Wednesday - 250th

Remarkable. 250 days -- a round number, a record, a sign of the times. And counting.

Here's what I'm thinking now about living the life of a recluse: I am super grateful. Grateful that this period of isolation is likely to end by spring. That quite likely there wont be another 250 days where Ed and I are alone and apart from the rest of humanity. And hey, how about this -- it could well have been 2500 more if science hadn't stepped up with promising vaccination results. In other words, if you're still COVID free, you should be telling yourself -- I am lucky. And in a few months this will be over.

And who wants to go out and party in the winter months anyway? In the cold season, you sleep. Skip the dinner invitation and pull a quilt to your chin. Give yourself permission to do nothing much.

If you're retired, here's what a do nothing much day looks like: 

If you have chickens, chip away the ice in their water dish and fill the bowl with warm water. Chickens love warm water in the winter. Then, take a walk outside and admire the bare trees. What, you don't think bare trees are especially beautiful? Well, take another look. (Sometimes beauty is tough to recognize at first glance.)

 

Let's talk about breakfast next. A do nothing day has to have an easy breakfast, but something more than tea and toast, please. I mean, it's good to make it last. If you can cajole anyone in your household to join you for this meal, you can really drag it out!

A do nothing day is the kind of day where you can spend a lot of time just listening to the wind outside. (And oh, is it windy out there today!) You tell yourself you should be planting garlic bulbs (we have a number we want to plant still this fall -- it grows really well here) and then you don't do it at all, because, well, planting requires thought and a modest amount of effort.

Still, sitting on a couch all day is a no no, so Ed and I do go out for a walk. Where to -- he asks. I definitely don't want to give it much thought so I say the obvious -- our local county park. Same trail? Same trail.   

Same bare trees.

(windy!) 

If your step count is low after all this, you can always pace your living room in the late afternoon, telling yourself how lucky you are not to have to go out anywhere tonight! I mean, all that wind! 

 

Now, my "do nothing" does not always coincide with a "nothing's happening" day for Ed. Today, for example he decides to install a bidet onto the one toilet in the farmhouse. You know what that is, right? Water squirts in the appropriate places. You need no toilet paper, ever. This appeals to Ed who hates to waste anything, including paper, especially since even the thinnest squares inevitably fill up the septic system. So he wants us to try the bidet. 

People rave about it! Cleanest job ever!

That was a selling point to him as well. I agreed. Of course, I should have known he would pick the cheapest model on the market. $27, delivered.

It got great reviews! They say if you turn it up full power, you get a blast that cleans your insides! Don't worry, I did not set it on full power.

 

The thing is, Ed was not willing to spend a whole lot more and do a complicated installation just so you could have warm water hitting your derrier. You know, like they have in Japan (where the toilet seats are often heated as well; they really treat your bathroom time royally in that country). He warns me -- it's a little bit of a shock the first time!

 I'll say! A strong cold spray of water! You should have installed this in the summer. I may have appreciated it then.

You'll get used to it! And if not, well, I did buy enough toilet paper to get us through more farmhouse isolation days.

 

On a do nothing evening, you reheat leftovers. You think about all the great meals you've cooked in the past and you smile to yourself -- cooking will always be in your blood. You don't have to prove yourself every single day anymore. Leftovers are more than just fine.

I give passing thought to the book I was supposed to finish writing this fall, to the online daily French lessons I've stopped taking (last one -- 251 days ago!), to the big meal I normally cook on the last Thursday of November. And I do nothing about any of it.

Now, on the one hand, you can say -- sounds like a pretty nice day to me! But part of you I am sure is thinking -- it will be sooo much better here on Ocean once she returns to doing something with her days! And if you're in that camp, well then, aren't you glad I likely wont have another 250 days of doing nothing before me? Yes, we are lucky. If those of us who do not work can only keep on doing nothing for a while longer, we'll get out of this mess and rejoin a life of doing grand stuff once again.

Tuesday - 249th

So, let's start off with a bit of humor today. A cartoon popped into my Inbox today. If ever there was one that hit home, this one is it! (Under the New Yorker copyright guidelines, I'm allowed to let you see it.)

 

My granddaughter in Chicago (and my friends far away who have been Zoom calling me for the past eight months -- gulp! has it been eight months?) will surely crack a smile!

 

It's a sunny day and that's a good thing. No one is in the mood for a drippy gray day. We're looking for uplifts here and sunshine is a reliable source of positivity. 

 

 

In fact, I'm so taken with it that I diddle a little in the flower beds (and listen to the lovely birdsong) before coming in for a kitchen breakfast.

 

Later, we install the new camera gadget onto the little TV in the kitchen. We're set for virtual holiday sharing with the Chicago bunch! 

And still later, Ed and I search out another reliable hike trail -- over at the Nature Conservancy, maybe a mile down the road from us. I know, we could have walked from the farmette to the trailhead, but I've grown allergic to strolling along our rural roads. I'm convinced that for too many, an empty road is an invitation to pick up a smartphone. I don't want to slog through 249 days of isolation, only to be run down by a texting driver. So we drive over, park the car off road and hit the trails!

Back home, I'm itching to try out our new communications center. Yes! Primrose and mom, right on my little kitchen TV!

Perfect. And perfectly wonderful!

Evening: I think this kind of a day (how would I describe it? Oh, sort of like yesterday and probably like tomorrow) calls for a frittata. With spinach and mushrooms. And onions and potatoes. And gruyere cheese. Wonderfully nutty gruyere cheese.

 

 

Monday - 248th

You're talking to a person here who has, from day 1 of the pandemic, practiced safe behaviors. Being retired makes that less of a challenge. Some degree of isolation at home is not so unusual for us -- we're home bodies and our social orbit is intense but small. A few tweaks later and we achieved a level of total seclusion,  cut off from all people contact. (Except for the occasional masked, distanced, outside encounter with family members who are, themselves, at least partially isolated.)

But what if you ask yourself this question: is your degree of caution excessive? Should you adjust things to meet the new available data on contacts, on periods of isolation, on testing? 

With the approach of the holiday season, I thought I'd explore these questions. For the past week, I've been reading guidelines, recommendations and new findings as they are presented on main stream media with verifiable links to reputable sources, and, too, those that appear on the CDC website. Let me tell you, it's a mess of inconsistent information out there! I can point you to several statements on the CDC that are downright misleading and even incorrect. The guidelines coming from the mouths of infection specialists are vague or worse -- so generalized as to exclude most common situations, indeed, your own situation, and so you have to modify and calculate and you have few reliable metrics to help you along.

Can I say it -- I wish there was a federal response to the virus, where directions, recommendations, answers to questions were put forth consistently, updated regularly, and adjusted for the season. Navigating what's out there now is brutal! No wonder so many people are floundering, making mistakes left and right just because they don't know what (beyond masks, hand washing and social distancing) is and what is not safe.

A cold and threatening November morning. I may as well keep staring at the computer screen. After all, the walk to feed the animals tells me that outdoor time is not going to be much fun today.

 

 

The temptation to linger forever over breakfast is so strong!

 

 

But, a morning of internet reading is enough to remind you of your commitment to a more balanced day. Yesterday, for the first time since October 1, I did not make my 10 000 step goal. Today -- I either recover or I throw it all away. I choose "recover," so Ed and I go out to rake honey locust seed pods away from the Big Bed.  It's real work and it counts toward your active steps, especially if you rake hard enough to give yourself blisters. Which I did.

 

The sun comes out toward the end and suddenly the cold does not seem so terrible at all. We rake, mow and mulch together until the whole courtyard area is mostly free of pods and leaves. Oh, did we need that diversion! 

 

 

Evening. We turn on lights late at the house. Ed likes it that way and I go along. I take in the fading light and I think how precious it is, how sweet it will be to wake up to a fresh load of brightness tomorrow. 

Ed gets up to lock up the cheepers, I turn on the lights, make up a salad for our supper of leftovers,  and we fall gently into our end of day routines.

Sunday - 247th

 It's the kind of day that makes you wish we were, say, in the middle of February already. The cold is penetrating, the somber tones outside are dark and ominous, the winds are fierce, the day is short.

My walk is brief.

 

Our breakfast, however, is warm and long, perhaps to compensate for yesterday's aborted meal.

 

 

 

Much of the day is spent on figuring out how best to connect to my younger daughter's home over the holidays. In keeping to our "stay safe" guidepost, we wont be spending any of the holidays with the Chicago bunch and so we are looking at alternatives and one that comes to mind is linking our households via a video screen. Not just the static one of FaceTime or Zoom, but the moving adaptable ones that are now on the market. They're not expensive and they give you a view of the room and the persons in it, tracking the motion of those who move around (for example Primrose!). Here are two screens from today's experimental run:

Okay, they are set on their end. Now Ed and I have to learn the technology (fine, Ed has to first learn the technology and then teach it to me) that will put the farmhouse in a similar fashion on their TV screen. It's a fun project because it makes us feel connected. Anything that brings them closer to us is a beautiful thing.

In the meantime, a Sunday is a Sunday and so I once again cook up the seafood pasta that has been a constant dinner request from the young family. I take it over when it's super dark. No stars, no moon, just a cloudy and cold November night.

 

On the bright side, November 15th does have some celebratory value to it. It's my mom's birthday -- 97 today! She is, of course, in her own Assisted Living bubble. We do talk daily, but visits are not in the cards for now. Still, I hear there were some balloons in her day today. And singing. She's not a great fan of celebrations, but I'm sure she'll take our wishes for a brighter, more peaceful year ahead.

Saturday - 246th

It felt like a race: hasty retreat from the breakfast table, a fast loop around the New Development, a run to the barn where I hop on the tractor mower to run it underneath the grand maples by the road, then finally a grab for the hand spade to dig out some hefty dandelions from the front bed. Phew! Done by noon! I go inside, the rain begins.

I'd say the usual slow lead up to the day was definitely upended! In fact, the whole morning was uniquely irregular. Sure, I did that morning walk to feed the animals...

And Ed and I sat down to our usual breakfast...

But it was no typical leisurely meal. Two cats began their porch meowing routine...

 

And Ed responded. Possibly to prove a point, possibly because he was still half asleep. Since the cats can't (as per Nina) come in, my animal guy went out to eat the rest of the morning meal on the porch with them.

No, I did not follow. And yes, I shared my opinion with him as to how much I loved that interruption.

Was I effective? Sure. Until dinner: grilled salmon, sweet potato, salad. Interrupted because, well, a cat was meowing and someone (not me) had to go out and pet her for a good number of minutes.

Am I being worn down by Ed's stubborn persistence? I am not. No cats shall inhabit the farmhouse. Stubbornness runs deep on both sides of the divide.

Friday - 245th

Are you feeling overwhelmed? Oh, but imagine being a bus driver right now. Or a grocery store clerk, as we approach a string of big grocery shopping days. During a crazy out of control pandemic. Or, imagine you live in the Upper Midwest and you hold the job of a nurse or a physician. Add a kid, or maybe two, who hasn't seen the inside of a school building since March. I'm sure I could ask you to join in and I'd have a page full of listings of people who are even more anxious about life right now!

For those of us with diffuse anxiety, it's a reminder to take stock of our own situations and keep in front and center the good stuff that is still with us. And I'd say that a string of sunny days is just one example of that good stuff. How good it is to go out and turn your face toward the sun! Welcome, vitamin D! Come right in and give us the benefits of your curative powers! (No sunshine where you live? Well, pop a vitamin D pill and take a walk anyway. It's guaranteed to make you feel better. Perhaps not great, but better. Pile on the better! We need a lot of it!)

Morning walk...

Breakfast. We are in the kitchen and this is a disappointment to the cats who enjoy our porch company. 

 

Ed would love to just let them all in for a cuddle or two inside the farmhouse. Initially, when the cats looked in with their pleading eyes I was agreeable. But of course, the cats are insatiable and there is now always someone at the porch door, meowing to come in. Sometimes, Ed asks me if it's okay. Lately, I'm stubbornly firm. I recognize the slippery slope here and I am most adamant: I do not want five cats milling about in the farmhouse. I do not even want one cat with free access to our home. We are both mildly allergic and we've both done pets in our better days and I think we need to resist the temptation to go down that path again. Still, it's tough to push back all day long.

No, Ed, I don't want to let them in. No, not even for two minutes (it's never two minutes). 

Just for a little bit.

You're asking? Well then... No.

 

In the early afternoon, we both go out for a New Development walk. We watch the houses go up, the people move in. Three years ago -- corn and soy. Now -- Santa in front of the porch.

Still later I drop off some stuff at the young family's house. It's not a great day for reading outside with Snowdrop. Too cold. But I have a chance to hand to the little girl something that she has missed a lot: two of her rag dolls, Rosie and Clover, that have been sadly collecting farmhouse dust in her absence, along with their "toys." She is ecstatic.

(Even though we're outdoors, mask goes on. We take no chances.)

And then I hurry home -- my two friends and I have a ZOOM chat scheduled and I dare say we need the boost that always comes with a visit, even a ZOOM visit.

Evening quiet now. A comfortable quiet that is far more beautiful in the winter than on a summer day. Inside, all windows closed, all noise of the outside world shut out. Well, except for the occasional meow.

If it weren't for the cats, Ed reminds me, we'd have the usual November mouse problem.

Fine, let them in. But only for two minutes. No more than that!

Thursday - 244th

One of my favorite winter moments unfolds during a morning walk, after an especially cold night. This is when you'll find crystals of ice lingering on shaded grasses and spent flowers.

To me, it's winter's gentle touch. A frosted over landscape. Lovely, but in a subtle way.

The paths are freezing up at night so there is a crunch to the step as I walk to the barn and round back, to the pines and spruces that are at their finest even in winter. 

Breakfast is cozy. How else to describe a warm kitchen and a steamy cup of milky coffee? Oatmeal with local honey? A streak of sunlight from the mudroom? The quiet of the world outside that seems destined to sleep away the coldest months of the year?

Later in the day, I have a Zoom call with my Polish friends. Each time we meet up in this way, there are worse stories of growing infections and political upheavals, both in the US and in Poland. We spend a lot of time on filling in some of the details. On recounting "what it's like" to be "here," rather than "there."  But in the end, it's the family stories that lighten the moment for us. There is a lot to celebrate. To be grateful for. Even at a distance. 

In the afternoon, Ed fits in a "Wednesday Night Bike Ride." Of course, it's not Wednesday and he has to set out early to make it back before dark, but still, at 52F (11C), it's warm enough for him to pedal away. And I use this opportunity to set out for a solo walk through the new development. Because it's just so convenient to have that sidewalk nearby!

 

An evening of chicken brats and a salad with the first of our winter spinach. Well, not really ours, in that we did not grow it. It comes from farmers that have been supplying us with cold harvest hoop spinach for many years now. Every two weeks, two big bags of deep green leaves, sweetened by the frost. From mid November through mid April. I cannot imagine a Wisconsin winter without this heavenly treat.

We finished yet another a gruesome crime series and are starting in on a new one. Ed is winning the bet: we have not had to to subscribe to Netflix since the whole COVID menace came into our lives. Plenty of good, free viewing to be had out there. With a candle and pop corn and perhaps a glass of wine. And did I mention the chocolate square? With a glass of white wine, from the Bergerac region (inexpensive, lovely)?

Feeling grateful indeed. Worried about our health care workers, to be sure, really worried. But grateful for my family's good health and the peace that has settled over the farmette lands.

Wednesday - 243rd

You should never let a beautiful day escape from you. Grab it, hold onto it, use it. Even if it's chilly. Sunshine and clear skies, calm breezes -- they're a gift.

(No more breakfasts on the porch though...)

But of course, sometimes it's beyond your control. Sunshine be damned, I have to fix my mom's accounts, which are wiggling around in crazy ways and thus far, no one can explain to me why. And so I call person number 1, number 2, number 3. I'm on hold with person number 4, number 5, number 6. I leave my number and ask for a call back with person number 7 and then number 7 once again.

By early afternoon, the problem is solved. Or at least the discrepancies are explained to me. I tell the gentleman who helped clarify something that stumped the best of them that I'll hold on to his name and number and keep it by my pillow forever more. He responds -- you're welcome, stay well.

I relay just a fraction of this to my mom. She doesn't need to know about each issue that arises. I do her paperwork for her. Still, the outcome is to her benefit, so I pass on that piece of news. She says, genuinely wondering -- what would I do without you?

I have to smile at that. Without me here, nothing would change. Bills would get paid automatically, social security would come in, all would roll forward, even if I vanished with a puff of smoke. Ed is the much more indispensable link. He is her computer right hand, adjusting glitches and snafus and mis-clicks and outages as they arise. Her computer is her connection to the outside world. Ed enables that for her. So I better make sure he stays safe from COVID!

Of course, "making sure that he stays safe" changes nothing for us. We are in a bubble now for 243 days (how did I know that?!). Isolated at the farmhouse. We didn't relax restrictions in the summer and so we don't have to tighten them now! We are where we were. Or, as they say -- it is what it was and what will be all winter long. You have to find ways to wrap yourself in pockets of joy even in your weird new existence or else you're going to shrivel to a mere fragment of who you once were. And of course, for us, the joy has been and continues to be found in the natural world that surrounds us. And in family, in whatever temporary substituted form they are offered to us. Ed would say -- don't forget the cats! 

 

 

Well, popcorn too. We love our evening popcorn!

(We took a late afternoon walk in our favorite county park, with a beautiful view of sandhill cranes going there and another coming back.)

 

Tuesday - 242nd

I had half hoped for a peaceful transition: from the strange almost summer like weather of the past week, to the usual settling in of what should come now -- winter. No such thing. A violent storm erupted in the afternoon and for a while we were smack in the middle of a tornado watch. I had never before heard of a tornado watch in November.

Typically, this is a transition month in the upper Midwest. We use it to push away thoughts of gardens and growing things and color and light and accept the reality of winter. But this year, of course, we were tricked. Promises of endless sunshine and balmy breezes, enough to make you believe that winter is unnecessary. That maybe we can get away without it. We deserve a break, no? 

No. Wisconsin has four seasons and cheating your way until summer gives superficial pleasure, but if it lasts too long, that disturbance ripples through the natural world in ways that cause more harm than good.

 

It's not quite November cold today, but we're moving in that direction. 

 

 

 

(A quick morning walk in a light drizzle. The five cats look like they're ganging up on poor old Tomato, but it's just not so. The cats and cheepers all give each other plenty of space.)

Still, we manage to carve out a porch breakfast one last time.

And the rains pause long enough for me to climb out on the porch roof once more, to sweep away the maple leaves that would mound on top if left alone through the rains and the snows that are sure to come. (The roof is at its loveliest if it is cleared of spring pollen, fall leaves, and deep winter snows, though of course, you can do nothing and it will still carry on, like a brave if battered soldier, never for a minute giving up the good fight against the elements.)

And then we settle in and take up our various indoor tasks, waiting for the storms to pass and for the cooler air to take over in the next day or two.

Of course, my step tally suffers. I'd managed to maintain my "10 thou" daily goal since October 1st (is this a brag? I suppose so. Sorry!), but dismal wet days do nothing for my count. It's back to the treadmill. With my kindle. I can handle that!

In the evening I cook up a pot of soup. My CSA brought in bunches of kale and I have enough onions to last me nearly all winter. Add some other veggies and Cannellini beans, squirt a lemon, sprinkle with grated Parmesan and you've got yourself a warm meal! With a salad, because, well, that's our other habit: always the salad, these days with the radishes and carrots and cukes and avocado that inevitably crowd the veggies drawers of our fridge.

As the soup simmers, I have this very welcome interlude! (Primrose, too, is eating soup. With a sandwich.)

Storms do pass. They always do. You're grateful when there's no damage, when you come out of it all head still on shoulders, house still standing.

Then you pop that corn, light that candle and... well, you know the rest.

With love...

Monday - 241th

Narcissus Baby Boomer, Tulip Pink Impression, Snowdrops. The remaining bulbs for planting. Two dozen Dutch Master daffodils still to arrive, but I think I can handle putting in that amount, even in freezing weather. And we will get freezing weather. Just not today.

I can give you some numbers which would impress you about how rare it is to have five November days in a row where the temperature climbs above 70F (21C), but I'm sure you get it even without the data: Wisconsin doesn't do this kind of stuff. November is typically bone chilling and drab. This year, we were being soothed. Our spirits needed a boost. We surely got it with our brilliant string of warm days.

Good morning, farmette lands!

Probably the last porch breakfast. We linger for an extra long time.

We have a grocery delivery then and it still takes me about an hour to wash stash and sort through foods that come in, but immediately after, Ed and I head out for a hike along our favorite trail in the local county park up the road. 

Bare trees never looked so grand!

 

Yes, shorts and a t-shirt weather. I could have gotten away with that as well, though I'm too attached to pants that I suppose could be called lounge wear, with a touch of stretch. Worn all my waking hours.

Back in time to put in my bulbs. The cheepers try hard to undermine my effort (they scratch up all places where I plant the bulbs), but I fend them off with bread crumbs. I think about spring and how beautiful it's likely to be.

In the afternoon, I drive over to my daughter's, where I have a last warm weather meet up (outdoors, distanced, with masks) with Snowdrop.

(the fruit of the season: the pear) 

The girl has her own clothes style these days: tucked it everything! And oh my, can she swing herself high!

 

 

Drive home at sunset: bare trees are stealing the show!

 

 

Or maybe it's that we're having spectacular sunsets lately?

So grateful for a whole string of uplifting days. So very very grateful.