and listen to the birds and watch the sun dappled colors of our farmette lands.
If you need a path to contentment and happiness, you will find it here, at our farmette. We do. Always.
with so much love...
