the day before

The day before taking off somewhere, anywhere, spikes the emotion meter significantly. I do not want to be far away from those whom I love. I do not!

But, without question, I get excited. The flight connections (even tomorrow's bus ride to Chicago and eight hour layover in Detroit) never seem too bad, the packing is easy, thoughts stray to being in a different place, sleeping in a room with a novel view, taking new walks along new roads. All this is beyond cool.

Even though I do not want to leave those whom I love.

It's good to have a busy and full day. I distract myself from the "leaving" part of travel and concentrate on getting things done.

Right after breakfast...






I get organized: farmhouse needs a once over, suitcase needs to be packed. My trip is short -- I'm leaving tomorrow, returning Friday next week. Still, I need to travel wisely and simply and that requires some thought.


And in the late morning, I am with Snowdrop. I find her where I left her -- under the table!






For much of the morning, we practice standing. Not by a chair or table but in the middle of a vast open space. She knows she is vulnerable...






...and she is always tempted to take the easy road and just sit down!






... but of course, when she stands tall and steady, she beams with pleasure and confidence.






And after, we spin around and jiggle and jounce, all to the music of her music class songs and she is a happy girl indeed.






In the afternoon, I take the girl out of her usual routines and cart her downtown. I have a bus ticket to pick up, a take-out dinner to buy.

Snowdrop is... puzzled: garages? Elevators? Clothing stores? (I thought I'd pop into one or two to see the state of fashion these days.)






We walk along State Street, pop into the Union, stroll out onto the dock by the lake. Bicycles, Snowdrop, they're all riding bicycles!






Yes, she gets that the world is vast and wonderful. But her real smile comes when we finally return home. This is where we process all that we experience elsewhere.






God, I'm going to miss all my variously situated young families!

And, too, the guy who'll keep the farmette running in my absence.






I really should pack.

ten years

It is delectably warm today. The unexpected break from the inevitable coming of winter. Honestly, we almost eat breakfast on the porch.

But we don't. If you look up at our beloved farmhouse, you'll nod your head and say -- yes, it very much looks like an autumnal day.






So we eat at the kitchen table and I would have liked to linger with these guys, but I have a date with Snowdrop.





So much do I hurry to be with the little girl that I forget it's Tuesday (no street parking) and get a ticket -- a reminder that slowing down has numerous benefits (one is that you pay attention to the details in life).

Snowdrop is up early and she is full of energy. After her bath, I let her run around a bit and of course she chooses to get herself under the table, between chairs, wedged between one piece and the next. Like a true con artist, she then manages to find her way out -- so far with not too many knocks on the head.






We play -- upstairs, downstairs. Musical instruments (there's a triangle she is hitting)...






... dancing, building, counting, knocking down, emptying, banging -- oh, the usual Snowdrop full-speed-ahead stuff. With moments of quiet calm thrown into the mix.






Snowdrop is a very affectionate little girl and I cannot resist a selfie of one of her famous open mouth kisses...






...yes, this girl is growing up very quickly.

We have a quiet moment, too, in Snowdrop's yard. It's so warm! The lavender her mom and I planted on the day my daughter found out she was pregnant is blooming beautifully and I swear, Snowdrop is full of admiration for the delicacy of this fragrant stalk.





An unusual October 20th!

Or is it? I happen to remember well a great many of October 20ths and sometimes they're warm and sometimes cool and I especially remember one that took place ten years ago: it was a Thursday and after I finished my lecture, I met Ed and went with him to an orchard to watch the farmers crush apples for cider.

Ed and I have been together since that day ten years ago, which is at once remarkable and very ordinary: two people, unexpectedly drawn to each other, finding that there is much to love in a morning, or a day, or a lifetime at the farmhouse.




Still blooming, in celebration of October 20, 2015


(It's also his birthday, but I hadn't known that ten years ago when we watched apples being made into juice.)

A dinner and a movie with our house guests. A wonderful evening.

farmette Monday

Yesterday, Ed and I listened to a radio talk show on University on the Air about happiness. The professor of happiness (well, probably not that, but he was a professor of something!) talked about how fleeting emotions such as sadness and happiness really are. They aren't the bread and butter of life, they're merely guideposts signaling directions we like to move toward (or away from). But you can, said the learned man, do a lot to foster a state of contentment (if not pure joy) and one way to do this is through feeling grateful for small (and I suppose large, but those are fewer in our life) miracles that we come across each day, each hour in fact.

People who knew me when I was small tell me I was a pretty happy kid. Was I grateful for the small stuff?

Here, on Ocean, you know at least in part what I'm grateful for. Perhaps I bore you to death with it, but it's so important to me to acknowledge the symbolism of this: breakfast with Ed.






I also have repeatedly told Ed how much I love the fact that we can enter a heated house in the winter time and, too, how much I never fail to appreciate our ancient washing machine. It's so easy to clean clothing these days!

Today I thought about all this, feeling especially grateful for the people I love. A funeral took place in Poland and at least part of my heart was there, even as I continued to have a beautiful day at the farmette with Snowdrop.

I'm so grateful for the good health of my younger families.

Here is Snowdrop herself expressing  joy so easily, so totally.






She remembers, I'm sure, that her family is somewhere not too far, she is tickled that Ed always comes in and plays with her...






... and she squeals with joy when we go out to feed the cheepers.






The ritual of sitting on the grass and watching them chomp on a stale bagel is one that will have to end soon, but this day is warm enough and so we extend our play. I show her how I used to make earrings for myself out of cherries when I was just a tad older than her. No cherries here now, but plenty of crab apples to make the point.






Oh, how absolutely grand it is to be outside now! A leaf, Snowdrop... You're holding a dry leaf.






Another secret joy that the little one finds is in maneuvering herself under a table or chair. She is fearless in this. I hover.





And so the day continues...

In the late afternoon, I have the treat of a walk around the little lake with Snowdrop and her mom and then, in the evening, there is a dinner at the farmhouse with our house guests.

You don't have to work very hard at contentment when events line themselves in this fashion. I am grateful for this and I understand that this is a gift, not necessarily generously presented in life to others.

Sunday

At sunrise -- an event that comes well after seven these days -- I see that the hoarfrost has covered the fields...






I love this so much about living in the country -- you can feel the crunch of frost under your feet and as the November sun rises, you can see the fields take on that striped look of a receding layer of tiny ice particles.






We eat a late breakfast and that's good, because I have yard work to attend to and no desire to be outside until the sun has warmed a few spaces for me.






I clip raspberries and, too, prune the flower fields somewhat, so that there'll be winter texture in the yard. And of course, I take out the now spent nasturtium, picking out only a few remaining blooms for the kitchen table.






In the afternoon, Ed and I do what we so love doing -- we drive out deeper into the country and pick a set of trails for a brilliant forest hike. A few photos for you from the School Forest trails...
















And in the evening, the young family is here for dinner and yes, I'll throw down some photos from this as well. We all want our share of Snowdrop of course...
















...and she is in a spectacular mood, possibly because, in addition to the hovering grandma and grandpa Ed,  her mommy came back from a several day business trip and her daddy is right there (let's give credit to the guy who let's us all hog her now)...






Too, she gets to eat with the grownups.






I'll end with that pic. You need nothing more after seeing that biscuit encrusted face..

Saturday

We had our frost.

When I let the cheepers out, I watched them puff out their feathers and I felt a tad sad for them: they will not feel that warmth of a heated space until next spring. I know, I know -- I'm projecting our frail human sensibilities onto down-covered birds, but surely they prefer a more moderate range of temperatures than what we're about to have.






Ed and I had carried the preferred pots of annuals to the sun room. It's not a brilliant solution -- there isn't enough sun in the room to really allow for a continued robust bloom, but there's enough light to give us a little color in the winter months. (Obviously the plants are at their best right now.)

And so breakfast is in the sun room, surrounded by the pots brimming with dainty flowers.







(... and with garden flowers in the vase as well.)






And then I am with Snowdrop.






Remember, fewer words this week. Just a few of my images of the little girl. I'm sure you could make up the captions -- and you wouldn't be far off. Except for the last one of her. Let me scroll right to it.






















This is it -- a photo from our walk. (With hood today!) Every day, we pass a house with a white picket fence. On top of the fence, the owners have put up a simple pinwheel. Snowdrop and I study it always, delighting in its spinning motions, loving the sparkle, the spontaneous movement.






It's just one high point of our walk.

(Today, you could say that the autumnal colors were also a high point, but Snowdrop seems less inclined to appreciate autumnal colors just yet.)






That's it for today!

Friday

I wonder what happened to October? This morning, I regretted just throwing on a fleece. It felt like November out there.

Again I am heading for a week of few photos and fewer words. Several events conspire to take away bits and pieces of time that I usually eek out of each day for Ocean writing: friends are coming to town and when we have farmhouse guests, I find it tough to focus on posts. Too, my daughter is away on a business trip and I do want to help Snowdrop's dad just a little over the weekend. Both parents have more work on their plate than I do at the moment (well, I actually have no work on my plate) and so any help I can give them with Snowdrop care is appreciated.

(Truthfully, it's hard to think of Snowdrop time as a favor to anyone but myself, but it is true that the girl is too active to allow for writing time on her watch.)

My thoughts, too, are straying to Warsaw, where I do have friends and they do have lives and some have taken a turn for the worse, so tracking that now is really keeping me up at night.

And finally, I'm leaving town next Thursday and there's some minimal predeparture stuff to take care of, so if there were idle minutes before all this, well -- they've disappeared.

Onto the day!

Breakfast! Back on the Ocean menu of important events!






And a fond look at the flowers before they fade into nothing tonight. Nasturtium -- you were gorgeous!











Then, at Snowdrop's home, I get right to it: bath, food, play -- all of it. (She's in post-bath recovery mode here!)






She and I spend a wonderful afternoon exploring each corner of her living space, because the girl seems to thrive on that level of detail. A tiny bit of dry leaf? A shoelace? A coaster? All exciting!

(And the baby favorite: helping fold clean laundry.)






(I'm on her side in the next photo duet. She was playing with the pumpkins. He got into her play space!)











(Here she is -- bursting with energy.)






(And here she is, reminding me that perhaps now's the time to roll out the winter cap. It's windy and cold out there!)







In the evening, I spend too much time on dinner. Cleaning and slicing raw artichokes has to be one of the more tedious vegetable preps on the planet. Still, over pasta, with pecorino cheese...






It's a soul warming dinner. And that's such a good thing.