Sunday

When you live at the farmette, you notice the weather, each and every single minute. You hear it, smell it, work with it. And so if I plunge into a description of what front passes through when, it's because this is of huge significance for us. More than any one factor, the weather influences the day's events.

And so when we wake up to a forecast of occasional severe storms, we take note. We should not embark on anything ambitious. I will stay glued to the weather maps and work around what comes our way.

Well, not much does come our way. It turns out to be a warm, humid, windy day, with occasional gusts of showers, but not significant ones -- the kind where you work through them and shrug off the beads of wetness that drip down your face and arms.

Of course, Sunday is farmhouse cleaning day and Ed and I race each other with our dreaded chores: I clean, he mows. In the end, I finish first and he gives up after mowing about 85% of the land. And since we put off breakfast until we are done, we do not eat our morning meal until it is almost no longer morning.

Ah, but it is on the porch and it is lovely.





I'm displaying a high tolerance for Isie boy's wanderings over the table, since I rarely see the cat these days. He remains temporarily banished from the farmhouse. We're not sure why he has constant digestive issues when he is inside (we think it's a combination of Snowdrop envy and old age), but he does and Ed has agreed that for the time being, he can hang out in the sheep shed. The fact is, Ed spends the better part of the day and a good bit of the night working in the sheep shed (he is terribly preoccupied with his machining project) and so Isie boy has good company. And I have a restful night and a clean house.

Then, in an unusual move, I go grocery shopping. What?? Again?

Here's the deal: one way I imagine I can keep myself focused is of I do not make notes to myself as to what I should purchase, or attend to. I rely on the good old memory. It rarely fails me. Except when I forget the main ingredient of a meal planned for this week. And so back I go, shopping again..

Add to this a good chunk of time spent outside weeding and generally tidying the garden and you have the bulk of my Sunday. But hey! The plant containers are finally full!



Ed mixes my soils, Butter munches on ants








And, though most of the perennials are still green...







I can always find something that's blooming right now. It's time for aquilegia (commonly known as columbine)!






You gotta love this plant! It does not fuss about light, about water, about much of anything. And it self seeds so you'll find it popping up in the most unusual places, sort of like asparagus. (But not in an obnoxious, invasive way, like, say, my Japanese Anemone which I banished from all beds because it would not stop its domineering spread.)

The cheepers? Oh, congenial and happy with the bounty of bugs right now. And Oreo? Well, he's Oreo.






So this is my Sunday -- a beloved day because it begins with a clean house and most often ends with a dinner at the farmhouse for the five of us -- Snowdrop, her parents, Ed and me. For the first time this year it's warm enough to eat on the porch!

The food is passed through the window still (Oh, do I want that door!)...






I had ideas on how to keep Snowdrop happy on the porch tonight, but they were all unnecessary -- she is happy merely because the sun dapples on her little chin...






...and she can look up and see her mom (while holding on to her very own napkin).






This then is the most precious truth about little ones -- a sweet glance from a parent and their world is right again. And these two surely give Snowdrop a reason to smile.






It is a beautiful evening. Snowdrop agrees. Never once does she complain or fuss. It's all about warm breezes, happy people eating (fresh and honest) foods, with that occasional glance up to see that the ones who love her are there to care for her. Just in case.

Fitchburg Saturday

If I said to you that I lived in Fitchburg, just south of Madison, Wisconsin, that really should tell you nothing about the place I call home (except that it's south of Madison). Fitchburg is a town (population just over 25,000) that sprawls over 35 square miles. Until today, I never felt that it had a "downtown." It has a town hall and a library, but that's not where the areas of commerce can be found. Those are spread along major cut-through roads, as are the various developments: single family housing to the east and west, apartments and condos somewhere between the two. But what makes this a unique town, a weird town really is that nearly half of the land (in between all those areas of development) is zoned  for agricultural use.

It is extremely productive land -- rated near the 98th percentile in terms of quality and productivity. To me, it just seems the Midwest's same old, same old -- mostly corn, alternating with soy. Some pasture and wheat, a few orchards, but really, what you see are corn and soy. So I was a bit curious about a bike tour scheduled for this morning: it's an annual event and it leads you from one dairy farm to the next, with some history and updates on agricultural discussion thrown in.

Because my daughter has out-of-town visitors today, we weren't going to be able to go to the farmers market -- our usual Saturday routine -- and so it seemed especially opportune to have the biking event come up this morning. Perfect timing for Ed and me to go and take part.

Unfortunately, we wake up to another wet morning. As we eat breakfast, we try to talk ourselves into going on this biking event when it feels so, well, wet outside.






But, as if on request, the skies settle into a gentle pout. It's muggy and warm. We can do it!






Of course, the minute the small group of not quite two dozen riders gets going, the drizzle comes down again. Don't worry -- Ed tells me as I stuff my camera somewhere between my stomach and my t-shirt, it's just one band of rain. Give it twenty minutes.

He's right. The rain passes. We push on.

We go right to the farms -- the dairy ones first...






... for generations, home of the O'Briens. Yes, there is an Irish concentration here. Marriages that were close to home, within the same community of farm families, passing on the farmland from one generation to the next for some 170 years now.

But the buck stops here. The dairy herd in Fitchburg now stands at a (small) 700 head of cattle. And the "kids" don't want any part of it. Here you see the last of the O'Briens -- two brothers, just a tad older than me, who used to chase the train that passed through here not so long ago (conveniently converted to a bike path now) and pitch in on haying days, slowly letting go of the family business as the "kids" scatter across the country. A story repeated in many corners of this nation, that's for sure.






The bike tour passes through what was once Fitchburg's main street, right by the former Fitchburg Depot (long gone). This is the place where local farmer families came -- for the general store located in one of these buildings (the white one toward the rear).






So if Fitchburg once had a heart -- this would be it, now sadly neglected and tucked into one of those alleys where no one ever goes (neither Ed nor I ever knew of this back street in our town).


We have a few pauses for other conversations with locals who are involved in the agricultural side of Fitchburg. With a discussion about corn and soy right by a field of newly planted corn.






Too, a pause for ice cream, though I doubt it was made from Fitchburg milk...






And a pause for several stories told by local farmers, giving us bits and pieces of their family histories. Not uninteresting, especially once the biking group moves on and I can linger and ask the more detailed questions I always have, but which I think may be a waste of time for others.

So this is our morning...


 


... a reflective one, if not too strenuous in the bike riding department. (You should never go on a bike tour of anything and expect the group to move at a brisk pace. They don't.)



Afternoon? I feel compelled to plant the rest of the peas and beans. Especially since the sun breaks through and gives us a downright toasty set of hours.


 


And once in the veggie filed, I stay put and force myself to weed. An agricultural kind of day all around!


Flower for the day? Easy! Who doesn't love this jewel cascading down a rock wall?!






And finally the evening: the young parents are out tonight and Snowdrop, therefore, comes to the farmhouse. I am tickled to see her (and so happy to lay down the shovel for the rest of the day)! But she has had a full day and though she gives everything her best effort -- sitting...











Scooting...






And even singing, still, what she wants more than anything is this...





I surely understand. Her little body relaxes, her eyes eventually close and I put her down for a much needed nap.

We play some more after her rest period, but it's quiet play. With cheerful music in the background. Until her parents come to take her home.

Friday

What would the week be like without the predictability of Friday?! End of the work week for some, weekly grocery shopping for me. As solid as the rising of the sun and the hoot of an owl. (Did I tell you that owls live just outside our bedroom window? All night long they call to us...)

It was a wet night and the garden looks soggy and saggy. And beautiful.






 Everything is that much more vibrant, bold, strong!






We eat breakfast on the porch. It's a stretch at 60F, but it's worth it: our meal is longer, our review of the day ahead more nuanced.






But eventually I hurry off. My Friday clock is set for that weekly grocery store trip.

And after, for an afternoon with Snowdrop.

Ah, yes. The mouth and hand routines still dominate, whether sitting...






Standing...






Or half standing...






She is in a chuckly mood...






And as she looks up at me with her "what's next?" expression...


 


I ask her --

Do you want to sing?  
Sing? Do I know how? The answer to her own (hypothetical) question is "yes!" Snowdrop does the sweetest singalong to Kumbaya! I wont be one of those grandmothers who thinks a video will make Snowdrop cuteness converts out of you, but you may find yourself smiling at least a tiny bit at the few photos of her crooning along.
















... with a dance step thrown in at the end.






And finally it's time for a rest and a walk around the lake. Yes, always happy to be in the stroller...






I think about how cool it is to see so much personality in someone so young. Of course, I'd been through this before -- not once, but twice, with two daughters. But Snowdrop isn't my child to raise. I am very much in the audience, with, admittedly, a significant opportunity to join the show here and there. I look at her in different ways than I looked at my daughters. Her future isn't so much before me -- even as her everyday is there to admire and love.


At the farmhouse, Ed and I eat our supper together. We talk about bits and pieces of the day. I tell him the chicken mama left a message that Oreo is two years old today. Two years, four months, half a century, one week, Friday.  I stir-fry cauliflower and shrimp for dinner. Friday. Such a lovely day, no?

Thursday

When I retired, I switched off my internal alarm clock: the need to be up before dawn, worrying about the day's classes disappeared. Heaven? Well, yes, but it is a heaven of a psychological kind. In reality, I wake up early, now as before. Decades of morning work anxiety aren't erased with the simple signing of a resignation letter. Still, these days, I luxuriate in a wakeful but dozy morning in bed. I'm rarely up before 7:30 and our breakfast most often is at 9 or even later.

But not today.

Ed has a machining trip planned for the day and he tells me in the predawn hours that he must be out within the hour. Our breakfast, therefore, is very very early.






I mention this because after, I find myself unexpectedly with a long and free morning. This seems rather incredible. Sure, I could plunge into the usual weeding, cleaning, cooking, accounting, washing, trimming etc., but I hesitate. What would it be like if I took my book out  -- the one I usually read just before switching off the light -- and read now? Or if I spent idle moments gazing at the garden, with those love struck eyes I have every time I look out at the thriving perennial fields?

It's too cold to sit outside and so I putz around a little, listening to music. I feel the pull of duty: I clean the chicken coop and do a load of laundry. I pluck weeds around this come-back kid, a striped blue violet:





And then I take my Kindle out, read through to the end of one book and into a new one.


And it strikes me that I should, at least once a week give myself the gift of a morning without chores or obligations. Without emails, without the clutter that tends to fill the small spaces of time most of us have every now and then. Yes, come warmer weather, I should give myself a porch morning with nothing but a pad for note taking (because what if an idea starts to form?) and my Kindle for reading, in the company of birdsong and the occasional cluck of one of the hens, who are never too far away...






In the afternoon, I am with Snowdrop.

The girl is blazing ahead toward greater independence. Ah, but to sit! To finally fit something, perfectly aligned, into a desired space (the mouth comes to mind)! To move! To explain to grandma what need drives a cry!

But things cannot be rushed and so we practice all that is feasible right now -- the sit, the flip, the stuffing of a few fingers into the mouth. Well, actually everything Snowdrop does today seems to end with a few fingers in the mouth.
















But this should not distract us from the obvious truth: she is, as always, an energetic, driven, happy child!











In the evening, Ed and I go to our local farmers market. It's nearly closing time, but there is still a lot of asparagus on vendors' tables. We buy bunches and bunches of it. I'm still not quite ready to believe that the growing season is fully upon us. A month ago, nothing poked through the ground and today, we have a million spears of asparagus. Amazing.

Wednesday

How odd that there would be such vast changes in the skies from one day to the next! That yesterday I spent no more than a half hour working outside and today, I'm putting in an entire morning.

It's a cool start to the day -- of course it is! The night before nearly wrecked our tomatoes. (Yes, "nearly." We were lucky -- at its coldest, the fields registered 36F degrees. Never have four degrees felt so toasty good!)

Cheepers first. They are so insistent in the morning: bread, do you have our daily bread?






Our breakfast then. In the sun room.






And the remaining hours of the morning? I throw kisses at the flower fields. Because this is what it is now -- what's left is the small touch: a few flowers to move, a couple of branches to clip, a handful of weeds to pull out. They're little pecks, tweaks, caresses. Against a brilliant sky. I offer you a bird's eye view from the glass roof, where I'm doing a spring sweep of the spring debris that collects there.






Too dizzy?  Okay, here I am, surveying things from the ground again.






Yep, looking up into the eyes of a... a man and his rooster.






I've promised you a show of perennials from now until the end of September. Here's today's combination: two perennials, two annuals, all in full bloom. Such a grand partnership!






Then comes the afternoon with Snowdrop. Oh, happy child, you could lift the spirits of the most stubborn grump!






Today she shows off her love of the upright.






There is energy in that girl! (And in that girl's hair!)






And because it is such a beautiful day and we have time for this -- my daughter and I decide to take Snowdrop to the zoo. It's a 40 minute walk each way and Snowdrop is thrilled to have a chance to sit back and exhale in the stroller.






You are lucky: I am going to post five and only five photos from the zoo trip. If you think about it, a first zoo visit is a game changer, no? You show the baby book after book with pictures of animals. You give her stuffies that are called lion, or tiger, or bear. What does it all mean?? Ah, there are animals out there! Here, want to see? Enter -- the zoo trip.



giraffe!





tiger!





an animal whose name wasn't in my vocabulary when I was a kid and still isn't today!





flamingo!





and finally -- goats!


Snowdrop is surprised, puzzled, dare I say it -- amazed.

On the way home, she naps. Maybe when she wakes up, she'll think it was all a strange dream. All the more reason to go back soon, to reinforce that reality: we are but one part of that wonderful kingdom -- of giraffes, of monkeys and goats, and of flowers too!