gifts

It was almost as if there was a theme for this day -- a gifted theme. Here's one example -- that the sun stayed out long enough for us to have our breakfast in its warmth. That's a real present.




Another unusual offering: a doctor's appointment where the doctor stayed on schedule. So that afterwards, I had time to spare and as a result, I could sidestep into Madison's most secret natural outdoor space -- Owen Woods.





For not much more than a glance, but a highly satisfying glance. November's earthy tones!

And there was time, too, to pick up wines for the Thanksgiving meal. A gift from my mother.

And wait, not done yet -- the gift of a visit with my friend, who is passing through Madison on her way north.





You noticed the cast on her arm, right? Two of my good friends cracked bones this last week. Am I third in line?

Still going strong: Ed and I want to deliver a bag of goodies to a friend who is long overdue for such a gift. After dinner, I tell him.  That in itself is a gift (from Ed): we're scheduled to have a dinner out. Well, this one's expected. He is craving mussels and fries and at Jac's they're on sale on Mondays (and wines are half price… I mean -- win win).





And by chance, we run into my friend (and her husband) there -- the one for whom we're toting a gift! One other way to describe her -- my yoga buddy. And here's yet a third way  -- she's the one who broke her ankle last week.





I'm home now. I have only a few minutes. So many classes to teach tomorrow, so many meal notes to prepare afterwards, for the Thanksgiving that's before us. So many gifts, all in one week.

Sunday

A Sunday of long lists! We both have them: to do lists. This time his is as long as mine. The difference is that what I can't do today will have to be pushed into an already stacked line of what needs to be done on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. His items move seamlessly from day to day, as if there is no wrong day, no too late day.

And what progress do we make? He finishes work on his newer old car and so now he can move it out of sight. Only the old, old, rusty Geo remains suspended by the garage shed waiting for some miracle. Ed tells me that nothing short of that can save it anymore. (The presence of two wrecks these past weeks has been reason enough not to take photos of the farmhouse. Cars (at least these cars) are so unattractive!)

I focus my camera elsewhere.  The breakfast. There's always that.






I think to myself -- one task that I really need to hustle with is the planning of the holiday menu. It's a silly game, of course, because my daughters insist on the same old items: the old ways of doing the turkey, the feel-good traditional dishes that they've known all their lives. Occasionally though, I work in something new, or maybe an updated version of something old. I search for such updates this morning. Okay. I'll fire off ideas and wait to see which will get rejected.

My, hours fly! I do understand that there isn't really time for yoga -- not today, not tomorrow. Maybe later in the week, but it wont be easy.

 But, the day isn't done. I turn to helping Ed deal with the honeysuckle.





We have an unusual week of warm weather ahead (low fifties!) and so we may very well dig most of the offending bushes out. He saws, digs, heaves -- I carry it all to the huge pile (which is now nearly the length of a city block).

We work in a good, coordinated effort. Occasionally I look around and I scratch my head: weather.com and one local TV station have issued a weather advisory for today -- something about poor air quality. I cannot believe it! The sky is a dazzling blue, the air feels crisp and invigorating. What's not good about it?





Eventually we stop and we switch to the further afield errands -- Woodman's (the cheap grocery store), Farm & Fleet -- where Ed buys his blue jeans (and we have a long and impassioned discussion about how short his jeans should be: I tell him that if he, at 6'4" sees himself as needing a 34 inch length, then I don't know who is slated for the 36s and 38s. But, it's  his choice and so we walk away with him grinning and the jeans barely touching the rim of his shoe).

And we go to Mounds pet store to study once again the kitty litter situation. I have to say that your comments, dear Ocean readers, were invaluable and we did make a decision that sort of combined a bunch of your suggestions. The one idea I won't do (yet) is install an in/out door for Isis. In his old age, he has developed a great resistance to the cold or wet weather. That is what pushed me to get a litter box for him: I found him sneaking off to puddle in the closet twice rather than asking to be let out. There are weeks in the winter when he never goes out. So if he is to feel happy and I'm to feel less anxious about opening closet doors -- litter box it must be.


And now it's dark. So quickly it gets dark! My older girl is here for dinner and because her husband  is away tonight, we throw away any semblance of formality. Shrimp and beans, in front of the TV.





The weekend is done. My list remains long, but that's okay. Lists are always long. You just need to ignore them every now and then.

look around you: it's one heck of a beautiful November

We've been waking up routinely to cold and misty mornings. Frosted fields, iced over windshields, pretty patterns of crystals on the fields -- there to greet you if you step outside early enough.






Today I stepped out early. There is a morning yoga class. There's something to be said about doing yoga before my bowl of oatmeal (there's also something to be said about not doing yoga before my bowl of oatmeal, namely that I haven't the right level of oomph without it, but let's focus on the positive) --  after, I am in such a state of such equilibrium that everything, even my bowl of oatmeal, has a halo over it.



random, but pretty


So I sign up for this early morning class. And because I've been coming to classes seconds late each time, I make a point of heading out early.

But the misty fields distract me.






How could they not? It's as if someone took a brush to the bleak dark landscapes and came away with something gentle and kind.


The yoga class is full of motivated, well trained, been doin' this for years types and so I can barely keep up. And it has some hard core exercise elements thrown in which I suppose is good, but my oh my, it makes for a grueling hour. Had it been my first class back in September, I may not have been so enthusiastic about signing on. I don't look for yoga light, but I do look for yoga reasonable. Today went to levels of intensity that had me panting like a pup.

Back at the farmhouse, by the time we coordinate our activities (Ed's still working on his car), the sun has moved away from our breakfast nook and so for breakfast, we chase it to the front room (a converted old porch that faces south).






Yes, plenty of sunshine, despite the tall pines, the maples, the odd trees that, without rhyme or reason dot our front yard.


After, Ed lobbies for more honeysuckle removal and I really push for a hike. In these warmer days (in the forties and hazy, but in a bright way), it is just so tremendously satisfying to walk through a quiet forest taking in deep breaths of woodsy air.

We compromise by agreeing to do both.


The hike is just south of us. There is this truth about living in the country: the drive to anywhere is sure to be prettier than if you were driving to it from the city.







And it is a perfect little hike. Here, I offer a few photos to take in our ripply landscape in November.













blaze orange: to scare off the deer-hunters







And here's a lovely peculiarity about the place where we live: one minute you're hiking the Ice Age Trail and a breath later you're driving by a terrific chocolate shop. We stop and pick up a small box (not the one in the picture -- that's a big box). For Thanksgiving.





You could say that the day had it's most troubling moment right after. We drive to a nearby Target because  Ed has a craving for coconut ice cream bars and, too, he's thinking we need more kitty litter.
Which kind of kitty litter?
Cheapest.
I look at bags and bags of kitty litter. This one has deodorizes. Ugh. That's like chemical fragrance! I don't want that.
Let's get the plain clay.
That doesn't say that it fights odors effectively! How about this one? Grains. Natural!
He'll scatter bits of that all over the house with his paws. Believe me, I've had cats. Get the clay.
Let's read the labels. And so we waste a good many minutes reading the fine print on bags of kitty litter and we get nowhere. Help me out, cat people: what's a decent odor fighting natural product that doesn't get carried around by little paws? Pine bits? Clay particles? Baking soda? I'm stumped!

We pause at Paul's to regain our composure and to eat a very delayed pb&j.

There is still daylight when the red donkey veers into the driveway of the farmette.

And now, without pause, we take out the shears, the work gloves and head to the farmette's tree line. The burn pile of chopped honeysuckle is huge, but we add to it nonetheless.

Ed asks -- are you tired?
I am, he is too, but we continue. Until the light fades. We do this so well, he and I -- we work until our arms ache and then we do some more and then we stop. Sun's long gone, the day belongs to another time. A post on a blog, that's all.





If you'd asked me several months back -- how good are the days of November, I would have said bleh, not so clever, not so bright. Shows how much I know.

writing

A little pause in regular programming. I don't not post, but there are certainly days that I under-post and today may well be called a proud member of that set.

I tried to get in the right frame. In the morning, very early, when Ed sprang out and almost ran to continue work on the brake shoes of his new old car...


 


...I (more or less: we speak in generalities here) followed, somewhat slowly, but still, followed, to take stock of the frosty loveliness before the expected sun would woosh it all away. (Note how perfectly we can draw the great divide between the haves and the have in the photo below.)





And then, after the initial morning spurt,  my Ocean consciousness shut down. I worked on this small project, I tied up that administrative detail, I fixed, I tampered, I yoga'd and then I worked some more. Without a thought to Ocean.

Or, is it that I am now just so confident that this period of crazy work is nearing an end (before it resumes again next year) that I am no longer worried about keeping you, the reader, content? It's as if I want to say -- it's going to be rough for three weeks. These are tough times for me, qua blogger. And I cannot really pretend that the days now are anything more than placid and terribly unphotogenic. But bear with me. We'll muddle through this somehow and then I'll work oh so hard to bring back the  thoughts and images like the ones that got you reading once before. Soon, Ocean loyalists, soon.

In the meantime, I rustled up some onion, garlic, spinach, tomatoes and chick peas and I called it supper. With a fried egg on top.

In the matter of trees. And other things.

When I was leaving for work this morning -- hurrying, hurrying, I worried about photos. And stories. (If there are photos, there will be stories and if there are stories then there need not be photos, but this day was threatening to have neither.)

So I took a photo early, just as I was leaving, in case this would be it for the day. Trees. Whatever the season, it's always worthwhile to consider the trees.





Okay, so off I go on Rosie, my skirts flying, my gloved hands gripping tightly, zipping quickly, late, late, I'm going to be late for my morning class, hurry! No way can I stop, but ohhhhh, it would be nice if I could -- just for a photo of the lake that I pass each morning (Lake Monona). I know! I can just stick out my camera to the side as I scoot along John Nolen Drive! (For those who don't know, said Drive has a speed limit of 45 mph and Rosie does only 40, so it's always a challenge to hold one's own amidst all the speeding bullets.)






The work day ends. The sun has set and I have just a couple of errands, including picking up spinach from my winter CSA (we get biweekly spinach from a local farmer all winter long) and this puts me pretty close to the other lake, just after sunset. This is it, lake Mendota -- the lake I used to pass daily when I lived at the condo but one I pretty much ignore now that I live south of Madison.





Chores done, I am now at a place that is sort of on campus but not really -- an eatery that, though on campus, is not serviced by campus food delivery systems (which is a good thing). I'm here to have dinner with a friend and as we both tend to take out cameras at odd times and we do so now.





And then dinner ends and I am on Rosie again and it is cold and I am tired and I knew it would be cold and I would be tired, but if I can just endure this last ride… oh, but I don't have to just endure it: it's quite beautiful out there at night, especially when we hit the dark rural roads leading up to the farmette.

But it is cold. I'm happy to be home. Ed is there, waiting, with a smudge on his face and the same old hi gorgeous that warms me through and through.

moving through the day

Yoga is surprisingly addictive. I notice this only now -- two and a half months into my yoga adventure. Like many others, I'd been hooked before on some form of physical activity. Bike riding. I had to, had to, had to ride. That always fizzled when the weather turned. Gym -- I used to be a gym goer. I never really liked it, but I went, daily even, hating the idea of no gym. So I understand that I belong to those who have an "easily hooked" type of personality. (In case you have lingering doubts, I offer you daily Ocean posting as a further example.) Still, I didn't think I'd like yoga this much. That once the movements, poses, breathing routines became familiar, I would feel indulged every time I went through the routines. And that I'd make room for them even on a day like today -- a teaching day.  So that I had to do the early class or no class at all. Though after breakfast. (Maybe because I love my breakfast routine as much as I now love yoga. Can you tell?)





Going to yoga, I notice that it is a quintessentially Novembrian morning: very gray.






Which eventually turns into a cornflower blue morning (this on the way to campus).


 


And then a gold toned evening (from Rosie's saddle, going home).






Other news?

Well, there is the matter of Isis. The cat is now fully committed to being by my side whenever I am working in the kitchen. He may be sleeping on the bed upstairs, but if he hears me rattle kitchen utensils, he'll wake up, run down, sit back and wait for a handout. Like this.





Dogs will yelp and drool and the insistent types will scramble up to grab something off the counter. Isis will sit and wait. And wait. Until my feelings of guilt and admiration and impatience -- all scrambled together  -- will cause me to find something in my kitchen riches for him to enjoy. (He used to love cheese curds until I introduced him to salmon and, more recently, ground turkey from the chili.)

Ed tells me this is my doing. Maybe. But I feel no guilt in showing the dear cat the finer sides of food. Life is more than Friskies.


Other news? We made it to Paul's today, just before it closed. I needed that blueberry tea (in a blueberry mug). It had been a long day and tomorrow, workwise, will be even longer.

Tuesday

If I could borrow a few hours from yesterday or tomorrow, I would do it. Sweet time, time when I'm not tired, time when I have the will to be something here, on Ocean, something other than worry that minutes are racing too quickly toward a day's end.

I don't have those extra hours. No one is handing out extra time, not today, not on any day and so all  I can do is concentrate on the photographed moments from this day and thankfully there are several and the post will be about those and nothing more (was there anything more?):

First, the breakfast that always dazzles because it is pure and good and so often defined by streaks of sunlight.





Then, the Rosie ride to work. Now that's cold! I almost gave up on her. We were below freezing when I left for work and all the layers in the world couldn't keep that riders' wind from hitting anywhere that it could.





Can you tell how outrageously blue it was today? So much so that during my break between class number 2 and class number 3, I ran down to our lake just to see how it would look if you piled all those blues together, one on top of the other. I was glad that I did. On days like this, Lake Mendota is absolutely dazzling.






The Rosie ride from work was in winds that were a few degrees warmer, but I was a few degrees less capable of fighting off coldness and so I can readily say that this was a low point. Even as, at sunset, the farm fields were golden and lovely and so I was glad to look up and take a quick photo.





Evening dinner: when I'm tired, I like chopping and mixing. So I made turkey chili...


 


... which was terribly appropriate because it had been a cold day and now I just wanted something hearty before me and of course, immediately after, Ed went to play volley ball and I began my evening-long fight with sleep.

And at this moment, I can honestly say that sleep won.

Monday

So many of us like that thrilling first snowfall. The one that's deep and has a life span of more than an hour or so. Heavy on fir branches, or, light and puffy on every bare twig. A silent moment of rare beauty.

But that's not the way winter usually comes our way. It's more like today: there'll be gray skies, then a cloud break, with streaks of sunlight and maybe you'll just catch one such cloudbreak, even if it's a workday for you, a day mostly spent indoors. (I did, on my way to an early, pre-breakfast yoga class.)





Then the sun disappears again, at which point we prefer to think about something other than the weather. Maybe like us, you eat breakfast by a window and you don't even pay attention to what's out there.





Even as Ed glances outdoors and comments -- there's that brown Wisconsin landscape… And I groan. But then he chides me for it -- do you remember how beautiful it is when the snow comes? Well yes, sure, but it's not here yet and don't hold your breath either, because we can go through many weeks of cold and brown and no snow.


We come out of our worlds of work -- mine's now at the computer, Ed's is still outdoors, still with that honeysuckle maze of sawed off branches -- for a late lunch at the kitchen table. Peanut butter and jam. Strawberry for him, heaped heavily, blueberry for me, heaped lightly. And I drink tea and he drinks hot chocolate and I suppose that's a reminder of where we're at with our calendars because he only asks for hot chocolate when we're traveling or, at home, when it's cold outside.




And as we talk about inconsequential but interesting things (travel!) I glance up and notice flakes of snow. There's your picture -- Ed tells me. He's sweet in pointing out possibilities, especially on days when there really are none to speak of. But I'm ignoring them. That stuff wouldn't even show up on a photo, I mutter.

But when he goes out to his sheep shed to take care of this or that, I do take out my camera and I aim it back at our entrance to the farmhouse. Just for that insignificant dusting of snow on our brick walk. Because even in these small amounts, snow is just so beautiful!

nature's ways

I've said this before -- we don't have just good weather days or bad weather days. Systems move through randomly, suddenly. A morning may be breezy and warm and by afternoon -- wet, miserably wet and cold. Today, forecasts were made along those lines. Toasty and dry in the morning, chilly and wet in the afternoon. When I started in on Sunday housecleaning routines, my still sleepy guy glanced outside and reminded me that we hadn't quite finished our clipping and chopping down of honeysuckle yesterday.

Finished! Who is he kidding? We can't finish! In addition to the shrubs that have taken hold in the pririe, we have  monster honeysuckle along the edge of the property and they extend well beyond. Most every prairie and forest around here suffers from an explosion of honeysuckle. But, he is right:  we could at least try to contain it on the farmette land. We started last spring, we may as well continue.

And so before breakfast, before finishing the cleaning operations at the farmhouse, we head out under tumultuous but thus far dry skies.



right now, if it's green, it's honeysuckle


And Ed turns ambitious. It happens: a small project grows and becomes something grand and therefore overwhelming. He has his eye on that monster honeysuckle at the tree line. Out comes the power saw.





Me, I stick with the I stick with the waist high bushes that have invaded our prairie. I'm thinking how last week I quoted a forest ranger to my class -- Nature is very unforgiving! -- he had said. (It was a Torts class and we were talking about people who go adventuring, sustain injuries, then sue.) My thoughts stray to nature's fickle habits and as I continue slashing (but not burning -- that'll happen next spring), I nearly stumble on a skull. Deer? Teeth look good, even if the poor animal did succumb to some menace or other.





And now I'm tired. But Ed's task is so huge and he would benefit from some assistance and so we persevere. We tug, slash, saw and heave and then I can do no more. I want my morning coffee! Even though it's no longer morning.






And as we call it quits, the rains come down. I mean, really comes down. Furiously so.





We stay indoors. I finish cleaning and look up to notice that it's almost time for my late afternoon yoga class. And from that I move to quick dinner prep (my girl and her husband come over, still happy, still in love, still delightful).






As I take laundry out and put dishes away and as Ed, yet again, attempts to understand the malfunctioning water heater, I think how easy it is to give away a whole weekend to physical labor. We did just that! It's a good way for me to restore balance. Kind of like yoga class, only without the mat.

November?

Morning. Fussing in the kitchen. The compost pail needs to be emptied. I step outside. Wow! Where did this come from? What a glorious day! With promises of sunshine and bursts of warm wind. An exhilarating moment as I realize that there is no work, nothing that needs to be done today. Ed! Outside! Come look!

I'm thinking we ought to hike. He rifles through possible hikes, trail building, seed planting… But as we talk about the possibilities, I mention to him that on my walk to the compost heap, I sidestepped to the back of the farmette. For the fine morning view.



fields to the north



milkweed seed pods



ever blooming pansies by the farmhouse



and of course, the farmhouse


And I saw, to my dismay, that many of the invasive honeysuckle shrubs -- the ones we so meanly hacked away at last spring -- have sprouted once more. Despite the careful dabbing of Round-Up. We take a walk together toward the back and as we look around us, it becomes clear that we shouldn't put our efforts to prairies elsewhere: we have our own overgrown prairie to put in order.

But first there is breakfast...





...and yoga with my yoga buddy. (It's so good to share yoga with a friend! You can do it alone, but going at it with a friend on the mat at the side is special.)


At home, Ed and I get to work.

We need to snip off those new honeysuckle branches. And there are a lot of them. If we keep at it, they will eventually disappear. So they say on the Internet.

But I'm not complaining.  Farmette work never felt so solid and rewarding! I shake off the sweatshirt and feel the sun on my bare arms again. In November!





We pause for lunch. Over a peanut butter sandwich we confront yet another issue -- one that we've tabled for too long (only because there is no great and easy solution). We need to protect the orchard we planted last spring. Several of the small fruit trees are already irreparably damaged by deer. If we don't act now, we may ever to see an apple, cherry or pear. (To say nothing of our blueberry patch behind it.)

Ed has toyed with several possible solutions and we try to erect one, around just one tree.





There's a lot of laughter (laughter is so much more pleasurable than frustrated groans and exclamations) as we dig the poles in and watch the tubes, wrapped in deer netting, sway with the wind. It may work, but I can tell that Ed's not satisfied. And so we let it rest for now. It's something to mull over. To revisist tomorrow, or another time.


We have one more task that we can do before the sun disappears for the day: we'll move the seemingly hundreds of stones that Farmer Lee has taken out of the field. We'll load them onto the Deere trailer. Clearing the space will allow for an extension of the farming field someday. At the very least it'll tidy up the back strip of farmette land.





It's a Herculean effort to get all the stones onto the wagon, but we do it just as the last wisps of sunlight disappear behind the clouds at the horizon.

The barn stands in shadows now. The light fades.









There isn't much to be said about dinner this evening. We have scattered leftover that Ed wants to pull together into a meal. My ambition runs only toward adding roasted brussels sprouts and scrambling eggs.

But what a day this has been! Of course, at the moment we're both rather stiff and I'm barely awake. Still, I listen to the terrific gusts of wind outside. I know they'll eventually usher back in winter air. Today was a gift. A brilliant gift.