shower time

Because Minneapolis was once the home of a good friend, I've surely been to this city before. An Ocean reader can see the tag at the side: I've had many wonderful visits here.

And still, when your daughter moves to a place, that place takes on a new aura. The streets that were once interesting to me, the tourist, are now streets that she walks -- on her way to her office or to the store. And so it is with great excitement that I come to this city on a cloudy but still warm April day.





I'm in Minneapolis to see the apartment where she and her fiance now live. Yes, that. But there's more. My girl is lucky to have her fiance's family here (he's a Minneapolis boy!) and they, along with family friends are hosting a stock-the-bar shower for the soon-to-be-marrieds. And so we have my girl's family (her sister, dad and this Ocean blogger) and her fiance's family (brother, parents, grandpa, uncle) coming together for the first time and it is such a gala day that it may as well be the wedding itself -- we are all feeling quite celebratory!

I wont inundate you with family photos. But you must tolerate just a few! It is such a wonderful day and the Minnesotans welcome us so warmly that Ocean has to serve its other function: a place to commemorate family milestones. Beautiful ones at that.

So, walk through it with me! (I'll limit myself to photos of people you know by now.)

There was a quick breakfast, picked up at a local bakery (46 Patisserie), but eaten at the young couple's home:











There was a family brunch (at Salut Brasserie):






Then the shower itself:





















And a late get together at the young couple's place to make a final selection of wedding wines.





















I haven't partied so royally in a long, long time.

My days of travel end on this Sunday. I'm with my girls again...






...and I go to a morning brunch (at the Bachelor Farmer -- a "new Nordic" place; yum!) with the two of them and my daughter's soon to be husband...











...and then we take the long route along the Mississippi to the airport. As I look at the mighty river and study the homes that line this important waterway, I think how good it is to have my girls live in such warm places. Because, of course, warmth isn't just about the degrees outside. Ignore the chunks of ice on the river. Think, instead, how many, good hours I have with my girls, their partners, families, friends. Hot, I tell you. Positively hot.


I fly home over stormy skies and again come in right on schedule. At the farmette, the chickens are hiding under the truck from the heavy rains. Ed teaches me his modified routines with them. See? No chasing! I smile at his innovations. The garden? Not destroyed yet! I'll show you how it is looking these days tomorrow.

Albuquerque one last time

Without question, I came to New Mexico at a busy time for my friends. While I slept fitfully (no chickens!), they worked at their various tasks and obligations. In the morning, they had "to do" lists, while I had a "do nothing" mindset.

Not a problem! I have no agenda. We'll take it easy.

And we do.

After a lovely breakfast...






...my friend shows me how a garden might look were I attempting flower cultivation in New Mexico. Whereas in Wisconsin, my plants are lost in the profusion of abundant growth, here, each specimen is prized and labeled.






Without added water, not much would grow. With just a small trickle, you can help any number of plants survive the dry climate.

Since my friend has a lull in her schedule today, we go for a hike in Albuquerque's mountain range. Though the mountains look dry and brittle from a distance, they do have a fine pine forest at the midrange elevations.






We hiked up until our watches tell us to stop, take a picture...






...and turn back. Through the forest at first. A bit slippery on the gravel-like surface, but manageable nonetheless.






And once we emerge from the forest, we have the benefit of the desert flora: the cacti, the dainty grasses -- all of it new to me.  And maybe you'll find these to be too pale, too tame, too subtle in their presentation, but along the path, they stand out and are lovely to behold.











And now the forest recedes and the cacti and scruffy grasses take over and ... wait, what's that?!






How good are you at picking up the obvious -- that there is a snake, a large one at that (we later estimate it to be close to six feet long) making it's way through the grasses?

We freeze. I ask my friend what's the snake protocol? Do you run? Stand still?
She tells me -- I don't know, in all my years of hiking, I've never seen a snake before.

Do I bring wild dogs and snakes out of hiding??

We sidestep to the brush at the side of the path. We notice that the snake turns around and follows us across the trail.






I pause for only a second to take a photo and then we are out of there! I wont say we ran, but if you glanced our way, you'd probably admire how quickly we could move when there was a snake in our wake.

And still, I can't say that it was a disturbing encounter. The snake didn't rattle. We seemed to be faster in our getaway. There are good hospitals within spittin' distance. But more importantly, you can't help but remember the good elements of the hike. They stay with you. Views like this one:





And I think I'll leave you with that photo. We had other parts of the day still before us -- a quick little shoe shopping trip, a walk through Albuquerque's old town, a dinner downtown -- all the wonderful trimmings of a visit here. But I'll close the day with that view into the valley. It's what you'd want to remember -- a walk down the Pino trail in the Sandia Muntains of Albuquerque.

Tomorrow, way before dawn, I'll be on my way to Minneapolis.

from Albuquerque

If I had to describe Albuquerque, I would probably say something about the colors here. I've never known it to have a dense cloud cover (it must, at some point, but I've never seen it). The blue sky and the pale landscape are a good match and I could spend a lot of time just staring at the way the two interact, especially now, in spring, when you add to it the pale green of the emerging leaves.






But this isn't how the day started for me. My Albuquerque friend has a high school senior at home and though I have very faint memories of what it was like to go through those last weeks of school with my girls, I have a fresh reliving of those times by going through the day with her as she attends to the various needs of her soon to be graduating daughter.

I eat a lovely breakfast of baked granola, yogurt and fruit..






But I quickly see that this is my luxury. My friend has a long to do list and so after I've eaten, she scoops up her own breakfast (to be finished in the car, like this)...






...and we head out to -- of all places -- Walmart. (Can I blog about this? -- I ask her wickedly. She, good naturedly doesn't protest.) Her daughter needs various items for a school project and when we're done with Walmart, we are at Michael's and when we're done there, it's time to go to pick up food  for the lunch the parents are hosting for the graduating class -- a meal of meats from Rudy's.

What, you don't know Rudy's? You'll find it in the southwest: it's a Texas BBQ place. Pulled pork, chopped beef, roasted chicken... all meats, all spiced just so, but of course, aided too by the BBQ sauce, which you can take either in the tame or not so tame version. It is all about meat at Rudy's.






I go to the high school with my friend and try to be helpful in serving this mega lunch, but really, I'm most helpful when I stay out the way. And so I watch and note the incredible appetites of especially boys that age. (My friend and another mother are helping them load their plates here.)






As the lunch continues, I retreat and take a short walk in the area, admiring the mountain that frames this city and of course, the light that is as ever brilliant.






...in a dry sort of way.






I wonder how it is to live in year-round sunshine. When I have a clear day back home, it feels downright celebratory. I can't imagine not spending a portion of it outside. Would it be different if it were my everyday?

While my friend finishes her duties of shuffling her daughter and running errands, I go out for another walk -- toward that mountain that is rhe backdrop for this city (though it is hard for me to treat Ambuquerque as a city; it's twice the demographic size of Madison, but it feels significantly less dense).






Though I'm told that spring blooms peaked some weeks back, I still see plenty of them. Plums, crabs, and, of all things, lilac.






I never quite get to the mountain. It's hot and after an hour I turn back, too thirsty to continue. But I find the scattered housing here to be interesting to look at. It's what you imagine New Mexico should be like. It fits the image. An example:






And now, one glance over my shoulder...






..and I head to my friend's home. Her husband is back from work and in hearing about my various excuses for walks he tells us we should pile into the car and drive into the hills. For the beauty of it all. For the view.






We walk a bit of the trail and look out at the plateau that stretches toward the next range and I have to admit quietly here that it reminds me a tiny bit of Sorede: from the Pyrenee hills, you can look across the great Languedoc plain to the peaks of the Corbieres and for a minute I think that I am there, not here and of course, I quickly adjust because Sorede is in the past and New Mexico is here before me.





















I listen to my friends talk about their great  pleasure at being so close to the hills, so immersed in the blueness of the skies (you remember how Sorede boasted 300 days of sunshine each year? apparently Albuquerque claims it has 310) and I think how great it is that these diverse landscapes capture such loyal followings!





*****

Later, much later, I talk to Ed about the chickens. He tells me how laid back they've been, how easy to let out of the pen the whole day (oh dear...). I'm thinking, it's terrific to leave him in charge every now and then. The chickens now have a second best friend. And that's a good thing.

this land

I wonder how many people picked up on the news item that announced that in the last year, the number of complaints about air travel in this country had sharply declined. The cynic will say that the traveler is simply reconciled to a never ending stream of inconveniences. That we've grown used to the delays, poor service, discomfort. That it's like the ugly carpet that comes with the house you just purchased: you can't wait to replace it when you move in, but then you sort of forget about it. After a while, you don't even notice it.

But I have to say, I surely have had a string of good -- no, let me up that a bit: great flights.

Yes, I've been lucky. Weather delays and cancelled flights can sour your mood, so that what may have been fine quickly morphs into one big disappointment. You know it's not the airline's fault, but still, here you are, stuck for days in Atlanta and while you recognize that some people may love Atlanta, it's not home and you just want to be out of that nightmare hub asap. Yes, that can sour your travel mood and I seem to have been incredibly fortunate these months: no cancellations, not many delays either.

But I want to say a good word, too, not only about timely connections and comfortable planes and wonderful staff (for what it's worth, in this country I mostly fly Delta), but also about the privileged view you have of the landscape as you fly over it.

It is fantastic to take off in Madison, where the lakes are still frozen in the middle:






...to cross the mighty Mississippi (or the clearer but still iced over St Croix, about to become the muddy Mississippi):






...and land in Minneapolis, where you can see from up high the layout of the city that is now your daughter's home:






No stop over now. Catch the second flight and head south -- and here I could go hog wild with fantastic birds-eye views of vast deserts and plateaus, but I'll just give you one photo -- of where the mountains meet the arid landscape of New Mexico:






...and finally, anyone approaching Albuquerque from the air will tell you how splendid that flight is, especially if you're a northerner who just isn't used to this kind of landscape. At dusk, the colors are particularly disarming:






So yes, I know the tribulations. I've lived through them: planes that have malfunctioned, been diverted, cancelled, delayed, with broken seats, broken toilets, broken everything but (you hope) the engine that gets you up and back down again. But let me just remember this day of timely, peaceful flights over a magnificent and ever-changing landscape. You truly appreciate the beauty of this place when you fly over it on a more or less clear day and you look down at what's below.

so long, little ones

This morning, just at dawn, I teach Ed the daily routines.
You get to see the sun come up from inside their pen.






Be careful with Lexie. She likes to hop onto the coop roof and watch your every move. She can be feisty, she can be calm. Whatever you have for them -- she wants to be first in line.






We talk about ways of making the cleaning of the coop base easier. Wood chips maybe?

Put out fresh water and you're done. You need do nothing more all day, except pick up the eggs and shut the coop at night.

That's the bare minimum. And I'm explaining it because late today, I'm leaving. A couple of days in Albuquerque with my friend who now lives there and then a couple of days at my younger girl's new place in Minneapolis. And so for four days and nights, Ed is the designated chicken guy at the farmette.

We let the brood out while we sit down to breakfast... 





...and as always, they go straight for my flower beds and I recoil. It's clear to me that they cannot be trusted without oversight. For the hours that we are not watching them, they will eventually have to have a larger pen. Their current enclosure is fine, but if you want pampered chickens, you'll want to give them even more space.

Ed's working on the design for the enclosure and I tell him that the perfect placement would be along the front of the barn. Right by the sheep shed. The space has long been overgrown with canes and weeds and last year I mowed it down sufficiently so that this year we can rip up the fabric that covers the dirt and create a nice (in my view) space for the chickens when we are not on chicken duty.


We work there now, pulling out fabric shreds, digging up weeds and the chickens are so in awe of what we're doing (all those freshly uncovered worms!) and they peck and scratch in places where it's good for them to peck and scratch (just think of all the ticks they're destroying!) and this is, of course, the moment of garden bliss where we are all working so productively together, enjoying each others peculiar idiosyncrasies, enjoying, most of all, being outside on this wonderful spring day.






In the late afternoon, just after I finish packing my case, I ask Ed -- where are the chickens? I no longer have that fear that they will vanish, that a predator will surely swoop down and get them. Mostly, I just want to know that they are not in a place where they may do damage.
Come and see -- he tells me.

Ah yes. Another moment of chicken joy. Together, resting,  keeping cool in the dirt underneath the thick bush. Almost smiling at me, don't you think?


 


Take care of Ed, little ones. And be good!