shovel

If I were paid for my labors by the hour today, at the end of it all, I would not be rich. If I were paid by the effort put into it, I'd be a millionaire.

It was a beautiful November day. I mean, I cannot oversell it -- mostly sunny, windy, not too cold.

Morning -- well, that was given over to breakfast...





... and then, unfortunately, to school work.

But afternoon? We are out  digging and hauling...





...and digging and hauling.


We have made significant progress this year in rebuilding the land around the farmette structures. Ed wonders about the future maintenance of it all, but I remind him that we're front-loading the work. Maintenance should be nothing, by comparison to what we're doing now.





In the late evening, all I can do is to hack away at anything that is still visible in the fading light. We will leave undisturbed clumps of berries (without replanting them in rows). But invasive vines and stumps have to be removed. I strain my eyes and then finally, I throw down the shovel and retreat.

And when I sit down, believe me, it will take a lot to get me to move again.

Friday

When Ed suggests a game and a dinner for tonight (UW women's volleyball --  free tickets, but still...) -- I say sure! The day is starting to look fine indeed.






And then the usual happens: long hours of reading and  an afternoon of hefty digging up shrubs and weeds in the raspberry fields, and evening comes and I get tired.











And I have to wonder how it is that people regularly go out at night for social functions.When the sun sets, I like to retreat home.

Still, on this night, we mobilize our energies and head out. To sit at the bar of Brasserie V and eat moulles frites (mussels and fries). The waiter comments that the last time we were here we sat in the same place and ordered the same thing...





Well now. We're predictable.

Then onto the game.

It's the third time that Ed and I have sat on the hard benches and watched Badger volley ball. And each time, Ed cares only about good plays and I care deeply about our home team winning and this time it is far far too close and so we walk out before we can witness someone lose.






...and the band plays on.





Beautiful. (Even if I do read later that our team lost.)

the high road

We almost didn't go. Sure, the sun eventually broke through the clouds -- not forcefully, but daintily, enough to add that layer of gold that you love so much toward the end of fall.






But it was cold. And when you sit all morning long at a table piled high with texts, you get even colder. Your internal heat generating mechanisms doze off. Or something.

So in the afternoon, when I remind Ed that we had talked of biking over to Eplegaarden -- our local orchard with a Norwegian twist -- so as to stock up on honeycrisp apples, he hesitates.
Not for long. Okay, let's go, he says.
But then I hesitate. Maybe we should work on the raspberry plot? No cold bike ride involved in that...
No, let's go. 
Sure? No not sure.

Finally we put on warm jackets and gloves and pretend that it is really much warmer than the 38 degrees we see registered on the thermometer.

One goal is to pedal hard. None of this sissy stuff. Give the lungs a workout. Of course, that means that on the inclines, Ed soars ahead of me. And so it happens that he pushes forward and crosses a road and waits, and in the meanwhile, I turn up a road, thinking surely that this is correct and that he will soon backtrack and follow me.

But he doesn't backtrack. Not noticing my turn, he looks back and not seeing me, concludes that something must have happened. And so he pedals toward home. 

If ever there is an example of why we should all carry cell phones -- this is it! He's biking home, I realize what happened and chase him, shouting, shouting, but the wind is against me.

Many miles later he pauses and borrows someone's phone to call me and we reconnect. But what was to be a 15 mile roundtrip ride turns out to be almost twice that.

And still, I have no regrets. Once we turn away from the main roads, every inch of landscape is beautiful.





As we pause to watch a herd of cows...





...they spot us and come over hoping for ... what, food? love?

One could speculate. But we don't. We bike onwards and upwards and we find Eplegaarden and our beloved honeycrisp apples and we walk the orchard and pat a horse and admire a pair of goats and taste a grape or two left over from the autumn harvest...










The ride home is even colder, but we stop halfway, at the local community center where they are hosting the Thursday farmers market. Indoors. We buy a lot of vegetables.





And quirky other things. Who knew, for example, that we had amongst us at the Fitchburg winter market a Greek guy selling olive oil from his family's grove near Sparta.






It is very much evening when we turn our bikes into our driveway. Dinnertime. Ed suggests I make fish stew. We bought the veggies for it -- onions, garlic, potatoes, carrots, broccoli. And I have a chunk of frozen salmon.

Oh, how good it is to be at the farmhouse, eating fish stew on this cold November evening! Let me not ever say an unkind word about this month again.

rerun

It's hard not to see a day sometimes as a rerun of another. A repetition of acts taken, meals eaten -- yes, the beloved breakfast...





...of anxious times with a clock ticking away as you rush to get that lecture polished before class. Of glances outdoors, leading to exclamations of delight because there will be the robins in the tree...






...and robins on the ground, too: these guys are still hoping for the worm:






Repetitions all. Peanut butter and apple jam for lunch, cold winds scattering new leaves on roofs, including glass roofs.


Later: looking out my office window, I see that usual quiet between class hours. One student passing by. Nothing more.





Were I to look out during the minutes between classes, the walkway would be packed. It's been this way forever and ever.


At home, reheating soup, chopping greens for a salad -- I've done it a thousand times before. We eat, Ed goes off for his volley ball game. I pick up the laptop. Nothing new there!

So why write about it? Because repetitions can be so good! Great, in fact! You wake up and everything is as it should be. Words exchanged, steps taken. Shower on, that wonderful soap lathered. Later, downstairs, honey drizzled over the bowl of oatmeal, stories told (or sometimes retold), plans made for the evening, for tomorrow, for the farmhouse front door, for the raspberry field, for anything and everything.

And that's just a fraction of all that thrives on repetition.

A day of total reruns and repetitions -- how good is that!

raining

It's raining work hours on me today. We wanted to do an early run for apples this morning (to the nearby orchard). Didn't do it. I couldn't spare the time.

Early, very early the phone woke us. A raspy male voice comes on: can we deliver wood chips now? We're on the list of one tree trimming company, and one utilities company for deliveries of their  chipped trees and branches. Both called today promising truckloads of chips. Two huge truckloads???

If I said we were done with rebuilding the raspberry field (it's no longer just a patch) I was wrong. With all those chips, we have weeks of work ahead of us.

Oh! Here's the first truckload. (By the way, if you can accommodate a truckload, this is the best way to get free chips -- put yourself on the lists of companies that are in the business of pruning trees.)






Yes, there'll be a lot hauling in the days ahead. 

But not today. We follow the more ordinary pattern of a Tuesday:

Breakfast...

 
Then work. There is a brief shudder of sunlight and I am so thrilled to see it take hold of the thorn-apple tree that I run out, only to watch it disappear. Last bits of it here:












And now it's back to a dense cloud cover.

And so long as we're reflecting on the last bits of anything, let me one more time (a last time, for sure) give a nod to the last of the show offs. Blooming away, in November.






But let's get back to the reality of a rainy (in the end) day. No rosie ride to work. Car time. WIth a walk through the city streets just to campus and then, after long lecture hours, back to the garage. Oh! It's raining and dark now? Uff...


 


A run to pick up take-out, then home. What a gift to be home now! To forget about the wet night outside. It's raining sweet drops of pleasure! Home. Farmhouse home. Mmmmmm....

swirling leaves, twinkling lights

How windy is it, you ask?

...So windy that the bedside window, opened just a half inch, lets in gusts strong enough to make me yank the quilt from under Isis and push it firmly against my chin. (Ed rightly points out that keeping a window open, even a tiny crack at times when you're either running the heat or the air conditioning makes no sense at all. He is correct. Except that I love fresh air that much, especially when it gusts inside and makes you feel like you are out in a forest. Of course, in the heat of July or the dead of winter, my infatuation with fresh air bows to sanity and the window is shut until March or April, when the temptation to crack it just a little hits again.)

...So windy that we spend the breakfast minutes staring at leaves, branches, spent flowers, swaying, moving, flying about outside.






...So windy that I abandon any idea of biking anywhere today. Good weather to stay rooted at the table with my work.





So windy and yet...

...this is the day that I decide to go out on the porch roof to sweep off the leaves. Why? Well now, that's a hard question to answer. Ed suggests that I wait until all the leaves have fallen (or not bother with any of it), but I want to develop a feel for the project: I am only allowed to step on the strips of wood (which are clamped over beams). How does that feel?  Will it be easy to sweep off snow? And so I step out. Through the bathroom window.

My, it's windy up here!






...But good! And there's a reason to clear and clean those glass panes -- Ed finishes putting up our chain of lights.





You want them year round, don't you?
Uh huh!

Our farmhouse is ready for the long winter.

In other news, well, you know the scoop on a Monday (or Tuesday, or Wednesday) -- there is no other news. Plenty of work instead.

...and a supper of cabbage/potato/kohlrabi soup.






And after dinner, I head for a talk at our local library -- interesting, sure, that, but what I want to show off here is the utter deliciousness of the finished porch project. Built, painted and now twinkling away forever and ever...

differently

Within the usual, a dose of the unusual.

Misty morning. Cold. Faintly sunny for once.






Later in the morning: so bright! You still think November is a drag?






I have a rather different midday Sunday: a lunch with colleagues. By the lake.






It's unusual for me to eat lunch and with colleagues and on Sunday. But, today has the unusual up and down its face and so here I am. What, can't see me or us? Well, I have long assumed that colleagues don't like random photos and so I keep my camera tucked away. But I can always photograph myself. And when there's a mirror, I get tempted!






After, I work, despite the gloriousness of the day.  Here, look how golden the farmhouse looks -- from out front (a view I rarely photograph).






In the late afternoon, which surely these days feels like early evening, I suggest we do something hugely energetic. Like bike full speed to the tennis courts, play a hefty game there and then bike like crazy back home.

We do it, but I offer several comments on this: first, my "bike like crazy" is like Ed's "pedal and yawn." So the only one who panted was me.

Then, at the hidden tennis courts, we came across a group of young people at one of the courts. They have a rubber ball, the size of a basketball and they use both hands or feet to help it across the net. Incredible fun. Where were these people when I was that age?

Ed and I play a good tennis game, considering my abilities (or lack thereof). Solid. I'm proud of solid.

And we bike home. I work some more and we eat a quiet supper alone. My daughter has a Sunday working dinner. No, nothing about this day follows a pattern.

Darkness comes early. That at least is very November-like. The shadowy month, promising nothing at all, except a colder season ahead of us.

the last flowers

Well, if Ed thought that I ought huff and puff more to feel on top of the world -- he surely had his way with me today.

We can't do much more with the raspberries until someone (we have a number of contenders) dumps a truckload of chips at the farmette. I suggested we survey our strawberries. We had thrown mesh on top of them to keep the animals away. It worked. But the mesh is now forever entangled with new sprouts and old plants and the whole thing is... a mess.

Still, this is not the time to transplant strawberries. One website suggests August or early September. Well now, I can't even pretend we're near that. Besides, I remind Ed that we have nowhere to plant new sprouts.

This is how we took it upon ourselves to clear a patch, right close to the sheep shed.

Clearing anything at the farmette is brutal. It requires pulling out trees, shrubs, weeds. And digging up fabric thrown down eons back in the hope of eradicating weeds. (It didn't and we decided it keeps worms away which is bad thing; fabric, therefore, must be dug up and removcd.)

So we heaved and pulled and dug and threw and panted...






Farmhouse to the south...






...sheep shed to the north






... the two of us in the middle, creating space for future strawberries.

And after three hours of this, Ed goes back to the farmhouse and  promptly falls asleep for the rest of the day.

Me, I sit down to do my school work and here's the remarkable thing: I meet my goal for the day. (This may be the only day in the entire semester where I meet my school work goal for the day.)

 So it was a good day, no?

No. It was a great day.

I'll leave you with the pics of the very last blooms of the year. These guys make me beam with pride.










See you in spring, you pinks and yellows, you... Rest up for then. I've got great plans for the next growing season!

continued

The threat of rain continues. Isis stays put. But I don't want to go outside! -- is written all over his face. When he thinks (incorrectly) that I want to kick him outdoors, he hides under the television.

It's a busman's breakfast. Ed is out helping a friend with one project or anther and so I take my oatmeal to my work table. I can't tell if it's still dark because it's early, or because it's that cloudy.






The sensor bell (a.k.a. Isis's doorbell) rings incessantly and since I know the cat is sprawled on the duvet upstairs (his hands-down favorite place to be -- even better if my feet are there for him to lean against), I imagine it's one of the many chipmunks that make their home at the base of the farmhouse. But as I walk over, just to see, I can tell that it's not chipmunks -- it's birds, swooping down and causing the air to shake. There are many of them and they all want a bite at the thornapple fruits.






We associate a flurry of robins with spring: the worms, hibernating as they do below the freeze-line, crawl to the surface, the robins show up to swallow them whole, the cats chase the birds (not Isis -- he never was a birder),  -- that's the harsher side of spring. But at the farmette the robins are equally present now, at the cusp of winter, raiding the red fruits, squawking at each other, working those wings as if in some ritualistic dance. They're filling their bellies. Some will fly south, some will stay by the fruited trees all winter long, picking, picking, waiting for the ground to thaw.






In other news -- I imagined dinners for the week ahead and picked up groceries for them.

In the evening, Ed took out the lights we purchased at Menards. They're holiday lights, but we're kind of charmed by them even without the holidays. (They're on right now.) Your remote controls their flickering and that's nice too. You wont get a photo tonight after all (it's raining, I'm tired -- the usual excuses). But picture this: outside, where it is dark and owls are hooting, you can see a chain of twinkling lights line the porch. On, off, twinkle twinkle twinkle, on, off.

It's a beautiful world out there, on this dark November night.  On off, twinkle twinkle, on off.

working in the rain

When you live in the country, your attitude toward rain is different. In the city, you take out the umbrella and forge ahead. Here, at the farmette -- I can't imagine taking out an umbrella.

I listen for a while. If I hear wind and a pounding of drops against the roof or window, I know it's a big one. I adjust: compost later. And Isis -- he'll be staying inside.

Breakfast. (Pancakes for Ed!)





I hear a pause in the rain. Nice. I push my books to the side. Out, let's go out and move a few losds of chips to the raspberry bed.

Well fine, but within minutes the rain comes back. But does it matter? It's warm enough. No one will see the wet strands of hair falling down my face (Ed will, but he's not one to complain). The smell of a wet autumn day is, to me, more powerful than that of a dry one, in the same way that a wet forest is more evocative than a sand dune.

Ed and I work in the rain. Pitchfork after pitchfork of chips. Shoveling dirt. Replanting, repairing. All in the rain.






We stop when I think I need to return to my books.

But the scent of wet earth stays with me. How could it not? I think of all the fragile plants that will benefit from it -- the transplanted raspberries, the bulbs that are just now establishing roots. Yes, all our plantings this year will be better off. And the fragrance! Ohhhhh, the fragrance of wet earth!






In the evening we go to the local farmers market -- last one this year. Ed wants cheese curds, I want to pay homage. Not that there are many farmers here today. Maybe four. For the others, the season ended with the first heavy frost.






We buy some radishes. Then apples. They're not great apples. The farmers are selling the fruit of old trees and though I'd like to believe that old apples can be as great as new apples, these are just okay.

Still, we buy them and we eat a handful as we drive to Menards (the home improvement store). There we buy twinkly lights for the farmhouse. But that's tomorrow's story.