smarts

Well, I'm stumped again: how can a cracker with peanut butter, wedged into a plastic mouse trap be missing without a sign of the offending mouse? The door swings shut once you're in nibbling at the cracker!

I fret about this for a long time. (Though not over breakfast. There are better things than mice to talk about during this important meal.)






Ah! I have an insight! I tell Ed -- I placed the cracker too close to the entrance! Big fat mouse, well nourished by our tidbits, didn't have to go all the way inside to get it! For tonight, I'll push the cracker into the back and dabble some more peanut butter to entice it at the edge!

Ed looks at me with a broad grin. Wow. You're smarter than a mouse.

Well now, that's a good thing. A mouse's head is even smaller than that of a chicken. And honestly, oftentimes I cannot figure out what runs through a cheeper brain.






By early afternoon it becomes clear that Indian Summer had been but a one day affair. Today, as a commenter foresaw, surely could be described as windy. The trees are increasingly bare and there's a benefit to that: so much more sky is visible at the farmette now!






Ed and I had set aside time for a walk and we do just that: the Nature Conservancy trail is about a mile up the road from us and at this time of the year, you can hike back and look down toward the wetlands that drain toward Lake Waubesa.






If the wind blew a hefty load of clouds our way when we set out...






...toward the end of our not especially long hike, it had blown them out of our range again.






The beauty of Fall isn't only in the color of the maple and birch leaves. It's the composite of all that is radiant and golden now.





Night time. Ed comes in after putting the cheepers away. He's twirling some metal gizmo that has been the focus of his designing attention lately. I look at it, take it apart, put it back together.

You have to hit it more.
What? How?
Just clamp that part down. I do that.
Am I like one of the guys now? I ask.
Well, they wouldn't have had to be told to clamp it down. Unless they were really dumb about their ER 8 spindles.

I come back to Ocean with a smile, finish my post and click "publish."

Indian Summer, Indian Lake

There are any number of associations that you may have with the expression "Indian Summer." Most people think of warm, unusually warm Fall days. Indian Summer. Our local TV news person said the other day -- we're in for some Indian Summer! The Farmers Almanac begs to disagree: apparently to qualify for that description, we would need warm air that briefly invades in November, following a hard frost. Not so for us: we did have a frost, though not a hard one. And it was in October.

Me, I think of a 1975 French song by Joe Dassin called "L'Été Indien." It's not that I turn to France for definitions of Indian Summer. I mean -- how ridiculous! It's a North American concept. (And the lyrics say as much.) But when I first heard the song forty years ago, it stuck.  And it's sticking today as I wake up to the warmest, driest 27th day of October.






Breakfast, in the sun room. Don't even think it could be elsewhere. With a window cracked open.






After, Ed and I both do catch up work indoors, but I can't sit still. Avoiding the rooster as best as I can, I do some garden pruning...






...the late Fall kind that I should have done weeks ago even as it doesn't really matter: nothing will change in the composition of the plants at the farmette between now and the end of April.

The hens look on.



("what do you think -- will she throw us a treat?")



In the afternoon, I suggest a spirited hike and Ed agrees. We go to a place that's not to far from here, maybe half hour?

Indian Lake.

I've been coming to this county park since I first discovered it some three decades ago. My daughters love it for the walks. Ed likes it for the challenging cross country ski trails. I like it for the the quiet, the seasonal shifts and today -- for the end embrace of the most beautiful autumnal weather.






We hike, we deviate from trails and follow foot paths, we sit on benches to take in the views. And I take a  few photos. So, hum your favorite autumnal melody and follow along.

























Honestly, this month has been remarkable. So many shades of sky, so many colors on the tees, so many days where you could stay outdoors for hours and never notice that it is actually remarkably close to winter.

Sunday

Could it be that I am not such a recluse after all?

An email from a friend suggesting that I join her, along with two other pals on a day long outing got my attention. I want to do this! Yes, I'm on board!

Anyone in the Midwest will tell you that this was slated to be one hell of a beautiful last Sunday of October. And it delivered! Sure, it started with a bit of a chill. The thirties. And breakfast was terribly early, as my friend wanted to get going. Ed sweetly kept me company in the sun room for the morning meal, even at this beastly (for us) hour.






'Bye Ed!

The four of us set out due north -- first to the International Crane Foundation. I've blogged about this place before, but honestly, each trip here sets your soul dancing. The ICF is home to the most beautiful birds! (It is the only place, I'm told, where you can find all eight crane varieties, from all corners of the world, some on the list of endangered birds.) There are cranes that live here permanently, and there are those that a visitor cannot see -- cranes destined to be released into the wild. Mostly, it's a Foundation that devotes its soul and being to the precious life of this graceful bird.)






You know, the upside of living near wetlands (the farmette is near wetlands) is that Ed and I are close to a crane habitat. We hear them nearly every day and you don't have to go far to cross paths with a crane during the summer. I've posted many photos of them in the fields. (The downside of living near wetlands is that, in bad years, you have mosquitoes that will leave you gasping for air.) I do not know anyone who does not love this loud, graceful, ferociously strong bird.






Seeing these guys again surely is a highlight.






(My photos are mostly of the whooping cranes.)






(Though not only.)






After, my friend drives the few scant miles to Devil's Lake. Now, for Madisonians, this place is the perfect weekend escape. Just an hour out of the city, it is a whole 'nother topography. There is the glacier era lake, and too the cliffs, the forests... It's a wonderful spot and we all love it, despite its great popularity. Long time readers will have seen many photos from hikes here and in warmer months -- swims in the clear lake waters. But you can never have too many Devil's Lake pics. Especially in Fall.






We didn't hike great distances. Just enough to soak in the views.






And there were a lot of good views.



















On the drive home we stopped at an orchard to pick up cider (a favor for Ed back at the farmette) and, too, we stopped at Dr. Evermore's metal scrap sculpture garden. I can't really describe this place and I'm going to post very little from it because it's one of those places you either love or feel mildly horrified by and I must (secretly) (okay, obviously not so secretly) place myself in the second camp. It's art that's incredibly imaginative and on a grand scale. Is it beautiful? I don't know.  I feel lost walking among the clever dinosaurs and orchestra players. I am, in the end, always happy to head out.






Home. Sunday. Dinner with my girl and her husband. The farmhouse. Isie boy. Ed, still in his deeply orange t-shirt. I make risotto, and we stuff ourselves, too, with roasted beets, cheeses and olives.





I do not have to tell you that it was a spectacular Sunday. You'll have guessed it.

Saturday

We continued our talk on entrepreneurship. In answer to my question -- How can this person I know be successful doing that kind of thing? Ed answers, over breakfast...





...You can make anything out of anything. It's not just the thing you're doing, you know that.
So it doesn't matter if you hit on a brilliant idea? What you're saying is that the idea itself doesn't have to be brilliant?
It's not necessary and it's not enough. The stuff that I design? I have to pay equal attention to designing the process of putting it out there...

Of course, I know that in my life, I neither generated marketable ideas, not was I skilled at marketing the few sellable ideas that I did generate. I'm just not programmed that way. And those around me weren't that different. Not in Poland, during the pre-market epoch, not in academia during my adulthood.

You could say that I am a capitalism misfit.



(and there you have it: The Haircut)


But hey, never too late for anyone (especially an immigrant) to adjust to her surroundings!

We move on to a discussion of specifics. (This is what I'll return to here, on Ocean in a couple of months.) But not for long. I have a market date with my 29th week pregnant daughter.






Even though this is not Madison's last outdoor farmers market, it surely feels that it is slowly wrapping up. Though the stalls are brimming!



(biggest radishes ever!)


I had taken Rosie to my daughter's house and as we returned to her place after the market, it struck me that I have to take Rosie right back, because it would be so perfect to bring home mums for the farmhouse path. Imagine, $10 for a pot of these!






And I'm still not done shopping. My sack is filled  with many pounds of carrots for carrot soup, fennel, oyster mushrooms, corn, spinach and now of course the mums, but I want to go to a bakery, to order some treats for next weekend and so I spin the old moped girl to Batch, our second most wonderful bakery -- this one, too, selling yummy breads, croissants, cakes and pies.











It is a challenge to ride Rosie now. The mums are in her rear basket, the produce is slung over my shoulder, the breads are dangling on her handle bars. But, she and I are a good team!






We follow rhe winds home.

And this isn't the end of it: the day is so gorgeous, so brilliantly sunny and unseasonably warm, that it's easy to coax Ed for a hike on the Ice Age Trail. 



("you're leaving us again?!")





(cheeper rivalry: "do you think I'm as sweet as Scotch?")


The forest will make your jaw drop!
















A quick stop at the chocolate store...






...then home. To the golden crab apple, against the bluest of blue skies.

research

A friend wrote recently that it struck her that all the travel I do must require a lot of planning. Oh, does it ever! Of course, not everyone would agree that this is ultimately beneficial to the final outcome. Ed, for example, has lost patience with my desire to know ahead of time where it is that I am going. He would prefer to just go -- like one of those young folk on a journey of self discovery, testing limits, enduring whatever the weather gods throw down on you, finding a quiet gutter if no roof presents itself, or better yet -- a sandbar at a river's edge.

Not me. I love looking ahead at the bed I'll be sleeping on (for example) March 15th, or the seat on the train I'll be taking the next day. I love imagining how many minutes I'll need to make that transfer in St Erth or elsewhere. And googling options as to what should happen if I miss my connection. Stuff like this can keep me happy for hours. And the odd thing is -- it's not a new, "retired person's" fetish. I've been addicted to working out travel permutations since I was embarrassingly young. (Think teenager.) Honestly, it's one of my favorite distractions.

Not that I need a distraction. I am in the middle of a very lovely week, with a beautiful weekend before me. I am retired from paid employment, for God's sake! I am as free as I have ever been in my life.

And yet, here I go, from 5 a.m. in the morning, plunging into the permutations of a trip I am not scheduled to take until next Spring. Ed shakes his head, not in disbelief, but in the dismay that he surely feels for not having convinced me that I would have a better time if only I would let go of *planning.* I pat him on the head and return to the open tabs on my laptop.

Still, as my friend noted in her email, planning takes time and so if you would ask me what stands out from today, I'd remember that after hours of sitting propped up in bed, searching madly for this connection and that well-liked spot, I pause for breakfast...






...and then go right back to my notes and tabs. You could say that it is a day that had nothing to show for it. I would respond -- wrongo bongo! I got my spring trip all neatly tucked away now. (To say nothing of the one before.) Done and filed, even as images of it keep popping up in the most delightful way.


So that you are not completely dismayed at how un-blogworthy my day has been, let me put up a few chicken photos. Yes, Oreo is still here. No, chicken mama has not yet shown up to take him to "her father's place." Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if Ed secretly called her and told her to stay away. I have three lovely (but shy) hens and one cocky rooster here for now. It is what it is.

Here's my sweet, puffy Scotch...






And here's Butter, making herself skinny because of the stretch to chomp off a flower.






And finally, at our entrance, here are the plants that made it through the frost.





Later, much later, Ed played crazy 70s you tube melodies and I danced.

orphaned orchids

What a beautifully odd day!

But I wont start with that. My initial question for you is this-- now that you're older (and you are all older than you were a few years or decades ago), knowing what you know about your habits, fears, strengths and eccentricities, do you ever think about the job you may have been well suited for, but somehow never followed?

When I was twelve and had to fill in the first pages of my autograph book (remember those?), I wrote, in answer to the question -- what do you want to be when you grow up? -- reporter. I was thinking today how, in fact, maybe that's not altogether a bad insight. Possibly wrong, but possibly not so wrong after all, especially if I think expansively about the term.


Alright. Back to the order of the day. It began before breakfast, with the morning shower. I realized that my hair is getting too long. So I asked Ed, even though he had yet to study up on this new for him set of skills -- could you cut my hair please?






He did. I asked for an inch and a half, he took off three and then asked -- was that too much? 
No. Hair grows back. Nearly all that you mess up in life has some lasting effect on someone or something, but hair -- it grows back.


After breakfast (in the front room today!)...


 


...I went out to do my weekly grocery shopping and, too, I went to Orchids by the Ackers (a place that  -- you guessed it, sells orchids) to re-pot my very huge cymbidium. I'd been a visitor to this nursery for decades. Indeed, the orchids I was bringing in were originally from there and they had already been repotted by them once before, some years back.

I offered them the greater chunk of my cymbidium plants. They really bloom profusely come spring, but I'm not a strong fan of the flower. I don't want many pots of this same bloom: it has a brown and green edging. Quaint, but not as cheerful as, say, pink and yellow. But, the orchid growers declined. Indeed, they told me, they were moving away from selling cymbidium orchids altogether.

Why? Why?!? 
Because no one wants to buy them.

I imagine it has something to do with instant gratification. You wont have it with these plants. You need to do stuff before they bloom for you. Feed them, and more importantly, give them night after night of cold temps. But not really cold temps. Just like between 44 and 48 degrees f. Weeks on end of that.

And so what do I do? Instead of offloading my huge plants (or portions of them), I take home three of their own...






....knowing that I will never be buying cymbidium, or most likely any orchid from them again. First, foster chickens...



("is she talking about us?")





("no, me.")





("how could anyone say bad things about you, oreo?")


...now orchids. When will I learn?


Evening. We go to our local farmers market. I have to say, given the temperatures, the wetness, the lack of crowds, I think all vendors will be glad when the outdoor markets are done for the year (next week).





At home, I scramble cheeper eggs. The hens are all laying again, though with less enthusiasm and less regularity. It's as if they, too, really want the break that winter affords.