Monday

If I count the number of times I've written here, on Ocean "another lovely, sunny day," I think I would come up with a staggering total. This is the winning side of the upper Midwest: we have more sunny days than rainy ones, more blue sky than cloud cover. Of course, you always remember the extremes: the violent storms, the polar vortex, the rain that never seemed to end even though it was probably only a day long affair. But sunny days, ah, sunny days -- they dominate.

Today the farmette animals got me up and out even before sunrise (which right now takes place at 5:17 a.m.).











(After the first run, the girls always spend a while tidying up.)






It's wiser just to force yourself up and out when the first complaint sounds -- to get up and do the animal chores and then try to squeeze in another hour or two of sleep afterwards. Sometimes it works.

At other times, once outside, I get distracted. A few weeds to pull, a pattern of light to admire...






Today, Oreo offered his own distraction. Because he is crippled (remember? a one legged rooster), he has a hard time finding a willing hen to satisfy one of his basic needs (he only has three basic needs that I know of: to eat, to mate and to protect the brood). They can outrun him and quite often they do. Finding himself intensely frustrated, twice now in the morning he has come to me while I'm crouching over something and explored the possibilities of mounting me from the back. Needless to say, he quickly remembers I am not a hen and in case he has any doubts, I surely tell him as much in rapid fire English.  (Hens only now how to coo and cackle, though I do think that Scotch's repertoire is somewhat broader.)

We've been reading a lot about rooster issues (you gotta do that if you really care about your animals) and many "experts" suggest asserting your humanness when roosters misbehave by either feeding them or holding them. Apparently hens don't do either and so you reinforce your difference. So there I was, at 5:20 by now, walking around with Oreo in my arms. It is amazing that I managed to get any sleep after that, but I did. A little.

After a beautiful breakfast...






...there was outdoor work to attack, as the list of essential tasks grew during the weekend of the young couple's visit. Paths to build, front yard limbs to cut down so vans with food and equipment could come through, a new place to weed and tend to as we decided on a different positioning of the portable toilets. No, the farmhouse one toilet wont do for such a crowd and besides, it's up steep stairs -- not so easy for the very old and very young. [And if you're going to ask me how we intend to handle that when we're too old to climb those stairs, I'll tell you that I never plan that far in advance. Lightening could strike tomorrow and the worry would have been pointless.]







It grew warm. Very warm, but I persevered even as Ed took many breaks for many naps. But by late afternoon, I had had enough and we did something that we haven't done for such a long time: we went to Paul's cafe for a snack (the usual for Ed -- a pickle, as it is the only place within spittin' distance that has good pickles according to him) and then we took our old rackets and our flat tennis balls to our secret public tennis court amidst the pines and we had a very very nice few minutes showing off how rusty our game has become.

Finally, a late evening on the porch. There, I needn't even say it -- it's so obvious: it was a glorious day and a sublime evening. We specialize in both, here at the farmette, nestled in the state of Wisconsin.

Sunday

An unusual day in that it follows no routines, no predictable patterns.

I take that back. At 5, Isis is meowing for food and release and I hear the rooster crowing. It's drizzly wet outside, so going out is hurried. I pause only to photograph the ripening strawberries. Here they are, moments before a chipmunk comes and eats the whole lot of red ones.





The netting we have thrown over the berries does not deter chipmunks. What's the next strategy to get a crop out of our strawberry field? Still workin' on it.

Put aside the strawberries for now. Face the farmhouse. Appreciate the varous clumps of peonies coming into their own.






Thinking back, it was a restless night for me -- too many small details to think through and work out. But though the wedding is in some fashion beginning to occupy so many of my waking hours, I have to say that it is by my choice. After all, I am not cooking anything that weekend. The young couple has hired the Underground Food Collective to cater a simple Midwestern meal. All details surrounding food and drink and, too, the ceremony itself, have been taken care of by the soon to be marrieds. I merely provide the venue.

But there is a huge amount of *venue* out there!

This morning, we gathered on the porch for breakfast. Frittata with this week's eggs, then too, pancakes with our own rhubarb compote, and home made granola.


'


Oh, but I love having my daughters  here! Including this one who has to head back to Minneapolis this afternoon.





And shortly after the meal, the skies cleared and as the couple went over the various staging details with those who will be running the show on that day (less than two weeks now!), I sat back and thought more about all that was still before us.

When they left, the faremtte became eerily quiet. No voices, no sounds, no questions thrown out, no answers scribbled, recorded, forgotten.

Ed and I finish chipping the raspberries and I sit down to make my final final list and then I put it all aside and concentrated on eating a chocolate fudgsicle, defiantly avoiding the plunge back into outdoor work. For a while.

And then we plunge again. We weed according to the new guidelines (the young couple's input has caused us to reconfigure some of the paths and passageways) until we can weed and plunge no more. (Even the chickens are exhausted with our efforts.)






I wince at their clawing and scratching, but Ed reminded me that the beds look fine and we will survive their antics! We will!





Supper? Well, it's probably the worst meal that I ever "cooked" for Ed and myself: reheated egg fritata and reheated last night's pizza. Yum.

Saturday

You could fire off a long list of things you get unused to when you retire.

Obviously getting up very early would be on that list, though if retirement means chickens, then getting up very early simply gets replaced with getting up very very early. Today's sunrise was almost worth it though.





In fact, yes, it was worth it.






Everything about color and tone in that moment of dawn's early light is nearly perfect.











[We pause for an interruption of regular blogging: Martha the groundhog has just crossed the sheep shed path on her way to sample the flower garden.]






A rushed breakfast would be on the list (of things you get unused to), except on days you have packed too much into one morning. It may be beautiful, but leisurely? No, not today. Not for me anyway.






If you're retired, it seems that you also get unused to being on time. You'd think it would be the opposite, no? You have time! That is your retirement gift, worth the income drop, worth the status loss -- you have time! So why the constant lateness? Maybe it's that not keeping to a schedule makes you pokey. You smell too many roses along the way.

Just one more then, okay? Being retired should make you calm. Unruffled, unphased by the discourteous nature of grumpy people you pass on the path of life. Quite the opposite! As I am pulling up to a gas pump on Rosie, the car before moves so slowly that I have to wiggle Rosie's front half a little, just to maintain balance. That, for some reason, did not sit well with a driver coming from the pump. He yelled through the open window -- learn how to drive!

Normally one ought to ignore the rudeness of others. Not me. I did what I have never done to any stranger in my life -- stuck out a very impolite finger at him. I mean, asking for a fist fight or worse, isn't it? It's as if I had to make the statement -- dont you go around belittling grannies who cross your path, you jerk!


So in the second half of the first year of my retirement, I have a new list -- of things to do better: be on time! keep your hands to your side when drivers express rage! Et cetera.


In other news -- it was a pretty day today. A little still, predicting the storms that surely would come, but pretty nonetheless. I spent some time at the market with my girls...






...and then we put in a great many hours discussing the details of the wedding of my youngest. Believe me, when you are hosting some 150 out of towners for festivities (or at least a portion of the festivities) at the farmette, there is a lot to discuss.

This girl is getting married. True.






But hey, it is a whole two weeks from now. In the meantime, there's pizza to be eaten, stories to be told...





...a Saturday to savor.

food sources

Since I was young, I've cared about my food sources. My grandparents cared, too and I suppose they passed this on to us. My whole family -- mother, sister, nephews, daughters -- they all care. Sure, with different emphases and sensitivities, but we all pay attention to how food is cultivated and consumed. You know that line about kids these days not knowing that the supermarket cellophane covered drumsticks actually come from a chicken that once had feathers and a personality? It doesn't apply to me. My grandma axed live chickens for Sunday lunch and I helped pluck feathers out of the barely dead animal. I know what's what.

But I have my lapses. Sometimes, when I'm not thinking, I can do something that shows just how removed we really are from having an ingrained understanding of where food comes from.

Take this morning, for instance. Oh, I'm fully aware of chickens alright! Up at 5:30 and even that is late for them. Clean coop, make sure there's water and only then do I stumble back to the farmhouse, just as the sun breaks through the clouds at the horizon.






Breakfast. A little rushed, but still good, on the porch, on a sunny and warm Friday morning.




                                                               

Ed goes off for his round of techie meetings and I'm about to go off to pick up groceries for the week and as I take stock of what's in the fridge, I shout out to him -- you know, there's not enough left over kohlrabi soup for even a small lunch portion. I should give it to the chickens.  

I throw down the last bit of soup into a plastic container and watch them enjoy a rather tasty mid-morning snack.





And then I go off to do my shopping and in ticking off in my mind things that I need to restock the pantry, I remember something: at the last minute, I had decided to use chicken stock for the kohlrabi soup. Damn! Yes, it had plenty of vegetables, but it wasn't really vegetarian. Oh, sure, it was greatly diluted and boiled and the whole thing was not much different than giving a piece of cake (made with eggs!) to a hen, but still, I feel duped by my own absentmindedness, rooted in that same kind of thinking that leads you to forget that a box of beef or chicken broth actually has a source.


In other news -- it is plenty warm today. Still, garden work is pleasant and no longer rushed. The basics are in place (and will remain in place if only the hens would quit digging up dirt around my flowers).





And I even have enough time to do a tornado clean up job at the farmhouse (my little one and her soon to be husband -- in two weeks! -- are coming to town for the weekend) and to take a walk with my older girl all around one of Madison's lesser lakes.

Toward evening one of our many secret sources of free wood chips came by with a truckload of freshly chipped pines and cedars and so after supper we were out again, throwing pitchforkful after pitchforkful of chips around one of the old raspberry islands until I could throw no more.


We end the day on the porch.






There is no better ending than this -- whether we are reading or writing or doing absolutely nothing at all except watching the bats swoop down. It's quiet now. Around midnight the coyotes will howl and at four, Oreo will begin his daylong song. But in the hours just after dusk, sounds are muted. As if far away. Receding as the day recedes, colors blending into one shadow of lushness, until tomorrow, when each individual sweet plant will impress me all over again.

delivered

The promise of a sunny and mild day -- delivered. And the midge population is starting to move on. Thrilling news for the chickens. And for me.

[In answer to a commenter's question -- the chicken's job description does include eating pesky bugs. I attribute to them the remarkable truth that this year, unlike elsewhere in the county, we have had no ticks. But catching things that fly -- that's tricky business. They try. Rarely do they succeed.]


We wake to a foggy morning.






It's the kind of mist you love: secretive, mysterious, but at the same time adding a softness to the landscape -- it's all very lovely, especially when you know that the sun will lift it soon...





...to reveal something special.


And indeed, by breakfast time, it is a sunny day.






We have yet another opportunity to make progress in the yard. As if we still need to make progress! In years past, we would be off off and away by now for our month long vacation. I would never finish all that needed to be done and we would not witness the emergence of summer. Not at the farmette, not in Wisconsin. This year, is, of course different. Outdoor work is never really finished, but the seasonal checklist is only so long and I have crossed off most of the items on it. In the next week, I'll have attended to every corner, every hanging limb, every raspberry cane, every pea shoot, every flower that made it through our hard winter and those that were added just this year. The irony is that yet again I wont sit back to revel in its completion. Leaving at the end of June will mean that yet again I will miss that moment of magic when the garden leaps into the abundance of summer.

I was thinking of this as we inspected the vegetable plantings in the morning.





The peas are starting to grow, the corn is doing well, the tomatoes are terrific. Will the harvest wait for my return in mid July or will Ed reap the first benefits of our planting efforts?

The fields to the north of us are fully green now. It's hard to watch all the activity and know that farmer Lee, who for many years planted just to the south of us isn't here this year.






We go to our local farmer's market in the late afternoon and again I miss seeing her at the table she occupied in the past. Still, we have our vendor friends and they are a comforting presence. In addition to the greens, Ed buys his cheese curds, I pick up a baguette.

And here's a surprise! The baguette from the French bakers is a universal hit at home! It is the only food I can think of that our whole clan -- Ed and I, and Isis the cat, and all four chickens absolutely adore!






The hens throw themselves at every crumb and the typically shy Scotch is at the head of the pack. Really Scotch? You're all about the baguette now?





With the retreat of the midges, the chickens are making up for lost time. That means, too, that they dig and scratch with a vengeance. You'll see me running to redirect them away from the large flower bed many times today. I have to remind myself that they don't really destroy the plants. But at the moment of planting, every gardener is terribly invested in all the emerging growth and every damaged leaf is a blow to one's sense of order and propriety.


Supper is a typical post market spring meal. Asparagus, spinach mixed into the salad, oyster mushrooms and our chicks' eggs with chives.

evolving

If your views change, does that make you flexible or uncommitted?

I would pick flexible (at least I think I would; I may change my mind on this).



peony at dawn


Not so long ago, I couldn't fathom why, here in buggy Madison, we do not consider following the practices of Virginia Beach: they spray and kill adult mosquito populations on a regular basis. In the weeks when mosquitoes at the farmette are dense, I would think that Virginia Beach got it right.



peony in the afternoon


I changed my mind when I started skimming the literature on fogging against mosquitoes. If you read the labels of the pesticides used, the warnings are enough to send you indoors and throw up your arms in despair.

But then I changed my mind again. It's not that I favor Virginia Beach's approach necessarily, but further readings tell me that there are foggings you can do occasionally, oh, say once or twice a season, that are not nearly as damaging as they likely were in the past.



peony in the evening


I mention this not only because we are awaiting the season of mosquito activity here, but also because it really gives you pause about strong convictions. If reading more literature changes your mind and if reading even more literature changes it again, what room is there for strong convictions anyway?
Maybe we can just say that our views are evolving. Rapidfire, or slowly, over a lifetime -- evolving. I can live with that (until the day when I cannot).


Right now, midges, not mosquitoes are the talk of the town here, at the farmette.  It is their week of annoying the daylights out of me and not only me. The chickens hate them. Oreo positively despises their buzz and pogo-sticks his way to the garage, to hide underneath the sailboat Ed keeps there (it's a very tiny sailboat). All day long, he hides.



Oreo in the morning: tentative




Oreo in the afternoon: are you okay, buddy?



Other news? Well, there is breakfast. Porch. Despite the rain outside.






And, as I said, the chickens mostly look for places to hide today: from the rain and from the pesky, tiny flies.






By evening, the rain passes, the clouds part and the farmette looks its springtime best.






Midges and evolution of thoughts notwithstanding.











Early night. Because Ed is out riding his bike with his regulars, I'm the one who is locking up the coop. I step out into the most perfect moment. It's cooling down a bit and yet it feels deliciously summer-like. The midges have retired (who knew that they only like daylight), the mosquitoes haven't emerged yet. It's absolutely still.


 


I walk the farmette land -- from coop to the veggie garden (it's splendid this year --  vibrant and on schedule), to the great big willow that joins various parts of the property and holds it as her own.





Of this I am certain: nights this beautiful come maybe a handful of times each year. And you can think that's not good enough. Or you can not think much of anything at all. You take in a deep June breath of air, let it out, look up, look out, walk home.

Tuesday

For the outdoor months (perhaps for all months?) the weather always provides the context. If I wake up to a clear sky and a golden sunrise -- it matters.

By the way, in the years we hiked around Sorede (south of France), Ed and I would marvel at how pretty their roadside weeds can be. Somewhat frustrated with our quack grass and bramblers and densely spreading vines, we'd say -- damn. Even their weeds are beautiful. But I do think we have one weed that absolutely shines, even if it is rather aggressive and so we neither encourage it nor grow it. When it pops up to the side of the property, however, it's a pretty sight. Quite fragrant too. Here it is, at sunrise -- Dame's Rocket:





(It's a shame that,  good stewards that we try to be, we'll have to remove the flowers to prevent their spread. They can decimate a forest of native flowers in no time, they are that fast spreading.)

Everything proceeds with the mindset of a sunny day. For the cheepers as well, I think.





And, of course, the garden looks that much lovelier when the sun sends its first gentle warmth our way. Consider, for example,  our siberian (butter and cream indeed!) iris, against a lovely yellow false indigo plant called "Carolina Moonlight."





We had our usual breakfast, though we've switched out seats to the striped sling back chairs. A degree of laziness has been added to the meal. Appropriate to a summer morning. And it does feel like summer right now.










Later in the morning, a friend stops by -- someone whom I hadn't seen for... what, maybe a dozen years? Since class time in Law School. But I surely know her well, I think (and maybe you do too, from her blog, which I think she'll revive soon...). Blogs and emails are wonderful in that way. I never met her sons though (they all live in Denmark right now and are only fleetingly here) and it was a joy to finally finish the image construction that takes place when you see someone for the first time after knowing them well, but only through the words and images of, say, their parent.





We kept our distance from Oreo, though I think he is learning that not all little boys will step on his foot and shatter it to smithereens. In any case, the hens accepted them as part of their world and the morning unfolded in a very lovely way.






Later, I returned to digging, dividing, fixing, mixing, removing, moving -- you get the picture. Apply all the above to plants and you have before you my full day.