hiding

Within the hidden courtyard of the farmette (see yesterday's post), secrets abound. The morning walk to open the chicken coop for the day revealed just a few. There are more. I'm sure of it.

But I can't say I am enthusiastic about getting up. Storms rumbled through late at night and, on top of this, Ed and I unintentionally strayed into some topic of conversation (possibly concerning mosquitoes, but I can't really recall now) that kept us going for a couple of nightly hours and so by 5:30, I am more tired than rested.

And yet, when I step outside into that misty world of heavy and heady lilac scented air, any reluctance to be up falls to the wayside.

It is a gorgeous morning.






In the later morning, I finally harvest our rhubarb. I hadn't planted it: it came with the farmhouse. And it really delivers!






In past years, I'd use only a small portion, but this year I'm motivated. What we don't want for now, I'll turn into rhubarb jam for winter peanut butter sandwiches. But today, I'm just making compote.






I cook it with Flower Factory honey (my favorite local perennial grower used to be a beekeeper in his previous incarnation) and then whip it up with Kefir for our porch breakfast.






You really feel spoiled when you watch the May sunshine throw zigzag patterns on the screen panels as you sip your rhubarb-honey-kefir coctail.  So spoiled that getting going takes a bit of an effort.






But we manage! The heat of the day (again in the 80s, though with a breeze today) keeps the chickens out of our path as they hide in the coolest and shadiest spots. Ed and I have three replacement trees to put in and this time Ed is ready with protective cages. It takes the hens a while to figure out that yes, we are digging and yes, there may be worms.






But they retire to the shade soon after.






We go on to plant more beans as well as peas along the newly built trellises.






The planting job's not done. We're missing a packet of sugar snap peas and I change my mind about the corn seeds and so we (happily, I have to admit; it's hot in the sun!) abandon planting in mid afternoon and retire to the coolness of the farmhouse for a nap.

That would end my account here, except that my thoughts and my camera file take me back to this morning. You know, when there were secrets to discover. For example, on my to do list there were the dead grape branches I was going to remove from the walls of the sheep shed. But no, it can't be done. Because in poking around there, I found this:






And, too, I began snipping off some of the spent daffodil flower heads. Had to stop that as well. Because of him:






I was less thrilled to see that this guy has stealthily returned to my garden:






He eats any number of flower leaves with a fury, outperforming even the chickens in the amount of damage to the flower beds. I remind myself that the yard is to be shared. I admonish him for hitting on the daylillies last night and then I turn away.

I'll leave you with just two or three additional morning photos. Those early images really stayed with me today. As you glance at them, think of a moment when the drops of rain still hang from lilac branches, even as the mist is lifting and the skies turn a pale morning blue. Yeah, heavenly.

secret gardens

If I mention a "secret garden" to you, what images are conjured up by this? The children's book by Frances Hodgson Burnett? For me, there's inherent beauty in the concept. Secret garden. Flowers, birds, privacy. Benches, bees drawing pollen from anything that blooms, berries growing randomly -- it is, to me, is such a heavenly image that I really cannot improve upon it.

But apart from this idyllic little picture, I can think of other gardens that are indeed secret. Two come to mind, right here at the farmette. And this became obvious to us this morning.

The first one was described as such not by me, but by someone who stopped by early to pick up something I was selling on Craigslist (I have an ongoing catalogue of used items there).

But let me back up and mention this: it is another beautiful day -- perhaps the first day that closely approximates summer.






Chickens clamor to get out so as to enjoy the morning. And, Ed and I have a lovely breakfast on the porch.






...though it's interrupted by a phone call from my Craigslist shopper. She pulls up shortly after 9 and our courtyard takes her breath away. True, the crab apples are blooming, the lilacs are just starting to flower -- all that helps. But what really caught her by surprise is the fact that when you drive by the farmette, you see none of our courtyard. You see the farmhouse, with a front entrance that's crumbling and in need of repair. You see large maples, a scraggly lawn. If you stare hard, you'll pick out a few lilies of the valley hugging the building. That's it. The magic of our growing spaces is hidden. You don't see any of it until you come to the end of our driveway. And then, boom! Quite unexpectedly, you step into a secret garden.











Very few of the flowers are blooming now, but it almost doesn't matter. The greens are fresh, the clumps of perennials so full of hope.








(the secret entrance: we ignore the front door and use this instead)


Our shopper tells us that if nothing comes of her purchase, it will still have been worth her while just to pause for a minute in this hidden, bird-filled secret space.


The other place that justly deserves this label is our vegetable patch -- the one at the far western part of the new orchard. It's where we will plant our tomatoes, our corn, cucumbers, peas and grapes. The chickens know it's there, but they never venture out to it. It's too far, too open, and today -- too sunny. And so while they rest inside the garage and then inside the barn, Ed and I go out and begin planting our tomatoes.






It is, in fact, grueling work in the heat of the day. Lots of bending, shoveling, moving about -- but I don't want to stop because I know that by evening, the day will be cooler and the chickens will be more curious. And if I complain about them free ranging in my flower beds, I can say with confidence that we would both be groaning very loudly if the hens hit our tomatoes with their sharp beaks and dinosaur claws.




 

Halfway into the task of putting the tomatoes in (50 more to go!), I have to stop. We leave our secret garden and take a refreshment break. Grape juice with lemon fizzy water -- the best thirst quencher on the planet! And watermelon! (The chickens love the leftovers.)






And I look outside and it is so still and peaceful now. And so lush! As if winter belonged to another planet. Never here, in this space of the most delicate flowers and shady trees.






In the afternoon, we return to the tomatoes. The heat keeps the chickens away again and we finish the job without their interruptions: 94 plants, in the ground. (We promise ourselves to cut back next year; let's aim for fewer than 50, shall we?)


It's evening now. I'm sitting on the porch writing this while Ed is putting away the paraphernalia of our garden work. This hour is a gift -- it's rarely so warm late into a May evening. You worry a little: will it last? Will it bring on the bugs? But mostly you sit back, breathe deeply and do nothing at all.

Monday

A colder day. From nearly every corner and perspective.

There was a time when temperatures in the high fifties would have seemed utterly luxuriant. When a breeze and a slight shower -- a sign of good things to come. When a walk through the farmette land on a pavement of green grasses -- heavenly.

Today was not such a day.

Yes, I let the chickens out at dawn...


 


... and they are happy.






Yes, we have breakfast on the porch. But it is a chilly breakfast. I nearly put everything back on the tray and retreat.





For the rest of the day, Ed hides out in the sheep shed and I hide out in the farmhouse and that is just fine, because that harmonious work pace we'd maintained has stalled, as if somehow the wind has derailed us and we can't quite climb back on track again. Not today, anyway.

The chickens are puzzled. Were is everyone? - they seem to say. Oh, they try to trick me! They amble over to the big flower bed and scratch and dig and I'm sure destroy more than one leaf out there. But I stay put, trying hard not to twitch in exasperation.

When Ed and I finally do come out, we focus on all the piddly things that are not working well this year: the asparagus bed that refuses to sprout asparagus. The strawberry bed with half the leaves chewed away. And so on.






By evening we are slightly more inclined to join forces again and labor on, but it is late and so we leave the farmette to go out to dinner - a real treat of mussels and fries downtown. It starts to drizzles and then rain and then flash lightening with loud rumbles of thunder. I'm sure all the noise and wetness caused the chickens to disappear under the cars in the driveway back home.






It was a warm and tasty dinner.

The hope is  that tomorrow somehow the winds will push us back into our working mode where I chop and he saws or I dig and he heaves or however else we have worked out this harmonious partnership that has managed to create a little bit of paradise around us.

Sunday

If I've raved about the weather on some previous days of spring -- forget those accolades. This day beats them all. Mostly sunny, a high of 73 -- what's there not to love?

Hi cheepers! -- that's the attitude I had walking to set them free at 5:30. Isn't it lovely outside?






Breakfast is on the porch, of course!






And then Ed and I attack our list of outdoor projects. And here's something I learned today: the chickens aren't as thrilled with "sunny and warm" as I am. They follow us to wherever we are working, but rather than pestering us no end, they park themselves in the shade and attend to their plumage. Or take a nap. Occasionally, one will come to me and give a halfhearted scratch of the soil. Tokenism. She really wants me to hand her a worm. She'll then retreat and join the pack. As if the begging itself was too much effort.



Oreo, watching


So we got a lot done today. Ed finished building the pea trellises, I nearly completed planting the flowers. We trimmed dead tree limbs, replanted the lilies of the valley, planted the replacement peach trees and an apple and cherry (having taken out the ones that did not survive our impossible winter) and randomly trimmed anything that stood in our path.



(the replacement peach trees are mere twigs)


We're being careful with our young fruit trees this year. Ed is building cages for them as we speak to keep the deer away.

Our list of projects isn't exactly dwindling. But I am so happy that the difficult ones are slowly being crossed off. So that only the zen-like ones remain. I mention this because I spent some time watering the new plants this afternoon and I remembered how much I love (yes, really!) just standing there with a hose and pointing it toward a flower bed. This is the best aspect of yard work: the satisfaction of having it come together, aided now by a misty spray of water.

In the evening we go to our home supply store (Menards) to pick up more wire fencing for our new orchard. While still in the parking lot, I watch a young couple hurry to a waiting car. There are two kid seats inside, but I can't tell if they're empty or with kids. The couple is loading up some painting supplies. She looks so stressed. I'm thinking -- it's Sunday evening, they probably have work the next morning, kids to feed yet tonight and this project that obviously cannot be completed by the end of the day. I wonder if in countries where families gather for the better part of a Sunday, home improvement projects are less popular. Because how else do you fit in everything?



(our neighboring farmers to the east)


Dinner -- a simple one of wild asparagus from various parts of the farmette (we don't know how it seeded, but we have scattered spears coming up in a number of places during May), of shrimp and sorrel and quinoa.






I look at my gardening list for this coming week. The transplanting of tomatoes alone will take up an enormous amount of time. And of course, any mowing will need a repeat performance. Ditto weeding. (To the commenter who suggested burning the prairie grasses -- Ed tells me that he tried that when he first moved to the farmette. All it did was strengthen the quack grasses. Our prairie is really only in part a true prairie. Most of it is overwhelmed by quack grass, mustard greens, Queen Ann's lace, rambler vines. Things that thwart a prairie. To start a true prairie, we would probably have to apply several doses of Roundup and then vigorously reapply it until all invasives were put to rest. We're not willing to do that, so we struggle with imagining something else. Maybe a clover field someday? We dream big! For now, I mow.)

So this is it -- what we look forward to all winter long. An immensely busy time of putting in place a garden. A raspberry field. A shady flower bed. Strawberry rows. A young orchard. Are the better dreams out there? Can't think of them. Not on days like this one.

Saturday

Being at the brink of explosive flower growth is pretty exciting. And, here at the farmette, also a touch frustrating.

In the morning, I am up with the sun (which is so darn early in the second half of May!).





I make my way slowly, in the direction of the chicken coop.

What's this? Someone has been digging up the large flower bed! One plant is completely destroyed. A handful of others are sheared of new growth.

This isn't the work of chickens.  I'm guessing it's Martha, our resident groundhog.

Never mind. Let's appreciate the sunny (though slightly cool) day! After breakfast...






...I take Rosie (the moped) downtown where I meet my girl for a round of market shopping.






Asparagus, of course. Oyster mushrooms. Maple syrup for Ed. Sorrel for dinner tomorrow.

It's a lovely way to ease into a Saturday.

Okay, I'm ready to do some planting.

So are the chickens.

I try distracting them. It works for a few minutes, then the hens are in my face again. They dig where I dig, or nearby. They're not as destructive as a groundhog or a chipmunk (we have one who cropped a whole row of tulips for us), but they can damage new growth and roots. Again I redirect. And they come back. Ed moves them out. But only for a while. It's like having four toddlers who refuse to take a nap when you want to get things done.

Well okay. Enough planting for today. Let me sit back and look at the upside of the garden. It's not all daffodils out there! By now we have some dainty clumps of.... oh, all sorts of things! Here's the side bed for example  (the one that abuts the brick walkway to the house).






And elsewhere:
















This, of course, is the peak week for planting, but I can't neglect the grinding work of weeding established beds and, too, of mowing the back prairie. I get on the John Deere. It's a rickety old tractor but it does the work of  chopping growth on the bumpy terrain out back. Until I hit a rock or a stump or an old log and once again dent the carriage, effectively bringing the machine to a halt.

And Ed fixes it and then, lo! I do it again!

I abandon the project for now. Is it even worth it? Or should we let the prairie take over as it did in past years? Waist high quack grasses, weeds, creating a lovely environment for mice, ticks, but too, some beneficials. Surely butterflies find refuge there as well... I really don't know the answer to this.

I rejoin the chickens and again Ed tries to distract them while I tidy the flower beds.






And by this time it's evening and the day has flown by ridiculously fast and this is the way it is when you have a long list of projects for the outdoors.

I wish I could say we retired early, but it's never like that on busy days. Tomorrow! I'll get on a good schedule tomorrow! In the meantime, I'm still picking up the pieces of yesterday. And this of course reminds me of all the graduation hoopla and your kindest possible words here and via email. Thank you! So very much.
 

Graduation

I haven't been so full of thoughts of classrooms, of lecturing, of writing a lecture since the first time I faced a roomful of law students back in 1989. The closer I came to this day -- the day I was to address the graduating class of 2014 -- the more I worked to revise the words of my speech. No, I shouldn't say it this way. Someone may find it patronizing. And this sentence needs tweaking. It could be misinterpreted. And so on.

The day finally arrived when I could make no more changes. Because like it or not, after this day, the graduating class of 2014 will have graduated and moved on.

For me, it was, of course, an early morning. I'm up at 5:30 these long days of presummer.






And initially, it is a morning like all others. I try to get back to bed for a few more minutes of sleep -- it doesn't work. Isis is up, Ed is stirring. Okay. Let the day begin.

Pancakes for Ed, the usual for me, in the sunroom, because for a brief minute it is sunny.






Ed then goes off to his techie meetings and I face my written text one last time. I read it through once. No, still need to change a word. Tear up printed copy, try again.

Fine. It feels right at last.

And I'm off, because the whole day has graduation events that I now must attend.

Finally, it's time: the ceremony that turns law students into JD graduates.

The processional. The speech of Justice Abrahamson of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Student speeches. My speech.


 
(taken by Ed)


It felt like being in the classroom again. But a bigger classroom. Faces of my students before me, but, too, I am very aware of Ed being in the audience (he had never heard me address a room full of people before). Of my daughter and her husband taking the time to be there too and taking the time to text my little one in Minneapolis, so she could follow along as best she could. Of my two friends, one in New Mexico, the other in Florida, listening to the live stream. And here's my farthest audience -- my friend in Denmark and her young son, tuning in at a seven hour time difference. People in Madison, people outside Madison -- I had them all in my mind and it was as if we were all at the podium. A remarkable feeling!

And with the end of Commencement, I said good bye to my connection to the Law School.

How to commemorate this step away from academia? Well, I go out and bought the new glasses I had been coveting some days back. Glasses that are far too expensive for a person on a retirement income.

And I come home to my three boys...



Isis, Ed, Oreo

...and to my three (foster) hens.

Ed and I cover my pots of annuals with blankets because there may be frost tonight. I then fix a supper of scrambled eggs and Wisconsin asparagus. With a glass of celebratory Cava.

And finally, I sit down to write this post.

mid-May

Tomorrow starts the second half of May.

Tomorrow, we will be done with weeding the raspberry field and so gardening will again take on pleasurable qualities.

Tomorrow may well be the last day I ever speak to a large crowd from behind a podium.

Because tomorrow is our Law School's Commencement ceremony and (by student choice), I am the faculty speaker.

Preparing the address has occupied my writer's thoughts for the past month. Honestly, I don't know if anyone believes that a commencement speech could have much of an impact on the life of someone in the audience. But you can hope to give a little nudge. Or at least offer a suggestion of something to consider.

I wont write much about the content of what I have finally put together for the address. That's tomorrow's story after all. But I do think that there is a significant marker for me: today versus tomorrow. Today, I am still, in the eyes of the graduating class, a faculty member. Tomorrow, I will move away permanently from teaching, lecturing, addressing students. 


But let's get back to this day, in this first half of May -- a coolish day of morning showers...






(I let out the chickens only to have them hide under the roosting box)






...a day where I thought we would not be doing much outdoor work, except that after breakfast...






...the showers abate and with deep sighs (signifying reluctance), Ed and I return to the raspberry field to finish weeding. That's the next to last step. After, we'll throw chips on our cleaned field and then we turn our back to it.

Except that's not entirely accurate: after we're done restoring the field, the real struggle begins. And you may as well view it as a far deeper struggle that Ed and I engage in as we work the farmette land. Ed wont, of his own volition, prune, cut back, tear down, rip out things that show signs of life and growth. When he mows the grassy stretches, he will sweep gross circles around milkweed (because it attracts butterflies), he will  spin around invasive raspberries, and other plants that decide to make their home in the grass. And that's a very noble attitude, but it makes it immensely difficult to keep the farmette from looking like the northern cousin of a deeply overgrown jungle.

The reason the raspberry fields got to be such a weedy mess is because Ed would not mow down emergent new canes. Within a handful of years, we had a thicket of raspberries, quackgrass, thistle, burdock, nettle and who knows what else. No human could ever get to the raspberries without suffering an attack from all sides, made more brutal by the every hovering mosquitoes who consider a raspberry mess to be some form of Shangri la.

We got the field under control because last year, without consulting Ed, I took a John Deere to the jungle and chopped down a good half of what was there. The rest we took out by hand this year.

But I see the telltale signs of the old Ed coming back. Again he is reluctant to pull out canes that pop up everywhere (raspberries are like a weed -- they take off and grow without asking for permission). This wont do. We did not just spend our last ounces of energies on improving something that may again go into a state of disarray within two or three years.

Ed has an idea. Do you want to sell the extra canes? -- he asks.
Well why not. For sale! Cheap. Great canes, ready to plop into your yard. Maybe $2 each? And believe me, within a few years, you'll have far more than you'll ever have wanted. Because these dudes multiply like crazy rabbits. The ad will go up on Craigs list. I'm hoping that within a few weeks, we'll have offloaded a few boatloads of canes. Leaving us with hundreds still, but at least an orderly bunch, planted and pruned by us.


In other news: Scotch again gave us an egg with twins. How that mega egg could come out of that little chicken is beyond me, but we praised her to high heaven for her mighty efforts on our behalf.

In the late afternoon, we make a trip to our local Farmers Market. And now you can tell that we are not just pretending: we truly are in the thick of the growing season. There is asparagus everywhere!






Our own serious planting of vegetables begins next week. In the second half of May. Last year we rushed it, only to have several nights of frost nearly ruin our crop. We are more patient these days. Satisfied with what's blooming now, excited about the possibilities for the weeks ahead.

inch by inch

It wasn't your run of the mill work-in-the-yard day. I left the farmette in the morning and didn't return until evening. For me, that's a rarity. But it's good sometimes to take a break, even from activities you love. Especially when you replace these with things you also love!

So, first, let's start with the unchangeable tasks: good morning chickens!



(coop door open!)


Sorry about the cooler days ahead. Though I dare say, you like cool. And damp. It brings out the worms.











Breakfast. Not too early, not too late.






And then I go over to my daughter's. I help her with planting and I bring over some raspberry canes and catnip too. I mean, if anyone needs raspberries or catnip, please let me know! We grow both in huge quantities!





And here's where I remember the song that I used to play for my girls when they were very very small. And as I sing it to my daughter and she finds it on her playlist, I am flooded with memories of what it was like to watch them grow up. It's rare that I have such vivid flashbacks and yet I am not surprised that this should be the case. These are months of progressions and changes for them. As they move forward in their lives, I sit back and consider it all.


Afterwards, my girl takes me out for a lunch downtown. I tell her -- it's hard to dress right for garden work followed by a special lunch!

And it is rare, very rare that I have lunch in town. And during the meal, I open Mother's Day presents from both daughters and once again I am so awed by their generosity and good taste!


The rest of the downtown chores are just a tad less memorable: a visit to the Apple store to make computer adjustments (I walk away with a new phone! who knew that I could get top dollar for my old phone from them, so that on balance, I owe nearly nothing? Ed rolls his eyes: what was wrong with your old phone? well, not a whole lot, but think of the learning possibilities on the new one!). And finally, a visit to the eye doctor (so, when was it that you changed your glasses? Five years ago? Huh. Well, just to reassure you, things aren't that bad. I know he wanted to add -- for your age, but he generously refrained from it at the last minute).

Then home. Where my chicks are, as always, thrilled to see me.


 
(the run)




(the wait at the doorstep)


And I give them their treats and I study the list of things that need to be done in the next few days and I note the cool front passing through this week and I hum the song from this morning, because, well, it's a catchy little song. With very farmette-type lyrics. I'll end with John Denver singing it for you and a photo of our old orchard to look at, now in bloom, from top to bottom.