Saturday - 176th

Of the many things I like about Ed, one trait that stands out is that he has a sound grasp of professional norms for jobs about which I am clueless. For instance, today, as I precariously balanced myself on the glass roof of the porch, he shouted out -- Gorgeous, roofers never move backwards. Ever. Just keep that in mind.

It is true that Ed himself has put down at least one roof in his life (the sheep shed) and has fixed leaks in the farmhouse roof on the rare occasion that one has sprouted, but I can't recall any of his friends being roofers. And yet, he knows. And he is correct, of course and I am grateful for this wise tip, because the porch roof (both the glass panels and the strips of wood holding them down) is very very slippery when wet. You have to know what you're doing when you venture out to do some maintenance up there.

So now you know my day: after a quick survey of the garden...






...and after a very protracted and chatty breakfast (how cool is it in the mornings? Cool enough for me to bring out a throw for my lap!)...






... I had Ed hoist up the hose as I climbed out the bathroom window onto the roof, with rag in hand.

The glass panels get a solid coating of pollen in the late spring and early summer. Rain does not wash it off. You have to scrub them down. In previous years, I'd work with a pail of water and scouring materials, but this year's idea of running the hose up there was brilliant: I could really keep the glass clean as I mopped my way from one panel to the next.

(the view from up there is pretty nice...)






It took more than two hours and I have to admit, by knees are pretty battered. They look like those of a kid just learning to ride a bike. Still, the effort was well worth it!

You have to wonder how long I'll feel myself to be agile enough to take on this task. At 67, I think I exceed the average age of a roofer. When I raise the possibility of someday not being quite up to the job, Ed reminds me that we don't have to scrub the roof.

And that leads me to wonder -- why did I do it? For the next several months, no one, absolutely no one will visit the porch of our farmhouse. No family dinners, no friends flying up for a farmhouse stay, none of that.

And yet, that crystal clear view up to the sky is somehow regenerative, refreshing, and revitalizing. Hi world! We're still here, loving the beauty of the landscape, of the blue sky, waiting for better days for us all...


(looking up, from our perch on the porch...)






In other news, Ed and I hopped on our bikes in the late afternoon, both for the exercise and because it truly is one heck of a gorgeous day. Not many photos for you -- our route is mundane -- to the lake and back again. But it truly is a fine day to be cycling the rural roads of the upper Midwest.











(back home, watching the birds and the bees, and the flowers and the trees... no moon though!)
















I hope you had time to get outdoors as well. To find that calm that comes from movement and from the warmth of the late summer sun.

Friday 175th

While the pandemic tore at the heart and heartland and soul of the country, while news stories flashed warnings about every calamity that may (or may not) befall us, while parents struggled to educate and babysit their children while at the same time the lucky ones who held jobs tried to actually get work done and keep the household functioning, while the planet reeled from crisis after crisis after crisis, I set for myself today the goal of washing the car.

It is what you do when you are ancient and you can't care for your grandkids and you are isolating yourself at home for day number 175.

Oh, sure. First there were the animals to feed, the flower pots to water, the garden to take note of...

(love that path...)












(Yes, no kidding! Still throwing the rare lily bloom...)






And a nippy breakfast to eat outside (it was 59F, or 15C and we both brought out pillows to sit on, protecting ourselves from chill of the metal chairs).






The purpose of the car wash was not to shine it up in any way. After thirteen Wisconsin winters, it's pretty rusty. It will never look grand again. But the inside -- ah, the inside! I remember before Snowdrop was born, reading a book about how French children eat meals and only meals. They do not snack, they aren't bribed with food, they expect to occasionally be hungry and to look forward to all forms of vegetables and meats and stinky cheeses, to be eaten politely at the family table. The author compared such habits with our own, as exemplified by the interior of the typical family car. Ours was likely to have crumbs, cheerios and sticky candy pieces lodged in every crevice of the back seat. French cars, I read, have none of that.

I don't remember how the car looked when my kids were growing up. I do know that I was never big on unhealthy snacks, but the line between healthy and unhealthy is subjectively and sometimes inaccurately drawn, and I'm sure I erred on the side of goldfish crumbs rather than clean car seats. [Too, I have seen lots of French kids nibble on baguette tips on the way home from a bakery, so I do cast some doubt on the author's claims that snacks, eaten in transit ne sont pas faites (are not done) in France.]

With the grandkids, I vowed to do even better!

That was before I was charged with picking up two starving tykes after school every day. And before I was the one taking them home every day this summer. And before Snowdrop fell in love with croissants first, then apples, then the teething biscuits which her brother devoured with the speed of a hyena. And before tiny ginger snaps came to be popular lures to get them to the car for the summer ride home.

Today I cleaned out all that debris, along with the leaves and wood chips and picked dandelions and everything else that seemed to have made it into the car over the past... well, probably several years.

Job done, Ed and I set out for a hike.

It's a gorgeous, sunny day -- the kind that defines the autumnal beauty of this month in Wisconsin (in the years that it doesn't rain every single September day... we've had years like that!). The Ice Age Trail is a twenty minute drive for us, but it's worth it. If not now, then when?

Follow along with us! The fields of corn, the golden rod, tickseed and black eyed susans, the gently fading birch leaves -- all amazingly beautiful!































(the view...)












(pure gold...)






(the corn is as high as an elephant's eye...)






I realize when we come back that this pretty much ends the first week of not baby sitting for me. I've done nothing unusual or new. I did not reach for new recipes, I did not resume yoga (unless you call vacuuming the deep crevices of the car yoga), I haven't resumed my writing (Ocean doesn't count), or reading (the mystery books on my night stand don't count), I've not readied the garden for the winter season, or studied much of anything in great depth (except the number of sunny hours in various corners of the world, just because Ed and I found this to be an interesting topic of discussion lately).

And that's okay. I transitioned. We'll see what next week will bring.

Evening? The usual, beautiful quiet of a stir fry meal, prepared in the same old way. Just because it's easier that way. With cauliflower, corn, and a handful of other things found in the veggie bin.

Have a good holiday weekend. Be mindful and kind.

With love.

Thursday - 174th

You know how you tell your kids that all one can do is try? You want to acknowledge their struggle, tell them that they wont be marked by success as much as by their own efforts. Don't look at a super pig picture and tell me it's imperfect. Show me how passionately you worked on it and I will be enraptured!

I thought about all this today as I continue to admire the efforts of so many to make this a good year despite, well, everything.

(morning garden walk: early fall always looks to me like a Seurat painting)





















(breakfast)






And I thought about effort as I went off in the morning for an outdoor, socially distanced visit with Snowdrop.

Since school has yet to start, the little girl hasn't a schedule and so we decided to log in such a visit now, while things are still loosey goosey for her. We considered the impact: is it disruptive? Does it offer continuity and reassurance? Are we over-worrying it?

The answer is -- who knows. We decide to give it a go. The run in the park was okay -- it normalized social distancing, but it didn't offer any of the stuff that Snowdrop and I share in our years of time together. Sparrow -- he's tougher to appease now. What he wants from me is harder to deliver. He does not get social distancing. At all. I can only offer walks, where some adult is holding tight to his little hand. But Snowdrop gets the distance metric and she seemed okay with it and so I pack a bag of stuff -- sticker sets, favorite old books, some new ones, her special art paper and favorite markers, a bowl of peaches and strawberries.

Clouds roll in, but there will be no rain and indeed, as the morning progresses, the sun comes out and warms our landscape and our souls.

Snowdrop comes out and she is on her blanket and I am on mine, and the breeze is so strong! We put rocks on all corners to keep the blankets from whisking us away into the high heavens!






She plays with her sticker set, I watch. Ed had asked me why Zoom is only second best, why a child can't be satisfied with just that much of you. Well, it's because of this: the wind that you both feel on your faces, the warmth of the sun when it does come out...






I read one old book and a whole new one and then I start in on a third and she switches to art on her favorite paper...






... and yes, it's super pigs and as she tells it -- they're having a picnic on a blanket and it's windy for them as well, just like it is for us!






We could stay there far longer, but it's lunch time and I know there is a sitter switch that's to take place and so after a couple of hours, I hustle her off and pick up the pieces of our morning together and head for home.

And yes, in the end, the departure is upsetting to her, but I have to think that expressing sadness is a good thing, no? The change for her in March and now again in September, has been huge. For Sparrow too, but his age makes him more resilient: a toddler's world is always changing. His mom and dad and his sister are his anchors. Everything else is fluid. (I had to smile last year when we all traveled together across the ocean and I looked at him and tried to guess what was in his head and I'd come with such possibilities as -- "oh! We are living here in this little house in Wales, with a castle out the window. Okay. I guess this is my new life now!") To be sad is normal. And still, a grandchild's sadness breaks your heart.

But, we're all trying. We are. You and me, in our new lives, where there is far too much out there that hammers at you and shouts at you to give up, we don't give up at all. We keep on trying.


In other news -- well, Ed and I hopped on the motorbike and made our way to Stoneman's for a last purchase of corn this year. I got two dozen ears, who knows why. It's me, wanting to keep that summer season going, as if we were still plotting our next wading pool splashing session and setting the table for a porch family dinner with everyone.






The late afternoon sun is so warm! Ed and I take a walk. Our goal? I suppose you could say to trespass on neighbor's land. I have trepidations. How is this permissible? -- I ask.
You don't understand these cultural norms: we're investigating.
Isn't it the norm that the owners could take a gun and shoot at us?
Nope! We're checking out new neighbors, that's all.
You mean like with a "welcome to the neighborhood" basket, except without the basket?

In truth, the new neighbors (across the road, not part of the new development) haven't even begun building their new home. And there is no indication of ownership. We knew the previous owners of the land. Nothing shouts out that this is now someone else's tract of land. And so we scale the hill, admire the new gravel road and walk over to the neighboring conservancy land.

At least here, we're on firmer ground: we've been very much a part of the effort to transform this to educational organic farming plots.

(looking out over the wetlands which this year are not very wet...)






At home again, I have video chats with grandkids. If I said it's not as good as the real deal, I must quickly add now that it's a pretty damn good filler for what could have, should have been.










We all keep trying. Really hard. With love pushing us forward.


Evening. Ed and I resume our talk of travel. Somehow, now that neither of us can go anywhere at all, talk about very distant places is on the table again. Go figure!

Wednesday - 173rd

Such a gorgeous day and yet I do nothing new with it. I'm taking a pause from thinking creatively about the day before me. In part because I've fallen behind with practically everything -- emails, straightening the play room, lily snipping, so that only this day's blooms remain.






Yes, there are still lilies to snip, though I admit, the time needed for this is minimal. (And yes, it did rain a tiny bit last night.)






(the old familiar path...)






(good morning cheepers!)






Over breakfast, Ed and I talk about what it would be like to live in a country where we could not speak the native language. A friend of his noted that he'd look forward to immersing himself in something that new. But, Ed and I are ancient! His view is that if we ever spent time in a new culture, surrounded by people who speak a new for us language, we would be like those people who came to America as grandparents and who never could master the English language, relying on their kids to be their guide dogs.






I protest this, but just a little. I've grown much more fluent in French in my recent years of travel to France and yet I also have to admit that I'm a little stuck now: I navigate familiar terrain, using familiar constructs and vocabulary. It's as if I have accepted the fact that I will never speak like a native and so I stay in the old world of what I know.

I mention this because I have heard many people say that when they retire, they will study a new language/musical instrument/art form. I admire the words, even if I don't quite believe that there will be a follow through. It's a warning to all you pre-seniors. If you want to embark on something different later in life, get your foot in the door now, while you can. Be that dilettante, test new waters. You may be an amateur, you may feel you haven't the time to do an all out effort. It doesn't matter: start early. Most likely, you wont want to take that plunge once you pass a comfy, entrenched age of, say, 67.

As for the rest of my day? I spend it mostly on the porch. It's just so beautiful now! Oh, maybe we don't have the flowers we once did, but maturity is not unattractive.

I Zoom with friends, I write letters to children, And at the end of the day, with the last warm rays of the sun on my back and while Ed is biking his Wednesday ride, I walk up and down the streets of the new development thinking minor thoughts. Not great thoughts, not creative thoughts, but wonderful inconsequential minor thoughts.

We should all have such calm days, don't you think?
.

Tuesday - 172nd

You have to try things out to see if they work for you. Maybe they will, maybe they wont. You have to give it a go.

I think of this when Ed tells me this morning that the water heater sprouted a new leak. It's slow, but it's telling: no, you cannot fix me. I am ready to give it up. I've done my duty, I've given you all that hot water. Twenty-two years is ancient. Go find a replacement.

Well, he tried. So now comes the protracted period where Ed meditates on the next move. He is in that phase with both the front farmhouse entrance and the water heater. I tell him that it surely would be better to replace it now than, say, during an Arctic blast in December. He agrees and retreats to his contemplative space, letting thoughts pass through his head until something sticks: rebuild the whole system? switch to on-demand heating? Stone steps? Wood trim?

All this after breakfast.






Morning interlude in the garden:

(no children, but plenty of cheepers!)





(I've always liked this path by the pines... No one really shared my affection for this space, but someday I know the kids will feel equally dazzled by the smell of pines here and the sight of all that goldenrod!)






(call this "the path well traveled:" so many walks, alone, with the kids, with Ed, alone, with anyone and everyone, to the barn and back to the farmhouse)






(the colors of early fall...)






Here's another thing to try: a meetup with the young family outside, with social distancing in place. Typically, Snowdrop and Sparrow will have full days of school and baby sitters (how are the new sitters? according to Snowdrop, "fun and kind"). But just this afternoon, while school hasn't yet officially opened, there is a window of opportunity. Their mom has a free hour. We arrange for a meetup in the Arboretum.

I've been apprehensive about a get-together of this nature. The kids climb all over me when they're at the farmhouse. Hugs and snuggles, holding hands -- it's all so routine that breaking with those norms has to be weird. Can we even pull it off?

I arrive with picnic blankets, a book, some favorite snacks. The weather map tells us that there will be rain. How unfair is that! All these weeks with no rain and now the skies are threatening to release all that pent up anger!

But no. We are lucky. The clouds come, but they send down no rain.

And how was the socially distanced encounter?

At first, Snowdrop was apprehensive. She would be twenty feet away and anxiously remind me not to come closer. Sparrow? Well, we were outside and his expectations were unformed. I suggested a picture by the fields of goldenrod. Hey, that's familiar! Gogs always take photos by flowers!






It's easy to find empty grassy stretches of parkland here.


 


We put out blankets. I read, they eat.

And then we play tag.










This is not so easy. The purpose of tag is to actually tag someone. We chased each other into safe zones instead.

The thing is, I have plenty of oomph left in me, but Snowdrop is fast! There were times when she forgot the distance requirement. Indeed, there were times when I -- the most vigilant person on the planet with this COVID stuff -- forgot about the distance requirement. Oh, Sparrow, you bumped your head? Let me take a look...

In the end though, it was a very safe trial run. And I had my hand sanitizer to help me correct the mistakes. Well, mostly my mistakes.

I was thinking that the goal here is not to have me relax, in the way that I do at home when they come over. The goal now is for them to relax. To feel some continuity as they begin this very strange new school year. How often will we fit in an outdoors, socially distanced meet up? There's no schedule really. This week is less tight because there isn't school yet. Going forward -- we'll see. However the winds blow, wherever the tide carries us.