Saturday, early

Every time I ride that lawn mower over the bumpy terrain of the back fields and, too, the young orchard, I walk away feeling my insides have been jiggled right out of me. Still, I offer to help Ed with the mowing because if we do it more often, rather than less often, I'm convinced we'll eliminate at least some of the mosquito hiding ground.





Though this morning, I was reminded that there is one safe haven where they seem to really like to snuggle and that is the sprawling, weedy raspberry patch. We were going to replant the entire patch this summer, but the armies of bugs moved in during our absence and now we have to wait until they move on to their eternal resting ground (in September?), because you can't get me to enter a mosquito filled raspberry patch!

...unless I have friends in town and I know there are the luscious fruit ripening on the bushes and after all, how bad can it be?






Awful. So a half bowl is all I could gather (and yes, I have bug garb and yes, I should have worn it).






Never mind, good enough -- we have other fruits and granolas and strong coffee...






...and all good things for a breakfast on the porch (where we admire the swooping swallows outside)...






...Followed by a second breakfast with two younger generations of family (not mine -- Barbara's) -- downtown and as long as we were there, we poke around one of the newer ventures of that younger generation -- a butcher shop that is not really just a butcher shop but also a place where you can get homemade pickled cauliflower, and a sauerkraut that has a name ("Stimulus Package"), and a Vermut from Catalonia.











The second breakfast was almost followed by lunch at the farmhouse until I caught myself -- you cannot go from one meal to the next, to the next in rapid succession without moving much -- except for when you move on the mower and your insides jiggle afterwards. So I sit down to jot down an Ocean post instead.

And of course, because it's summer, I give you, too, this look onto the flowers that border the farmhouse. To the side:










To the front:

Friday, late

It is the first time this year that I throw charcoal down and light up the grill. Grilled chicken, marinated in a summery vinaigrette and sauced over with tiny tomatoes, grilled corn, grilled avocado for the salad. And, too, I open Sorede rose wines. Not from this year -- I brought nothing back this year -- but from years past, saved for the day when I would have people here who love rose wine as much as I do.










We sit out on the porch from the time of bright sunshine, until the last bit of light has faded, moving seamlessly from one plate of food to the next (garden rhubarb buttermilk cake for dessert), from one topic to the next, from one hour to the next. Ed comes out to eat with us and I am sure he has some degree of amazement that anyone can talk this much at a meal, or maybe he doesn't -- maybe he's seen this before, this stream of words that comes from friends living too far apart and relying for too long on scant email messages to catch up on what's really cookin' inside the head, inside the soul.





The porch accommodates my solo hours of work, and too, breakfast, always that wonderful breakfast where Ed and I nibble on fruits and launch plans for the day, and now this -- a summer meal when Barbara and Diane come to town.

Friday, early

To shock the daylights out of anyone and everyone, I am writing this while the sun is still settling into its afternoon trek against the western sky. (Regan, over in Denmark, in her comment to yesterday's post, asked for more frequent Ocean notes and though she probably wasn't entirely serious, I'd do a lot to make Regan's day brighter, so there you have it.)

And frankly, the clock has no great value for me anymore.

We live by Isis time.

Okay, so he (the cat) has been a tad under the weather lately (for example: standing up on our bed in the middle of the night and letting out a howl that means only one thing: I'm about to throw up. And then he does. And it's like having babies: we're cleaning up dirty linens in the middle of the night). Regardless. His summer schedule is for the birds.

He settles down, or goes out, or stays in but then asks to go out and so the clock moves forward, even as we are arrested in some state of perpetual uncertainty -- will he settle down? Will he go down to the sheep shed and stay there?

When I do not have to go in to my office the next day, of course, none of this really matters. We adjust. House cleaning, for example, was at 5:30 this morning.

(After, we do our morning inspection of the farmette. Of the flowers and today, of the tomatoes, too. And if you think the tomatoes look a little wild -- well yes, I admit it. Somehow the orderly rows disappear on us after the plants grow to their adult size.)











But breakfast is, as always, around 9 and on the porch and absolutely wonderful on this pretty pretty July morning. (As I run in to pick up more foods, I glance out at the porch through the kitchen window: there's a slice of heaven out there, that's for sure.)






I work then. On the porch, reading law materials, mulling over life and law and law and life and the hours pass.

View to the front of me:





View to the side:



 


And when the sun comes out good and strong and I completely ignore the sage advice of not watering during the hot afternoon (you waste 25% of what you throw on the ground) because these days it is the ONLY time we can stand for hours on end and not be eaten alive by mosquitoes. (They do not like sunny afternoons.)

So I water and I think about how much satisfaction I get from giving plants water. I imagine their little hands reaching out, just to get touched by a cool stream of water and I want to get every last finger (root) of theirs wet and so I stand there for a long long time, moving slowly from one plant to the next (and yes, we have hundreds) and if you want to tell me to put down a soaker hose instead, I'll nod and say -- I know I know, but where is the pleasure in putting down a soaker house when you can, instead, stand and send streams of water to thirsty plants?


Tonight, Diane, my friend from up north (and west) is driving down for the weekend and Barbara, my friend from down south (and west) is also in town for the weekend and we will have the rare pleasure of all three being in one place at the same time. For three evenings in a row.

But in the meantime, I'm on the porch and the flowers are there for me to admire and the swallows are darting after the bugs (thank you!) and life is very fine, for those reasons alone and for so many other. Even if I know that for you, Regan, it could be just a touch better than it is right now.

Thursday

Let me start with supper, because it shows how disjointed, scattered, uncoordinated our days are right now (at the same time that it all pulls together to create a terrific whole).


 


Leftovers (broccoli soup, sauteed cabbage...), the market produce (beans, La Baguette bread), the pulled together spinach salad, oh... all of it. Neither this nor that, not anything that hangs together and yet -- we really do like it this way.

Market produce, by the way, comes from our local Thursday evening market. We scoot up to it just before it closes and lo! There's our own wonderful, irrepressible farmer Lee!





We walk away with lots of free foods and flowers from her...





... and, too, a bit of sad news -- she may have nowhere to plant next year, as her principal landowner told her -- no more farming on this land.

Perhaps we did not understand.  Let's hope we did not understand. (Farmer Lee speaks limited English.) But she continues: Planted strawberries. No. Next year no.

We want to offer her our land, but do we even have enough for her to continue to farm here? And if she can't farm those fields across the road from us -- what will become of them? Is it back to soy and corn? Endless fields of soy and corn? Or a new development?


Breakfast.






A morning greeting to the flowers of the farmette. Today's highlights:











Then a day dowtown, on campus. I know -- I'm not supposed to be working in summer months. That's the theory. The reality is quite different.

And oh, how empty Bascom Mall  (where the Law School looks out) is now! Where are all the students who strip off all sweaters, jackets and socks at the first blush of srping? One -- I count one such body.





We have a run of dry summer days before us. The winds are down so the mosquitoes are back up and out again and still, we are in the thick of summer -- that time of blossoms and bats, fireflies and butterflies. Summer!

And that is a good thing.

dates in my head

I give myself one more week to settle my odds and ends here. By next Wednesday, the leaf will be turned and a new summer focus (and a new era of Ocean blogging) will begin! For now, old focus.

But hey, what a gorgeous day this is! The humidity disappears and a wind comes a-dancin' and a-prancin' and that is enough to shoo the mosquitoes back into their green lush world, allowing us to walk along a path with only minimal slapping and zapping at them with our brilliant mosquito zappers ($2 each and worth every penny).

So I start you with a few photos from the garden, even before breakfast. Because this kind of weather just draws you out.















Okay, breakfast on the porch (note zapper on table).






And then I heave a meet up with my older girl. I haven't seen her for five weeks and so a walk by the shores of Lake Monona seems like a perfect way to catch up.

It is unfortunate that my old rosie (the moped) has developed hot flashes. It is doubly unfortunate for Ed, because he is capable of fixing even complicated, intractable motorbike problems and so it means that he is the one stuck with his tool kit open, working long hours trying to identify the problem, while I'm out taking a brilliant walk with my girl.

I do feel terribly guilty about this and vow to make a special meal for him in the days to come.

Because rosie is out of sorts, I bike to my girl's place -- a mere 30 minutes typically, but a tad longer this time, as the winds are strong and the views onto the prairie meadows along the way require frequent stops and pauses for admiration. Alpine meadows, step aside! We have this to show you!







My girl and I walk, she in her lobster dress that makes me think of Maine.






But it's not Maine -- it's Madison. with our lakes and bordering prairies and fields of corn...






At home, Ed is still working on rosie.


 



Such a small engine, such intricate issues! I zap bugs, weed flower beds...






... and come in to make sauteed cabbage and friend eggs for supper.






Isis snuggles in for an evening of affectionate cuddling (and a night of... who knows what).

twists and turns

Navigating this summer is proving to be quite the challenge. My stalwarts let me down a tiny bit: the peace of Sorede in June was thwarted a tad because, well, I felt sick. On and off, but enough to throw me off. And then there were the ticks of Slovenia. Did I mention them? No? Well, there were forest ticks and we did not catch on until too many had found comfort in our skin. Now mind you, we have ticks in Wisconsin, but we know what to look for here. They caught us off guard in Slovenia. And then, finally, there is the matter of work -- but that's an ongoing story without a resolution yet, so I'll refrain from exploring that for now.

So why didn't I write about the sore whatever it is that was sore (actually: neck) earlier? And the ticks -- why just mention them now? Well, honestly, it was all part of the inconsequential. At the time. I thought -- if this turns into a crisis, then's the time to write. Ocean isn't a repository of all my concerns in life. I have far too many and Ocean is far too precious to waste time on most of them.

Today I spent time on work in my campus office and then on doctor visits and both were reassuring and so now I am less squirmy about the future and yet I have to ask -- is one ever un-squirmy about the future?

Let's go back to the beginning of the day. Breakfast, on the porch. I'm throwing the camera to the side of the garden, where I have let the tiger lilies do their thing.





Anyone in these parts of the country can boast of tiger lilies and frankly, they can be quite the proliferating nuisance, but still, I have good words to speak on their behalf. For one thing, they look great in a vase. Especially by the painting  put up today (on the cheap -- without a frame!) -- the one from Sorede, the one that now is prominently in the kitchen of the farmhouse.






The storms and rains broke through shortly after. I wasn't paying attention. I had work to do.

And so that's a good thing, no? When you are tied to work, you do not pay attention to that, which is best left forgotten. Storms pass, appointments are checked off, I come home. To my flowers.





All of them.






Supper is our usual simple summer fare.






No, wait. I should be careful with my choice of words: summer -- that gorgeous stretch of time when the sun shines down on us far into the evening hours -- never really offers up the "simple." It's like everything else  -- summer is merely a stretch of time. And you do with it what you can. And you appreciate the colors, the beauty of it all, but you know that it's all skin deep. Happiness is born of different things.

I try to tell Ed this, but he's still on Europe time or some other time -- one that has him fall asleep on me now for the third evening in a row. I can only hope that Isis will (unexpectedly) stay quiet tonight and not throw up, meow or do his other acts of July theater.

Monday

One might say that a daily blog is a little like a daily column, written by a person who lives in a locality where not much happens, but she or he chronicles it all anyway.

I'd always wondered: if I didn't work, didn't teach at the Law School -- would my writing change? (...assuming that one's writing constraints are at least in part dictated by one's desire not to run afoul of one's employment situation.)

Of course, work isn't the only force moderating the tone of one's writing (for most of us). There is also family. My kids have grown up and moved to adulthood alongside my daily blogging. (Ocean is nearly ten years old after all.) It's a given that they are not, in the past or now, the subjects of my posts. But even if they are not the focus here, isn't it true that anything I write has to stay within some boundary of their approval, or at least not outright disapproval? True, Ocean has always been so tame (in part because my thoughts on the everyday have nearly always been so tame) that I rarely worry about its content making my girls' cheeks burn bright. If I didn't work, would my tone change at all?

I think about these things today, as the day dawns stormy and unstable. It's a good day for paper/administrative work: mountains and mountains of it, accumulated in the course of our absence.

So, breakfast, on the porch. Freshly baked granola, kefir, fruit.






And beyond the table, a view of the garden, extending toward the barn and sheep shed and, of course, the elongated flower bed leading to them. (Beyond the most prominenet flower bed just by the farmhouse.)






 Can't see much in that lushly crowded photo? Well then, here's a handful of closeups. Call it the amazing power of flowers to turn your mood around -- from frustration (how long did you last hang on the phone, trying to speak to an airline representative? to IRS? to your car rental agent who overcharged you on your last rental?) -- from that, to a quiet contentment.
















Sometime in the middle of the day, I go over to spend time with Goldie -- my charge for these few days. It's the last babysitting spin and I have to say, I'll miss that moment when I open the door, quietly, quietly and wait just two or three seconds before seeing her come around the corner to check who's there. Eventually we'll have settled down into our comfortable spots. Unlike Isis, who never, ever rests on the floor, Goldie will be content there, waiting, patiently waiting...





...until I get up to feed her.

Okay, so long Goldie.

I return home to Isis, to the farmhouse, to paperwork, to all the details of life that were put on hold for the month I was away and in between those tasks I spin course-changing thoughts and ideas for the months just ahead of me.

winding down

The days grow warmer and the mosquito population grows larger and so the opportunities to purse grand outdoor projects diminish.  Or at least they are set aside. We talk of September as a time when we'll be safe again. In the meantime, it's you against the bugs. Will it be a summer when they come, stay and then moderate? Or, will it be like the year they tortured us for months, forcing a run from car to the safe haven indoors  each time? You cannot tell.


But for now, we are still in the midst of family-time. This morning, we're all at the farmhouse for brunch. A chance for me to make use of the garden bounty: rhubarb!

So, rhubarb bars...






...and spinached eggs, and an old favorite -- potato rosti. (I made two just in case).






And then the urban couple -- my favorite Chicago girl and her fiancee...






...along with the others, leave.

Sunday: a day when I too often have to say my good byes.


But, on the upside, at the farmette, the raspberries -- those not eaten by animals and invasive weeds -- are ripening!






And the peas -- beautifully climbing and, too, ready in many places for picking.


'



And our old tough-it-out-on-frosty-May-nights tomatoes -- almost there!






When in the afternoon the mosquitoes calm down a little, I work outside (with a mosquito zapper in one hand for the persistent ones). Harvesting, watering (yes, in this hot weather I want to provide some relief!), and always weeding. Not a day passes during the summer when I don't pull out stuff from the garden. The rewards? Ah... a perfect lavender...






A happy daylily.






And great combinations of countless others, showing off for me, for Ed, and for the occasional visitors passing through, as on this hot summer week-end. Sigh...






Let me end by showing you two photos, taken today. Mystery solved, right? Isis, alive and well. And the other one, Goldie  -- our charge for just a few days. And Ed.