after the cold

At 4 a.m. Ed asks -- should we look at the thermometer?
No, I don't want to know!
A few minutes later I change my mind: alright, I want to know!
He stumbles downstairs. Ready for it?
Tell me!
29.4 degrees.
That cannot be! Weather.com says it's 34!
Maybe it is that where they are.
Maybe our thermometer is broken! Or in an odd spot. Maybe you could move it?
He goes outside and moves it to a different spot.
It was wet with dew...

So it got confused! What is it now?
32.
You see? It's not below freezing.
Well, it just slivered down to below 30 again...

In a sense, it doesn't matter if it's 34 or 29. It's too cold for the tomatoes and the flower pots. I brought the flower pots in. The tomatoes? Well, all we can do is offer them cover: they have been huddling under blankets. Who knows to what effect.

We spend the rest of the night exchanging updates on what the temperature should be, is, will be. And, too, we attend to Isis inclinations. In. Out. In. Out.

But, soon after dawn the sun does its work well. The temperature appears to be running to get out of the cold zone. By breakfast time it passes fifty.

A celebration: pancakes for breakfast!





And now comes the job of uncovering the tomatoes and it should come as no surprise that some seem to be fine, while others appear to be dead as anything and that's a shame, but not a total disaster as we have a handful of still others to plant. The hope is, of course, that the cold did not shock the tomato productions system of even those that made it through the night. That's the hope. I'll let you know come harvest time in August.

I should note that the peas, sown from seed, have sprouted and appear to be completely unphased by this weather nonsense.


So long as we are in the back of the farmette,  Ed suggests we finish pulling up honeysuckle. After all, we may have missed some shrubs in the Great Pullout of last year.

It is at this time that I give a little tug to a vine with sprouting leaves. A small act with huge consequences. It looks as if it's one of those random vines that appears innocuous, except that by the end of the summer it manages to choke every living thing in its path. I pull it up and up and up and I see that it is connected through thick cables of roots, just below the surface. Indeed, the entire meadow is like a maze of vine growth and it is so like us to drop everything and devote all our energies to the project of eradicating the invasive vines!

At times, we just haven't the strength to pull it out on our own. We team up and heave at it together and mostly we are successful and at other times we need the shovel for help and the whole job is so intensely laborious and back breaking that I truly think we are somewhat insane to plunge into it with any degree of enthusiasm.






It was cool outside when we started, but we are now hot as hell from the exertion and when we think we're done, we find new vines, hidden deeply in the quack grass and so we spend hours like this: pulling, heaving, sometimes falling back when the root gives way, sometimes cursing in frustration as it remains firmly wedged in the clay soil.

But we get the job done. We clear the back field of honey suckle and menacing vines with roots an inch thick. Yay us. (I say this with some degree of bemusement because really, in the scheme of things, does it matter?)





(Here I am admiring two more stalks of random asparagus.)



Afternoon. It is time for the final stage of planting for me. Oh, sure, there'll be adjustments and seeds to sow and weeds to pull in future days. In other words, there will be maintenance. But today is my last day of big time planting work -- to finish off the huge bed leading to the sheep shed (as best as I can on this year's budget -- the strawberries helped!) and to plant a few flowering bushes by the side of the road.



(Isis, watching it all from the sidelines)


And now the light fades and we are both so very tired that even driving for take out seems an effort. I scavenger the refrigerator for leftovers and we sit back and almost instantly Ed falls asleep while I struggle to put a post up on Ocean.

preparing

The forecast for the second night of the unusual cold just keeps getting worse. This afternoon, I read what no hasty gardener wants to read about the night air: expect frost.

Happy Mother's Day to you, too!

Farmer Lee has co-opted all generations of her family to help cover the strawberries.





Our berries aren't advanced enough to require protection. But our tomatoes!

Let's consider the upside:

Breakfast: a lovely meal, as always. 






Outside, the light is brilliant!











Ed and Isis are in high spirits...






We work. I, on my various flower beds, Ed -- digging out stumps and who knows what else out back. For example -- consider this piece of something someone left behind, buried, until today:






This is the time that Ed and I are at our most jovial, most spirited and prone to banter. (And when he is least complaining about my photos of him.)






A solid day of work outside and before you know it -- it's evening. My older girl comes with her husband for dinner. (We had decided to celebrate Mother's Day next week, when my little one and her fiancee will be passing through.)





After the meal, the light quickly fades. I walk the farmette grounds one last time, sending a good vibe (I hope) toward the tomatoes.






Such a beautiful day it was. I'm holding my breath for a gentle night.

against the cold

A blustery day. The kind you associate with the month of March. Then you'd say -- oh, this isn't so bad for March. Now, you just want to stay indoors until the Arctic air that's causing this has moved on.

Breakfast in the front room.






We tick off all that we want to accomplish outside, though neither of us is in a hurry to get started. In fact, I turn my back on the yard and go to yoga.

On the way to the practice, I pass farmer Lee's fields. I note that her strawberries are doing well. But why the straw around the plants? To ward of the cold? The chipmunks? The birds?





Most of the strawberries we planted at the farmette, by contrast, are such tiny things! They're just now throwing out a first leaf or two. One of the sets we planted was completely dead and Ed makes the trip to get a refund (of course he does), only to come back with extras. So now we have a dozen bad plants to dig up and replace and a dozen extra ones to find a home for.

But that's not the main focus of the day. After yoga, the skies clear and even though the air is brisk, it's warm enough to take out the shovel and get to work. Now that the bulk perennials have arrived (bare root hostas, astilbes, irises, daylilies -- a dozen of this, a dozen of that...) I am eager to finish up the little bed to the side of the brick path.





I have spent almost as much time on redoing this bed as I have on creating the new one leading to the sheep shed. Established flowers that really did not belong in a shady spot had to be moved out. weeds, old fabric and awful soil had to be removed. New plantings brought in. A huge effort, but one that pleases me no end because it finally will make use of flowers and plants that belong exactly in this kind of environment.

You can't spot any of my work. Planting bare root flowers means you cover them with dirt and then you wait, patiently, until the first bud breaks ground. But I know they're there and that makes me very happy.

We fuss then with the strawberries and by the time that's done, it's nearly evening and we can't put it off any longer: time to provide protection for the tomatoes. A low of 33, two nights in a row. That's ten degrees lower than what they can tolerate. The game plan: upside down plastic pots (leftover from years of purchases), covered by scraps of quilts, blankets, plastic sheets.






The wind is so strong that I'm thinking even the bricks we put down wont keep the covers from flying off. We do the best we can.





We'll come back on Monday to assess the damage.

The wild turkey watches, shakes his head and moves on.


 

growing things

You could say we're working both ends of the weather stick: on the one hand, we're forging ahead with May plantings. On the other had, we're watching with trepidation as the cold front approaches.

Breakfast is in the sun room, but not for reasons of any sunshine. Not today. They said cloudy and cold and they meant it.





In the meantime, there are cardboard boxes on the porch, waiting, waiting. One has cherry trees, the other has bulk perennials, waiting...

We ignore them. Ed has work, I have work, stuff to do, chores, work chores, all that.

And the skies stay a wimpy gray and the wind makes the air all that much cooler.

Late lunch. I make pb&j sandwiches. Maybe we should plant the trees?  -- this from Ed and he says it not without enthusiasm. As if working in the yard on a cold spring day is a gift. And maybe it is. There isn't the heat of the sun pounding at your back as you dig into the clay soil.

Trees in boxes... Wait, how many? Ed??

I have found his Achilles' heel: planting young trees. Fact is, the man who never likes to buy things, not ever and especially not new things, has in this case overbought. We had four cherries to replace. True. But I'm counting the arrivals and I see eight new ones. Plus four (and I hope only four) additional pears coming in next week. And grapes. Did I tell you we're starting to grow grapes too?

I stare at him now, trying hard to suppress a smile. But, but, they were such a good deal! And look! These are splendid! Tell people on Ocean to buy from Grandpa's Orchard in Michigan!

You might wonder -- what will we do with all the farm produce? We freeze tomatoes, okay, so maybe we can justify planting seventy tomato plants (the seeds were just so... prolific!), but all this fruit -- who'll eat it?

Me, I never can quite imagine that it will come to be in the way that it's supposed to be. You plant more because you'll get less than promised. That's a Polish mindset. Ed plants because he is a fan of growing things. Too much fruit? Not possible. He talks about having a stand by the road with fruits for sale.

Okay, I can see it! I tell him: a pretty little shed maybe? With tags describing the varieties?
Now wait a minute! Let's stay basic: a card table will do!

We're getting ahead of ourselves. At this point, our new orchard is full of sticks. The apples and pears survived last year's drought, but they barely grew. This year's additions are also in the baby stages of tree-dom. Here's a photo of Ed tidying up a planted cherry. (The observant person will notice that we have a wild asparagus stalk growing right at its base!)






It's not supposed to be extremely cold tonight. The two killer nights (as far as tomatoes go) are tomorrow and the night after. Get us through this weekend and we'll sail home with a smile!


Elsewhere on the farmette, trees are really coming into their best moment of blooms and delicate greens.






This is truly the month for the sweetest, gentlest petals. All pinks and whites. How can you not fall in love?










The rains had trampled down a number of daffodils, but that's okay -- it gives me an excuse to bring some home.






Tomorrow we'll attack the perennials. And we'll build cold weather shields for the sensitive tomatoes. Tomorrow. For now, a supper of our usuals, with asparagus for sure. In the mixture, there are a total of two stalks that we found on the farmette.

oh oh

Rain. Good. Work time. Indoor time. While the flowers and plants outside thrive.






Well, maybe.

Let's start at the beginning. Breakfast indoors, in the front room. Very leisurely. Neither of us feels compelled to rush.











I go outside just for a minute. The rain is almost almost upon us. You feel the wetness in the air.






Appointments, work -- time slogs on. From hyper physical exertion of the past days, I switch to sitting still most of the hours of the day. (Yuk.)

In the late afternoon, we go to the Fitchburg Farmer's Market. It's cold and the rain is coming down hard. Not many farmers show up. Not many shoppers either. But our asparagus farmer is there and her asparagus is fresh and suddenly the market is transformed into a place of hope.





For a while anyway. Later, the day returned to being one of worry. We're preparing for Saturday and Sunday nights -- both will bring the temps into the thirties -- far too low to sustain a tomato crop. Now, you may tell me -- cover your plants! That's easy if you have five. Or fifteen. We've got a good seventy tomato plants out there, so we have to be creative!
Ed, this is your task; You pick the strategy, I'll help you implement it.
I'm on it!

In other news, our replacement cherry trees  arrived, my winter order of bulk perennials arrived -- all are sitting out on the proch waiting for kinder gentler times.

Ed and I have a lot of garden work in the week ahead. And that's a VERY good thing.

the daffs have it

There's so much more to these days than just the daffodils, glorious as they are. But, I stayed up late to post last night, got up early to plant and weed this morning and so I am now without oomph.

Much of this post will be, therefore, about daffodils.

With the occasional shot of Ed thrown in. Like at breakfast.







Oh! In this next photo of the entrance to the farmhouse -- you're not noticing the daffodils either. I've reconceptualized the perennial borders here. The plantings  have to be responsive to their environment: very little sunlight filters in once the trees have full leaf cover. In anticipation of the spring overhaul, I did not plant many daffodils here last fall.





This border -- not finished yet! -- was perhaps the hardest of them all for me this spring. Fabric, overgrown with weeds had to be dug up and removed, without disturbing the roots of the few flowers I would leave behind. Successful? Well, if you allow yourself to let go of the occasional casualty, then yes. Next year I'll let you know if the new plantings were suitable for the fickle lighting here.

In other spots at the farmette, the daffodils -- singles, doubles, white, orange, cream --  they rule in May.






So magnificent. And unpredictable, too. Here are some random stalks that tipped over in the bad weather of ... whenever it was that we last had bad weather. I cut them down and put them in my little vase.





Tomorrow, my digging, pruning, transplanting -- all pause as a cold front moves through. That's okay. I can admire spring from inside. I can catch up with written work, I can hatch plans for the next stage of this planting mania.  In the meantime, take in the daffodils and remind yourself how not that long ago, there was no sign of spring, of blooms, of all the beautiful pale yellow, orange, white that we see today.

It's a remarkable world out there. Even as now, it seems that it's all about the daffodils.

Polishness

Our nocturnal cat stretched, meowed, meowed again. A sign that he wants to walk the land. At 4:20 a.m. No matter. It's dark still, but there are slivers of light out over the fields to the east.





In any case, I need to be up and out of here. The 5 a.m. bus will put me at the Chicago airport at 8:25. From there, slightly less than an hour  on the elevated subway and I'm in downtown Chicago. Finally, a fifty minute brisk saunter should put me on the steps of the Polish Consulate. [A reminder: I am there to confirm that, despite lapses in documentation, I am still a dual: meaning I have not relinquished my Polish citizenship.]

It's a beautiful day to be walking from one end of the city to the next.





But I can't pause much. I must be on time for my meeting with the Polish Counsel.


 


Let me tell you straight away that he and I were not going to get along. Which is saying a lot, because if you are at the mercy of someone, a bureaucrat lo less, you make an effort to get along. At least I do. Kissing up to the men and women of a papered world is, in general, not a bad strategy.

But Mr. Counsel would have none of it. During the hour that we talked, he allowed for no interruptions, explanations or clarifications. He was hell bent on telling me, in as many words as possible, what a total mess I've made of my life.

I have to say that I felt slightly put upon by the process from the get go. I have a Polish passport. It has expired, but it's there. I have a government ID as well. So why, in my quest for a renewal, start from the beginning? Why ask for a birth certificate? Why a twelve page form demanding such essential information as my great grandmother's maiden name? Who is going to check this and for what reason?

Mr. Counsel looks at my forms, my papers. My oh my, this is a very complicated matter! -- he tells me. I smell pleasure in his voice.
Why?
Well now, let's go back in time. You say you married. Do you have a Polish certificate attesting to that?
No! I married an American. Here in Chicago!
And you didn't register this marriage in Poland? -- he asks, amazed.
But...
Let me finish. You did not do it. Well, you must do it. And look at your Polish passport! It's full of inconsistencies! You tell me your last name is Camic. Why is it Camic-Lewandowska in your passport?
I really don't know...
Well, you'll have to explain that down the road.
My Polish passport was issued after my marriage. But okay. I did not register my marriage. Can I now submit my marriage certificate? 
No. It has no information as to why your name appears hyphenated in one place and not that way in another. And besides, you can't submit anything without proper certification.
But this is the original marriage certificate!
He smiles indulgently. You must certify it nonetheless.

Fine, I get that. International treaties. Certifications. Stamps. Signatures. All that. So I'll certify it! 
Not enough. You must then register it in Poland.
I'm not even married anymore!
I see that. You have been negligent in that as well. You must certify, then register your divorce too. Only after you do that can you file papers asking for a verdict as to your citizenship. If they say yes, then you'll be issued a new ID. And then you can apply for a passport. But I don't know how you can explain the incorrect name... He seems genuinely concerned at this point that he can offer no steps for me to follow.
A very complicated case, he summarizes. This is going to take a very, very long time.

I feel a tightness in my throat. It comes to me when someone slaps down my earnestness, my hope for a good outcome.

And then I have a moment of utter clarity: it doesn't matter anymore. My happiness does not depend on this man's support or disapproval. He has no control over the joy I feel when working at the farmette, or when I teach a good class, or when I eat a meal with daughters and their partners, or when I eat breakfast with Ed. I am so incredibly lucky -- none of these things rest on his decision or his smug disapproval of the steps I have taken in my life.

And so I smile, because this realization makes me very, very happy! And I tell him that much as I like being in Chicago on a sunny May day, I do not want to make a habit of making the trip, five, ten or perhaps more times in the next years to secure the proper stamps and signatures. So I'll pursue my Polishness elsewhere, on my own, with the help of my sister, directly in Warsaw.

No you wont! You can't! You do not live in Poland! -- he really wants to squelch any last bubble of hope. We, at the Consulate, we are your representatives! I'm sorry you don't feel happy with the service we are providing.
I don't like inefficiencies, I say, still smiling. I don't need him for a good life! How cool (and lucky) is that! If every American had to make a personal appearance and go through these steps to get a passport renewal, there would not be enough tax dollars in the Treasury to pay for it.

Oh, he tells me, as if in cahoots with all government bureaucrats of the world -- it's coming to that here too! You'll see!
Let's hope not, I tell him and walk out.

At the clerk's booth I do get a "certified" photo copy of my American passport. I need that to initiate the Polishness process on my own, in Warsaw.
That'll be $40 please, smiles the rather pleasant (for a change) Polish clerk.

So they sucked some money out of me after all, but they didn't slap me down and throw me to the wolves. Not yet anyway. Stay tuned.


My little girl, the one who lives and works in Chicago breaks away from her job to eat lunch with me.





It's been a while since I've had the great pleasure of a Chicago meal with her. 


I manage, too, to squeeze in a trip to the office where people certify various Illinois documents (my marriage certificate came from Illinois). I just want to see if perhaps I am too harsh in finding fault with the consular office that charged me $40 for the passport certification.

How much? I ask, as I pick up the certificate, admiring the gold seal that has now been added.
$2.
Huh.

The bus ride back to Madison is smooth, pleasurable, in the way that a return ride often is.  It doesn't matter that I have accomplished little at the Consulate. It matters that when I alight here, at the farmette, I am so damn happy to be home. The light is mellow, the colors are soft. How good is that!

farmette life, again

It is hard for me to understand how I've gotten to be so intensely busy in these first beautiful days of my "time off." My to-do lists  -- work-wise and farmette-wise -- are getting to be so long, that I no longer think that a day can accommodate everything. So I spend night hours thinking, imagining, planning. And when the first morning light filters in and Isis moves from bed to table to bed again, Ed asks -- you want to go out and plant some more tomatoes?

And I say -- no, no, we can't, it's still dark! 

It's not really dark dark, but I'm glad I can at least argue darkness because I am so tired, too tired. One more hour, just one more hour of sleep.

But by 7, Ed is out at the tomato patch, planting.






I join him. We work in quiet companionship, sharing a small shovel, sharing, too, thoughts about the state of the little tomato plants.

We plant them too closely, of that I'm sure. If all goes well, we'll have a jungle of growth here in early fall. I'll leave the harvest to Ed. Wait, harvest? That comes at the last minute of summer! I can't think that far ahead.

Late in the morning we pause for breakfast. On the porch. This is the slow moment. The one that you don't want to let go of.






And then I am out again, this time with the strawberries. I dig more holes than I need (they come in bundles of 10 or 25). And so Ed picks up more bundles of berries. And I need even more holes.

It continues like this all day long. When my back feels stiff, I go inside and do a little computer work. And then I'm out again.






There's progress in all of the flower beds. You may not see it, but I do.






And there's seasonal progress too, here at the farmette. For example, today, the first blooms apear on the old orchard trees. The ancient sour cherry paves the way.






It's evening now. Supper time. Something easy. Summerlike. Chicken brats again? Yes.






And now my eyes are closing and mistakes wil start creeping into the blog post again. Besides, I need to be up early. Not to plant tomatoes, but to catch the 5 am bus to Chicago.

the lay of the land

[UPDATE no.2: Thank you, Lili, another faithful observer of the farmette life, for reminding me of the silo. Yes, there's that structure as well. Right next to the garage. And as long as I'm updating, make that *60* more everbearing strawberries to plant. In neat little rows, a dozen each, alternating with flowers.]


[UPDATE: Thank you,  Golden West -- this morning's commenter -- for being more alert than I was when I wrote this post! For the sake of thoroughness, I neglected to mention yet another structure on the farmette -- the writer's shed: a pretty little building that was once to be my writing retreat. Before I decided to move here permanently. The writer's shed isn't completely finished, but it can be and perhaps will be some day. Ed says that if they scrap the farm fields and put in a development next to us, we'll put the writer's shed on wheels and set it down somewhere else and start everything again in a new place! All the farmette structures, by the way, form a vast circle: farmhouse at the south, garage at the west, sheep shed and barn at the north and writer's shed at the east. In the center is the vast courtyard that is a place of great magic for me.  You see it in many photos. I can't stop being enchanted by it.
Another correction -- 25 more strawberries to plant!]

A commenter to the previous post asked about the raspberry bushes at the farmette. Well now, it struck me that any number of readers probably do not have such a fine recollection as to what's what. So that when I write about extending a flower bed from the farmhouse to the sheep shed, you may be yawning and wondering -- is this even a big deal?

So let me explain.

The farmette has several structures to it: the farmhouse, of course. In addition, a freestanding garage, but neither of us keeps a car there. It's basically Ed's guy tool and scrap shed. With bikes and motorcycles thrown in.

Then there is the sheep shed. That's Ed's hangout. Machines, papers. cobwebs -- the kind of place where he can retreat and no one will tell him to straighten up and get serious.

And there is a barn. Teetering, yes, that. A lot of loose boards. There's a tractor within it. I know that. But really, I stay away from the place. Over the years, birds have set up nests and as a result, the place is full of bird poop.

Okay, but who cares about the structures! The month of May is about the outdoors. So what can I say about the outdoors?

Visualize this: nearly every project and land improvement plan has focused on the courtyard of the farmette. If you were to drive by our place, you'd never know, for example, that we have just created the biggest flower beds this side of the Mississippi. It's private. Hidden from view. I don't intend it to be that way -- it's just the lay of the land.

In terms of flower beds? Well, I have a mega one to the north of the farmhouse, a sizable one to the west and a difficult one to the east. In addition, we have a tomato patch out back and a new and expanding orchard there as well.

And now the new flower bed that extends on and on, from farmhouse to sheep shed.

There is aloso the raspberry patch. Call it a project. One of top ones to come back to (up there, along with rebuilding the front entrance). There are hundreds, nay, thousands of raspberry canes  just to the east of the sheepshed. They used to bare fruit. One of these days we'll tear them all out and start from the beginning. But not this month. Maybe not even this year. There are too many other projects. And far too few hours in the day to accomplish them all.

But I can try!

And so again, the day is handed over to the world of the outdoors.  We eat breakfast on the porch...






...I take stock (we are nearly at the peak of the daffodil season)...





....and plunge.

Flowers to move, divide, share with the new emergent flower bed. Bareroot strawberries to put in (I plant 10. 15 to go!).

And finally, the tomatoes that we started form seed: let them thrive and fly in the real world out there!





(We planted about two dozen. That's less than a third of what has to go in.)


 At the end of the day we are yet again exhausted.  It's a good thing that my daughter is over for dinner or else I'd keep on going until I could go no more.


Late, very late in the evening, my girl and I walk the land. The sun is nearly set.





We talk about how odd it is that neither girl has the gene of working outdoors. My girls love the flowers, but not the work that goes into raising them. Kids share a little of who you are. But only a little. (Which, really, is a good thing.)

Late in the evening, I play old records and she and I sing loudly to them...


 


...and Ed dozes sweetly, gently, as if nothing in the world could wake or disturb him.