Sunday - Mother's Day

If you're a mom, an American mom (because Mother's Day is celebrated on other dates elsewhere) have you found a way to make this day special? I would guess that it already has a bit of the unusual about it. You feel the stress and distress of others who have a much more difficult time of it than you do. You can't travel to share space with all those you wish could be part of your day. You can't do this, you can't do that. A world of barriers.

And still, if you are healthy and your kids and grandkids are healthy, and you have some source of at least adequate support, well now, isn't that just huge? So for those of us who have both things in place (so far) -- I say go ahead and revel in your good fortune! And if you know someone who is struggling with a loss, now is the time to reach out.


So how are mothers celebrating this year? How are you doing it? What's different this time around for you?

Me, I'm wearing pants! In other words, I'm dressing up! It has come to my attention that I have been in sweatpants or legging sweats every single day of the pandemic (and some days before that official declaration came our way). Today, I dusted off stuff that I usually wear when I visit my girl in Chicago or my friends in Europe. I have to say, it feels strange to have something on that isn't held up by elastic.

What else? I'm dealing with the weather. We're all dealing with the weather in the Midwest and the northeastern states.

The morning is cold, though above freezing. It's raining steadily and I am happy about that because our gardens need the rain.






Breakfast, of course, is in the kitchen. Ed, hurry up! My oatmeal is getting cold!






I had a list of chores that would have been perfect for a poor weather day, but I decided to treat myself and not do them. Such a gift. No to taxes. No to bills. No to major house cleaning (just the bathroom!). No no no! This is a day for spending time with my beloveds however we can make that happen.

For example, an extended FaceTime with Primrose and her mom.






This may have been more of a challenge for the little one even a few months ago, but right now, she is full of energy, and fun, and words, and I'm getting a very good feel for how she is growing (in leaps and bounds!), even if I'm here and she's there.






Many grandparents come to these phone sessions with their grandkids well prepared, with books and toys to show and share with them on the screen. I rarely do that. Is it laziness? Maybe, but I think it's more that I always love to have the child take the lead rather than pushing my idea of what would be fun. Perhaps that's not fair to the parents who would appreciate a little diversion and perhaps even a break from round-the-clock childcare, and still, I am far happier watching, listening, learning about what the child is all about, offering only the occasional silly song lyric or goofy comment. Oh, and the camera! Primrose is used to seeing my camera in our FaceTimes together!






Thank you for this sweet (so sweet) Mother's Day interlude!






And then it snowed. Oh, not your sticky ground covering snow, but if you went outside, you'd get some fat gloppy flakes on your nose. I did.






Has it ever snowed on Mother's Day in Madison, Wisconsin? Must we go down in the record books on all counts for this day? On the upside, there was no garden damage. It's not bitter cold, just wet and cold.

In the evening, the young family (that has been completely isolating these past two months) is here for dinner.


 








In many ways, it is like any other Sunday dinner...






... but of course, in important ways -- it's not that at all. However you are eating your dinner as a mom, you should take note of the uniqueness of this day!

Here, the kids are the focal point. Oh, they'll go off and play for a while, but when they make an appearance, our smiles are for them, if only because they pull them out of us without effort!







Yes, we would have liked a bigger dinner, with both families. We would have liked sunshine on the porch. We would have enjoyed maybe a walk on the path I mowed in the young orchard. Just to admire the blooming fruit trees. But, that is not to say that we put by the wayside what we have now: time together. FaceTime, real time -- it's time, gifted to us, loved to pieces for its preciousness, its delightful silliness, its richness in all ways.


I hope you, too, had a meaningful, perhaps even beautiful Mother's Day.

With so much love!

Saturday - 57th

What is it about gardening that draws some people in and eaves others cold? There is a very real split: those who aren't drawn to it think of it as a chore, right up there, or perhaps down there with bathroom cleaning. People like me, on the other hand, cannot resist creating gardens, even in the most absurd and difficult spots, where the soil is hard as a rock and the amount of sunlight is suboptimal.

It's time consuming. Every good weather day in early spring has you out there digging. I had to smile as I thought about the state parks reopening here, in Wisconsin. They've been up and running (or rather people have been up and running in them) for a week now and Ed and I haven't even hiked the trails once. There's no time for it.

So why work this hard at something that is so ephemeral? A blooming period is quite short for most perennials. Several weeks perhaps. Of course, you stagger the plants: a good gardener will not have a week without something pretty to look at during the growing season. Still, all that work? Is it worth it?

A passionate gardener doesn't think in those terms. The weather warms the earth, you go out and dig. And there's a lot at the farmette that requires digging. Nine flower beds (two of them so huge that a chicken might get lost in them), two veggie patches, two new meadows of wildflowers. And of course, there is the new orchard and there are some two dozen flower pots with annuals -- it's a project!



I wake up to a frost outside. I wouldn't call it a hard frost, but it did go down to about 28F (-2C) for a significant number of hours. I'm not sure how it affected fruit farmers in Wisconsin. We seem to have barrelled through it mostly okay. Our potted annuals were covered or moved indoors. Our fruit trees appear unscathed.






We lost Ed's marigolds -- flowers that I plant by the sheep shed because it reminds him of childhood summers in upstate New York. I'll replace them. Otherwise, things look good.

(These are the last days of the tulips. What a run they've had!)
















Oddly, we have this rather pretty Saturday stuck between a handful of rather miserable days. Cold yesterday, very wet and very cold tomorrow. True, the morning doesn't give us a porch breakfast...






Nonetheless, the day quickly morphs into something really really lovely.






I have an agenda. First, I drive over to pick up our first box of veggies from our Community Supported Agriculture farm. You know how it works, right? You pay them a lump sum and you get a box of farm products once a week -- they decide what goes in it. This particular family farm is a CSA leader and surely one of Wisconsin's first sizeable organic growing operations (if you live here, you'll have heard of it -- it's Harmony Valley). Without our beloved farmers market on the square, this is the best way to get a huge variety of fresh produce to your table.

I promised Ed that if we signed up this year, I would not waste any of the contents. After all, if you're bereft of inspiration and don't really want to fuss with fancy recipes, especially now that you're not going to the grocery store to search out new ingredients, you can always chop things up and do a stir fry, or do a soup, or roast it all in the oven. There's not much that wont work if you drizzle it with olive oil and sprinkle it with salt and pepper, with a splash of lemon or a dash of parmesan.

Still, today's box presents some challenges.





Oh, there's the stuff everyone likes. Spinach. The first asparagus. I see some chives. Okay, we have chives at the farmette, but what the heck. Then come the tricky things: sunchoke. I used to roast these little gnarled things. But you have to go easy on using them. Too many and your belly will complain. Wild ramps -- good for stirfries. Green garlic -- who doesn't use garlic of some form? Parsnips. Well okay, soup next week. But my, there are a lot of parsnips in the box! And last but not least -- stinging nettle. When I did my moonlighting at Madison's L'Etoile Restaurant, the chef loved using nettle in any number of dishes. But I've never done it. And there is a huge bunch! Enough for nettle soup if you want to make nettle soup. (I don't want to make nettle soup.) Can I cheat and toss some of the sprigs into the compost pile? Don't tell Ed, okay? [In fairness to the CSA, there used to be a place where you could put aside items you don't expect to use, but CoVid has changed all that: you go in to your pick up spot only if no one is in it, you wear gloves, take your food and run. No exchanges, no dallying.]

Bottom line: I like the variety! Tonight's dinner: rock fish from our Community Supported Fishery, and sauteed parsnip slices, with green garlic, ramps -- bulbs, greens and all, and a diced sunchoke and maybe a few asparagus bits. In olive oil and a hint of butter.

But first, there is the afternoon of gardening. Yesterday, my box of day lilies finally arrived. Ten new lilies, carefully selected by me on January 31st, plus three free lilies gifted by the growers. I have just the place for most of them: by the new path in the Big Bed.

I get to work.





And as I dig, I think gardening thoughts. I push chickens away and tell Dance to quit bothering the little kitties. I listen to the birds -- a pair of cardinals has been hanging out here since winter and their familiar calls and songs reminds me that spring hits on all our senses.

Who wouldn't want to garden on a day like this?

Well, many people, it seems. We are a diverse and complicated species, aren't we...

(Supper stir fry)




Tonight's thoughts are with the farmers who grow this stuff. Their markets are disrupted, their supplies are missing, the seasonal workers have a hell of a time getting to their farms. And yet they continue. Thank you.

With love.

Friday - 56th

In some parts of Madison, the temps dipped below freezing last night. We were not one of the "cold spots." We stayed just a degree above that. This is a good thing, as I had moved the most vulnerable plants indoors, but still needed to attend to the other pots -- ones where there may be damage if not total demise should there be an exposure to frost. And there will be frost tonight. We looked at five different models and projections: they all spell FROST.  (When did this language of vulnerabilities, of hot spots/cold spots, of models, projections and exposures become so familiar?)

The morning walk to feed the animals is very nippy!

And breakfast is in the kitchen. Toasty warm!






Later in the morning, I have a (video) chat with someone who happens to do physician rotations at our University Hospital. Such good work these people do! She's the kind of person who wont accept praise without turning it around, right back at you: she talks of how proud she is of our city, and how well it complied with the distancing order, and how much it had saved the hospital from the chaos that would have otherwise ensued. It was one of those conversations that made you understand the benefit of communities working together to support a common goal. I teared up as we ended our conversation!

And here's another feel-good moment: lunch with Primrose in Chicago!






The little one is now talking up a storm! This spring surely will be the season where she stopped being a toddler and jumped full force into being a little girl.


And speaking of little girls, here's Snowdrop for her afternoon at the farmhouse!






(Java! Out of the flowers please!)






(Dark Blue Tuxedo! Out of the flowers please!)






(Girl in a world of green...)







Inside again, we are finishing up our big Lego city building project. It's a little outside her usual realm of Lego friends and families, living in Lego houses and doing artsy Lego things, and takes us instead into the more troubled world of crime and bandits and handcuffs, at the same time that there are city cafes and toy shops and doughnut stands. She loves it all. When we're done, we move it in with her other completed Lego projects. It is now truly a remarkable place of houses, shops, fairy castles and... city life.





Evening. I do not get home until late and so I am glad to reheat yesterday's foods for a soup and salad supper. I stop clicking on the weather. We covered some plants, moved some into the garage, others into the farmhouse mudroom, and still others into the kitchen. We did the best we could. Put your feet up, exhale.

And pause for a moment to thank those, who are looking after the hospitalized patients right now. So many, working so hard, in so many different capacities, to move someone from sickness to good health. Thank you.

With love.

Thursday - 55th

 When you go out to feed animals in the wee hours of the morning, your thoughts meander. Barn, coop, sheep shed. Sheep...

A sheep, a sheep dog or a shepherd? Which of these are you? In the new world that was thrust upon us, for me 55 days ago, which am I?

If you catch yourself sheepishly longing to be told what to do, which path to follow, it seems to me that's not a bad thing. Sheep do not know where their best food source is, where there is shelter ahead of a storm. They need the shepherd, and the uncanny talent of the dog.

Or maybe you catch yourself in the role of the shepherd? Wanting to protect those you love, those you feel are under your care (even if they are not really under your care)?

I was thinking this morning that I am not a sheep dog. I don't move boldly forward, I do over-protect, and over-analyze and I'd probably be the kind of animal that would have all sheep huddled en mass, sheltered from all storms and dangerous weather patterns, even if the grass is greener on the other side of the ravine.

You tend to muse in this way when you've been sheltering in place, indeed, isolating in place for 55 days in a row.


The polar blast is coming our way. Tomorrow for sure. Maybe even tonight. It's terribly disappointing and sort of hard to believe, especially since right now, the weather is not so bad. Rather pretty in fact.
















... Though Ed does complain that breakfast on the porch is rather on the cool side. Perhaps. 55F (13C) seemed okay to me when I fed the animals, but for lingering over a morning bowl of cereal -- well, I see his point.






The kids come over shortly after. And we do stay outside for a while. Snowdrop wants to water some flowers.






(I teach Sparrow how to do this as well...)






(The two, on the picnic table, with flowers.)






(Helping Ed water the tomatoes...)






And they want to play in the sandbox.











And Snowdrop munches on some more asparagus...






And Sparrow rejects it, of course, because it's green, or because it looks suspicious -- which is his attitude toward most every veggie out there. (It appears here that he will eat it. Believe me, he wont.)






And then we play inside, feeling quite happy with the warmth of the house!


The afternoon is a mess of things. We bring in plants from the outside. I navigate upcoming medical appointments for my mom. The to-do list is endless -- a mess of stuff, of the kind you'd like to stick in the basement and forget about until next year or later.

But it is topped rather splendidly with a zoom call with my two friends (who have far better weather than I have, being in more southern climes).





They do a good job of feeling sorry for me. No one likes a polar vortex in May.


Evening? Warm soup. I mean, am I on target, given the weather, or what!

Thoughts tonight -- of the sheep dogs out there. The ones who have the smarts and the brave hearts to help the herd out when they need it most.

With love.

Wednesday - 54th

Once again, all eyes are on the weather. It's a beautiful day! Really lovely!






But we know what's around the corner: on Friday, a polar blast is coming our way. It seems to me that having this gorgeous day now is like dangling chocolate kisses in front of a child and then tossing them aside, to be replaced with broccoli, maybe even uncooked broccoli.

And of course, if there is to be a cold spell, much of my remaining planting should go on hold until this weather drama is behind us. I spend the night hours thinking instead about how to protect the annuals that must in some way now be covered if they are to survive the polar vortex.

Still, we do eat breakfast on the porch. The thing to note? Well, the sunshine, of course. Maybe the tulips? They're not from the garden! Oh, and Ed's hair. It's too long. He wants a haircut. I take care of that immediately after breakfast.






And then I log in solid paperwork. Without the paper. Phone calls: "if you leave your name, someone will get back to you..." More phone calls: "we are experiencing an unusually high number of calls..." Screen time.

Funny how all that can take ... hours.

(Outside: we're at the peak of the tulip run))






And in the afternoon, Snowdrop comes over. We have a lot to do! There's a big Lego project that we started last week, there are books to read. There'll be time for all that. First, there's the great big beautiful outdoors, with tulips and dandelions...











... and a trip to the asparagus patch for the first few stalks of the year. (She eats them, right then and there. Freshly picked asparagus is tender and sweet and wonderful. She does leave us *one* big stalk for supper...)





(while the kitties watch...)






And bubbles! Don't forget about bubbles!


\








Evening? It's frittata time again! And as always, I get to post my same old showoff image of that lightly baked wonder dish, loaded with cheeper eggs and today, also with brussles sprouts, mushrooms, garlic scapes, lots and lots of cheese and one asparagus stalk..





What grateful nod do I end with? Undoubtedly all those who keep on working out there so you and I can be sheltered in here. And I'll add a nod to a llama. Because according to this WashPost article (I apologize if the link will not give you the full story -- I'm not sure what the paper's shared link policy is), at least one llama is giving researchers treatment hope for CoVid. I'm remembering my summer visit to a nearbyfarm, where I almost bought a pair of goats. The goat owners also kept llamas. Lots and lots of llamas. Who knew then that a llama would be celebrated now, because of a pandemic!

Thank you, all you brave and hard working people. And thank you to Winter, the llama in Belgium.

With love.