warm air thoughts

There are many many things to admire and respect in Ed, but the trait that came to mind today is his utter tolerance for another one’s conduct. Let them alone, it’s none of your business – these are his words, even when he doesn’t say them.

There is in there (though he wouldn’t admit it) a healthy respect for anyone’s life and for decisions people make in directing their own futures. Sure, if someone is hurting another, especially an animal, he’ll be appalled. But anything short of that is just one person’s life – not yours to grumble about or make fun of.

Of course, we all think that this describes us as well. We think we’re good at minding our own worlds, that we let others be who they are. But Ed doesn’t deeply think these things through. He just, by life’s habit, isn’t concerned with the conduct of others.

On the downside, I can’t get him riled with a story of a colleague’s misdeeds or the occasional student’s audaciousness. He’ll look at me puzzled and ask – why do you care? What does that have to do with doing your work well? That’s a conversation stopper, right there.







In other news – we continue to have summer. I don’t think we’ll quite hit 100 days of summer, in fact I believe today was the last of the hot (eighties!) days, but still, it’s been quite a remarkable run of it.





I biked to work. Of course I did. And I took the long route. Eight miles in, fourteen on the return. I was rewarded with a nice display of sandhill crane love. He was flapping his wings, she was ignoring him (but not really) and so it continued, until he settled down to follow her in the more quiet manner that seemed to appeal to her.






On campus, kids were sprawled out on Bascom Mall in various states of repose and undress. You could do a catalogue of good photos right there, but I'll show just this one. I like that he rests just outside the Education door. He seems quite ready for education.






After classes, I meet Ed at Paul’s café. Ed sleeps, I work, then we both bike home.

In the fields across the road from us, the truck farmers have been working now daily. This evening, I watch one as she sits with her grandchild. It’s a moment of rest. The boy is taking a sip of something, she is encouraging him. Around them, the fields are no longer brown. This gift of good weather is not just felt by me. It’s hers and his too.






At the farmette, the fruit tree exploded in bloom overnight. Is it a plum? – I ask Ed. Don’t know. Maybe. Or a sour cherry.





We’re not very good at identifying trees.

spring, forward!

Happy spring! ...but really – thank you for this time of summer!

It is a long work day, but it's made easier with a start of oatmeal on the porch...





...and by a glance out at the daffodil and lily patch, where the green stalks are getting taller by the minute!

...and I even don’t mind the chipmunks that are cavorting through my flowerbeds. They’re a nuisance, sure, but their play is my play today.


Rosie is ready to go this morning. These days she and I are one. I no longer reach automatically for a seat belt when I turn on her engine.  On the rural roads, she is my song, my spirit and today -- my spring dance.



Between classes, I take a short stroll to the lake. Some of the Union Terrace chairs and tables are out. Earlier than ever! No outdoor food service yet, but at lunch time, people bring their own foods outside, to eat near this great wonderful body of water.











And finally, in the evening, I'm home.





And I notice that some of the fruit trees are budding!






Everyone knows that I have always favored spring. All seasons, yes, I like them all, but spring is special. Now is the time to feel buoyant, now is the time to sketch plans for the months of summer, now is the time to smile again and again, just at the beauty of it all.

wallpaper

I will never forget this insignificant fact about the house I lived in during my daughters’ formative years: it had ugly wallpaper in the kitchen. We always intended to redo the kitchen, but we couldn’t quite afford it in those early years and so we let it go. Within a few years, I forgot about the wallpaper. I spend most of my waking hours in that room, but I stopped noticing its hideous design.

Could it be that I’ve grown used to this weather, too?

No, not to the point that I take it for granted.

Monday is a tough work day – I’ve said this before. But not so tough that we could not take our breakfast outside. We watch the clouds roll in and, eventually, the rains come down.

Still, what a beautiful morning it is! The first daffodils, vincas, violets – all those.






On campus, students treat the day as hot, beastly hot, shorts weather hot... even as the rain forces them to take their coffee break under cover.






Later, much much later, after my last class, I return to the farmhouse. The sun is out again, mellow and muted now in the evening hours.





I bring home take-out Chinese. We eat outside. The sun drops down, but it still feels summer-like. Our first dinner this year out on the porch.  You can do that now, on this final day of winter. Without a jacket, without a sweater even, if you’re an Ed.





Summer in March. I’m quite used to it now. Tomorrow, we officially move into spring.

proverbs

Here’s a “Polish proverb” for you: in life, there’s always another weed to pull and another flower to encounter.

I used to write Polish proverbs in my head. It’s not hard. You could say that life offers ample hints.


Spring break comes late this year – not for another two weeks for us at UW. But summer? Whoa.... summer came out of the blue. Take today. We hit 80 degrees. That’s ten degrees above the previous record high for this day. Crazy!

Ed and I work hard outdoors. So much so that I haven’t the photos to prove it. Just one – when I begin to distribute wood chips on flower beds. With Isis leading the way. There was, too, creeping Charlie to pull and honeysuckle out back to chop down.





We’re tossing ideas as to what me might plant in the acre out back, behind the barn. Norwegian spruce? An orchard of apples? Walnuts?

We’ll likely not do any of it this year. Maybe not even next year. But we make ready the soil and strain our muscles doing so and it’s nice knowing that we’re making progress. There’s an old Polish proverb that says -- focus on the steps you take to the market; the fruit, once purchased there, will have a richer flavor.

the luck

It continues to be warm. The kind of warm that lets you sleep with windows wide open and, most importantly and sublimely, eat breakfast out on the porch.





Isis comes – he has his own entrance to the porch. He’s happy here, sort of outdoors. He climbs on us, jumps over to the table,  emboldened, knowing that he has a ready escape. In the farmhouse, he needs us to provide an out. But on the porch, he’s free, he’s king, he’s in control.






Will it really be a six month stretch of outdoor breakfasts? Could we be so lucky? I think about adjustments I thought I had to make when I moved to the farmette: the mosquitoes in the summer. But somehow this year, there were none. Then the worry about heavy snows to contend with mornings before work: they didn't happen either. And now this – the out of nowhere treat of an early summer. Temporary? Maybe. But in these last hours of winter, I can't think of a wet and cold tomorrow. We've got a glorious March -- let's just marvel at that!


Ed tells me that land just a couple of miles to the east of us, leading up to Lake Waubesa, has been acquired by the county, extending public access to the lake and linking it to the nature preserve that includes vast areas of wetlands here. You can hate living not too far from wetlands -- they attract insects. Or you can love it. You are on the flight path of birds. I read that nearly seventy species inhabit this area. These days, when we work outside, we can always hear the warble of a sandhill crane. He's loud, but so are the other birds. I'm not skilled at naming them, but I come to recognize their unique voices. And this year, their song comes early and strong.



We work in the prairie again, sawing down honeysuckle, creating great big mountains of chopped down limbs. Everything around us is sprouting already. One month early by my estimation. The willow that caused us great troubles around Thanksgiving? Remember? Well, it's an explosion of golden green buds now!






Saturday. In the afternoon we set out to do what has to be done: tedious errands. Including the rare trip to the mall. We're listening to a Freakonomics podcast on Ed's ratty Geo radio. It's hugely entertaining and we're loathe to turn it off, even as we pull into a spot at the crowded parking lot.  I swing open the door and lean my feet on the edge of the open window. Ed's window hasn't opened for years, but the Geo has a sunroof and that's propped open too. I comment how ridiculous it is on this fine day to sit in a parking lot and watch cars pull in and out, but it really isn't ridiculous. The sky is still blue, the breeze is equally warm. Even here, on this vast slab of concrete, life is good.


They say it's St. Patrick's Day but neither of us has any Irish in us and still, here we are, retreating to the farmland green, the unexpected luck of the green that's rapidly taking over our yard. And purple. And gold. Right there, for all to see.

the sun, the sky, the city, home

Early in the morning, I tell my girl – I don’t have to shower, eat, any of it. Do your morning as you would if I were not here. She looks at me in the way that only daughters can – with horror, pity, but too, with a smile of understanding.

She goes off to work.

I head for Lake Michigan.





If I thought there’d be dramatic fog – I was wrong. It’s a tad misty and there are a lot of joggers out there on the lake path. And dog walkers. I think how tough it is to have a dog in the city. I've done it. I would not want to do it again.

I do a little shopping. I don’t like that I do this. Spending money on things is most always not a good call, but still, cities have a way of reminding me what's lacking back at the farmhouse: I don’t have this. I could surely use this. And so on.

In the end, I only acquire simple but much coveted dessert plates at Crate and Barrel. And then, outside the store, as if I needed to be reminded that I could have managed without them, I accidentally knock the bag down and break two of the six. And, too, I miss the earlier bus back home. That'll teach me.

Will it? Time... what’s time? It’s what you need to get work done, to get close to your sweetie. I catch the later bus. Plenty of time. For work and for sweetie.

Rosie’s there, waiting by the Law School. I ride her in the warm breeze of a beautiful evening...





...home.

Ed suggests a local pizza for supper. Roman Candle. Just up the road.





In our usual way, we sit in the booth on the same side of the table. It is what we do. The pizza is the same, too.





I ask Ed after – miss me? He responds – of course!

It’s the way we talk. He knows that I will ask and I know what he'll say in response. Predictable and warm. Like the garlic and mushrooms on the pizza. We've come to like it that way.

82!

For whatever inconsequential reason, I came to work this morning with almost no sleep from the night before. It happens. One thing you learn quickly if you’re a teacher is that you are on the next day no matter what your little issues are from the night before. If anything, I work harder at being alert when I am somewhere in zombieland. So you could argue that I am better when I am less good. 

But it made for a hard workday.

In general, I will admit that today had its tricky challenges. Take the ride in. It was Rosie time and a fine ride it should be, with promises of continued summerlike weather. The sun rose behind the orchard, daintily, gently and I was glad to have extra minutes to make the ride more leisurely. The upside of not sleeping is that you’re up and out earlier than usual.





But this morning there is a fog advisory.

Not so bad initially. Pretty. Gentle morning mists are so often balmy and calming out around the farm.





But things got muffled as I came into the city. The fog threw a thick band of wet, densely white air right at the entrance to the isthmus. The lake usually gives a nice view of the skyline. Today, it gave me this.





Well okay. It all disappeared quickly enough. Indeed, if you think yesterday was a record breaking hot day at 78, take note that today we hit 82. 82!

After my last class, I left Rosie in a spot where I thought she may be safe for a day or two and I ran to catch the late afternoon bus to Chicago. I haven’t seen my youngest girl for two months now. A dinner in the city with her and her guy is something to look forward to. She picks a place she knows I’ll love – Giuseppe Tentori’s Fish and Oyster Bar. You get really nostalgic for good seafood when you live in Madison.

I take the El downtown and think to myself how even though I’m south of home, it’s nippier here, by the mighty Lake Michigan. A brisk walk helps. And it’s a lovely walk – right across the river...





...and into the heart of the River North? Or is it the near North? Or west of the Golden Mile? Chicago is difficult to pin down that way.

The food is grand, the evening’s jovial..





...and now we’re home – her home, planning, scheming, talking of the next encounter, maybe up north, maybe over spring break...


Friday is a workday for her and for me too, but I promise myself a solid walk along the lake before returning home to Madison.

Meantime, keep throwing that good weather at me! I’m getting quite used to it.

78 degrees

Five things to do on the warmest winter day in Madison (perhaps ever):

1. Bike to work. Of course. What, no time? Make time.





Say hi to the otter. Remember: last week -- ice on the lake, this week -- swimming otter in the lake.





2. Take your Property class for a Bascom ice cream cone at the Union. You say they need every classroom minute you can give them? Maybe. But they also need to feel sunshine on bare arms in March. Tell them to walk fast so that you can continue to pound knowledge on matters of property after the ice cream break.





3. Graciously accept a dinner out invitation from Ed. And take note his concern for your huge work load, even if that concern is voiced from a reclining position, where I leave him in the morning. With Isis. Both decadently sprawled out.

But, when the time comes in the evening to go out and both of you get distracted by planting tomato seeds in starter trays, let it go. Dinners out can happen another time. Sitting at the picnic table and pushing seeds into composted soil on a warm “winter” day is rare.











4. Pay homage to the crocuses. They deliver gold every day now.





5. Breathe deeply when outside. That’s a general thing you should do on any day. I’m told it’s good for the lungs. Or something.

Such a glorious summer winter day!

it just gets more and more imponderable

So what do you think about those solar flares out there, huh? Paul asks customers as they come into his café. From there, the conversation can only head in odd directions. One person responds – eh, we’re all going to die soon anyway. Another – yeah and on top of it, it’s so damn hot in my office! She’s in a sleeveless dress. Didn't even come in with a jacket or a coat.

But I have to say, to me too, the weather out there has crossed the line. Yesterday I could still say – wow, isn’t this grand? Today, my inclination is to feel a bit uneasy. It’s almost too warm (this, coming from a person who can never have enough of “warm”).

Of course, I ride Rosie to work.





But, on the late afternoon return, the biker jacket feels stuffy. The gloves are too clammy. I tilt the visor up to get breeze on my face.

I say to Paul – weird, how warm it is...



In my pause after teaching, I check Facebook. A perfect two minute break. Say what? It seems that when I agreed to “like” a restaurant in town last week, I was entered into a pool of potential winners. Odds? 2000 to 1. And it seems that I have won! No huge deal – the prize is  a sampling of wines and cheeses, but still – I love that I’ve won! At the same time, I never like beating the odds. I like to believe that the unlikely will not happen!


At the farmhouse, the windows stay open today. When we rebuilt the interior, the farmhouse took on a wonderfully fresh smell. But as the cold season set in, that new house scent rescinded. Now, as soon as I open the windows, the freshness comes back. You have no idea how heady the scent is: of wood, of earth, of delightfully pure air.






I keep Rosie ready for the next day. That sweet red thing saves me time and money. You might ask -- how could it make a difference? The route is short, the savings surely are insignificant. I would respond -- oh, but today, I came home with enough time for a half hour of honeysuckle chopping out back. As I worked the clippers around hefty limbs and Ed dragged them to a burn pile (to my commenter, Earth Girl -- thank you for the idea! We'll burn next winter, in celebration of the first snow!), I thought -- life surely has been kind to me.





In the evening I meet friends downtown at Graze. I hadn't seen them for a long time and suddenly it seems like all good things fall upon this day of warm air, pretty platters of solidly good food, jovial updates of months gone by.









Tomorrow, I am told that the temps will be warmer, better, more approachable. Better? How could it be better? The windows stay open tonight. The air still feels summer warm. Weird. But beautiful. So very beautiful.

gone

The ice on the lakes is gone. Melted. Disappeared. I see that this evening, on my way home.






Finally I am ready for her. Rosie, Rosie, come out already. I avoided you since November. Come out and ride!






With Rosie, I can speed, but I can slow down, too. For the beauty of the fields before me.





Remember these pauses? Yeah, Rosie, pause here for a second and then zip forward. Careful now, we’re in traffic. Have to watch those careless campus types. Have to remind myself what it’s like to be on a scooter.


A scooter ride is a good time to think. And here’s one small question that keeps nagging at me as I zip by on this unusually warm March evening – how many times in life are you put to the task of reinventing yourself? Me – often. If not that, then this. So often! And so I get used to change. I don’t question its presence. I assume that, yet again, I will have to consider something entirely different.

But as I scoot back to the farmette, I think – may it not be with the essentials of life anymore.


Ed is there, waiting when I finally roll in. It’s past 6, but the sun is still out. He asks – you want to hack away at some of the honeysuckle? We could work for a half hour or so..

I give it due consideration, but I know I cannot. My workweeks are too busy and too draining all at once.

I scramble eggs, cook up some broccoli and, too, make a salad. A poor excuse for supper, but at least it’s healthy.

at the end of a Sunday

Ed, please, you have to get up and wash off before dinner.

It’s Sunday evening. A quiet time, a lovely time, a time for family coming to the farmhouse for the evening meal.

With an hour more of evening daylight, I cook as folds of sunlight come through the window.





How can you not love spring?!


But Ed and I both need to scrub big time before food preparation. We’ve been working all day outside and it shows.

The farmette appears especially vast when you realize that there is never a portion of it that doesn’t need work. In the wee hours, we zip over to Walmart to pick up a better rake. And glyphosate (think Round-up)  for the honeysuckle stubs. Walmart is not the place where any serious person would buy a rake, but once again, it trumps all by virtue of its proximity.

On our way there, we see that the truck farmers (who farm the land just east of us) are already planting.  We wave. It's good to see them stir up bits of unfrozen soil.





Shopping done. I hold the rake to the side as Ed weaves his motorbike deftly along county roads.

Home now. I rake with pent up winter energy. We don’t bother to do this in the fall, but now, any place that has plants, bulbs, grasses – needs to be free of encumbrance, of spent leaves, free to take in the sun (even as it is a little disconcerting to be spotting new growth this early in the season).






And then we return to the honeysuckle in the prairie out back. Muscles tense as we chop, snap, and haul the heavy limbs of this menacing plant. Where do we haul it? Well, to another corner of the property. Sometime soon we’ll have to do a controlled fire here. Not today though. We’re already pushing our limits.





I know we don't yet deserve days like this quite this early in the season. Sure, I realize that there will be weeks when I need a scarf, a cap, gloves. That's another day's worry. If you live in the Midwest, I hope, like me, you were riding high on the burst of good weather. And I hope you loved it as much as I did.

land spreadin’ out so far and wide...

If you want to know in which area of life Ed and I have the most trouble acquiescing  to the peculiarities of the other, let me tell you, it's this: the matter of pruning trees. We both feel strongly about it and in a completely opposite way.

I want to prune, trim, cut – quickly, effectively and, I'll admit it -- sometimes not very wisely. Most of my mistakes nature will forgive.

Ed doesn’t want to prune at all. He lives by the motto that a tree knows best how to grow and expand and we’re just tampering with what nature intended.

Reading up on tree pruning has changed his mind only slightly. He now acknowledges that it probably is a good idea to saw off broken or dead branches. The rest – it pains him to cut into something that has sap running through it.


On this beautiful March day, we nonetheless take on tree trimming. My strategy is to acquiesce, back off and then proceed with a quick cut when he’s preoccupied with something else (like taking on the broken branches on the front maples).



 


It's not easy to figure out how to prune anything at the farmette. What I call the “orchard” is actually a clump of hugely overgrown, very old mixed fruit trees. None of these dwarf varieties that are so common in a modern orchard. We have monster trees. You couldn’t get to the fruits near the top unless you picked from the seat of a helicopter. It's not clear how to pare down the inside. We can't even reach the inside.  I snip randomly, Ed winces, we move on.





And now we come to the Carpathian walnut. Ed claims it is his favorite tree. Fine. I like it too, but it grows close to the door we use as the entrance and the leaves are big and the branches are getting a tad too invasive.

Give me a few minutes to think about it, he says, putting down the saw.

If you wont do it, I will.

No, no, I’ll get to it.

Now.

In a little bit.

I’m taking the saw from you!

And so we banter and dance around it until I threaten to take the whole tremendous limb down and sensing defeat, he exhales deeply, loudly, winces for effect and starts sawing.


In mid-afternoon, we pause for peanut butter on whole wheat.


And now the shadows are getting long. Still, we have the grand project of clearing the prairie out back. It has quite a lot of invasive honeysuckle. So you'd think Ed and I would struggle to reach a compromise with each mighty shrub. Hell no! 

Where honeysuckle’s concerned, Ed takes out the chain saw with a vengeance!






We chop, saw, haul, seal stumps and stubs until the sun sinks to the ground.





A day of good work.


In the evening, Isis comes over. He’d been stubbornly sticking to the sheep shed, but tonight he's here, wanting to share the farmhouse couch. We settle in for an evening of leftover vegetable soup and library movies.

Not for long.

There is a thump in the kitchen. We’ve been having an occasional visitors (random mice) and Ed has already sent two this past month to the fields west of us, but in recent days, we've been dealing with one who is a handful. She comes to the trap for the peanut butter, but she always manages to trigger it and close it shut before entering inside. We think she’s too fat for it.

Tonight, she cannot resist the whiff of the best peanut butter this side of Georgia. Despite the loud TV just to the side of the kitchen, despite lights gleaming, despite two robust people on the couch, with Isis purring between them, she comes, she pushes herself toward the peanut butter and she gets herself trapped.

Take her away! I beg. I’ve become more used to the need to occasionally catch mice, but I’ve become less happy with handling them once they’re trapped.

Ed rides his motorbike to the fields, I clean the floor, to rid the place of any trace of mouse.


You couldn't ask for a finer March day here, at the farmette.

momentary cold

Well, let’s cook up soup again. A pot of it – vegetables from the season and frozen ones from last year’s garden. Stir it up, stir it up – ahhhh, that warms you up!


I had a morning of hearings on campus and initially the idea was for me to bike to work. One poke outdoors and I gave up. I don’t like being cold. The birds that I’m hearing outside are made of stronger stuff.






Back in the seat of the red hot lover. I park, I walk. I detour. Past Lake Mendota – now that’s interesting! Nearly melted!






That’s encouraging.

In my office, the heating/cooling system is in its usual crazy between seasons spin. In my section of the building, it can’t be more than fifty. Forget it. Pack the bag, take stuff home.

...where I get distracted by cooking soup.





So, it’s a cold (in the thirties) day again, but I'm quite forgiving. I know what’s coming. Yep, we’ve all studied the weather charts. So go ahead, blow ye winds blow, I have the soup ready for dinner and I’ll go to sleep knowing that we’ll be waking up to something better tomorrow.

I trust weather people. (I think.)