take out

We wake up to a thin coating of snow. It's odd how everything changes with that half inch cover. The brown colors no longer dominate. We are a landscape of dusty white, with the sheep shed adding that needed splash of red.






The cheeper habits change as well. Even though it's nearly 30F, they refuse to leave the barn. Ed brushes away some of the snow at the entrance but it's not good enough for them. They hate the feel of snow and the confusing absence of visual texture.






We eat breakfast by the front room window. The pines just outside always look their best after a snow fall. Winter no longer sags your spirits.






And still, even this light snow cover comes at a price: the roads are slick. You have to be vigilant! And we do take the car out for a quick trip -- to the library (a book is due!), to the forest (for a walk in the Arboretum)...















...and to our closest Indian Restaurant, where we pick up Shrimp Saag for dinner. Hot Saag on a cold day. It's fitting. Winter as is should be.

Ocean 11

January, my month of records and milestones! It ushers in the first day of this year (January 1, 2015). It gave us the coldest day of the century (January 19, 1985). And the day my youngest girl was born (January 19, 1985). And the start of my retirement (January 12, 2014). And the birth of my first grandchild (expected: January 9, 2015). And the day I began writing Ocean (January 2, 2004).

That puts my daily blogging at eleven years today, which isn't a round number or a memorable milestone and so I'll not spend time reminiscing about how it once was (to blog with spotty internet), or how it is now (to blog, always with camera at the side). But if I've learned anything from being here with a story every day it's that there is a story to be told out there, every day.

And that's a good thing to remember.


In other news -- well, if there was a theme to this day, I'd suggest that it was that of rescue. Let me explain.

As is his new habit, Ed worked on his project late into the night. Tired and drowsy, he came back to the farmhouse and fixed himself a snack. Instantly Isie boy was at his side, begging. The cat really likes freshly cooked chicken and he can smell that meat the minute the fridge door is cracked open. Normally, we try to break up food for him into really small pieces -- the cat is old, his teeth can't be good. But this time, tiredness must have interfered because when Ed broke off some chicken bits (leftover from making chicken soup), he included in the dish a rather large piece. With a bone in it. A minute later, Isie is gasping for air. The bone has wedged in his throat.

Nina! Come help!

By the time I fully understand that I am not dreaming and run down to what I think surely must involve blood, gore and maybe broken glass, the drama is over: Ed had pried open the cat's mouth, gotten lots of nice cat bites for his efforts and reached down the throat to remove the offending bone. I'm guessing Isie has a sore throat today, but he seems otherwise fully recovered. Ed's all bandaged up and I have even stopped asking -- are you sure you're all right?

The night time drama had produced a nice mess in the kitchen and so I spend the next hour washing the floor, the table, the counter and every conceivable surface.

By which time it is nearly dawn.






I surely am ready for some calm.

A calm breakfast, for example.






A calm morning encounter in the brilliant sunshine with the cheepers. (Here's Butter, thanking me for the bread morsel.)






And in the afternoon, I suggest a calm walk along our local cross country ski trail. There is no snow and so we haven't skied at all this winter, but for once the air is perfect for a hike. The temperatures are hovering just a handful of degrees below freezing, the sun makes an occasional appearance. We're in for some bitter cold next week so yes, today is the day to head out.







The trail takes us to Lake Waubesa. Despite the absence of snow, the waters of the lake appear frozen. Are they? Has it been that cold for that long? Perhaps the layer of ice is thin still. No, we see ice fishers. The ice is so clear!





Should we test it? I say this with hesitation. There are cracks in the ice. But maybe that's normal? Surely the ice fishers, some with trucks and huts, know when it's safe to venture out. If we stay close to them, we should be okay.
At the very least, they'll be there for the rescue! -- Ed says reassuringly.





We walk toward them.  As we get closer to a small group admiring a caught fish, he hear a loud crack underneath. Instinctively I turn toward the shore. The ice fishers laugh. It's safe, one says. It's the noise of the ice expanding.

Well okay, but this comes from people who get a tickle out of sitting on the frozen lake all day. Let's do a selfie and retreat.






Ever so slowly, we head back. Past fishermen, past a skater, past a kid on an ATV and another one hacking away at the ice with an ax...





People find pleasure in the most interesting ways.

Safely on the shore we rejoin the trail, the familiar and beautiful ski trail that now looks barren and rather brown. Never mind, the cheepers hate snow. We are having a winter that suits their fancy!

Evening. It's quiet again. We watch a movie, we eat leftovers. The heat comes on, the water pump hums. It is a good beginning to the new year.

first day of the new year

The water drama ripped through the farmhouse, disrupting everything, testing our patience and resolve. And then, like a speeding train, it passed and left us in a world of quiet again.

You can be sure that New Year's Eve was spent by me clearing and cleaning the debris in its wake. Ed was asleep earlier than our usual early and though he tossed and mumble something about coming down for midnight, truth is I wasn't going to stay awake that late either. A few minutes after midnight a daughter texted asking if I had seen the ball drop in Times Square. That's when I knew we had flipped the page to 2015.

Happy New Year, people! Happy New Year, loved ones, friends, and all the rest of you whose faces I haven't seen and voices I haven't heard -- Happy New Year to you as well!






How ordinary this first day is for us this year! How magnificently fresh and quiet!

Initially, there was that promised sunshine and so we ate our first meal of the year in the sun room which, I think, is a good first step onto a different calendar page.






When the cheepers came a-knockin' I stepped out and at once felt so grateful that we had no more outdoor work for today. Our hands are still raw and cracked from yesterday. I am so happy that we can take or leave the cold air: aside from cheeper care, there is nothing that must be accomplished out there.






Oh, those blissful ordinary hours! I write, I tidy, I trim Ed's beard so that he looks more like baby new year rather than father time...





It is so good to move slowly today! So very good indeed!

Still, today is special and it surely calls for a meal that's a bit out of the ordinary. A Ocean comment exchange gave me the idea that I should make something for supper combining the American in us with the European in me.

I boil a chicken (not our chicken!) for the broth and for the meat  and I make a classic American chicken salad.











And I make a raspberry-creme patisserie tart for dessert.











Funny to make these somewhat retro courses -- both used to be standard fare for my table, slowly to be replaced by other standard fare. In cooking, there is always that great desire to try the new, even as on this new year's day, I go back to the familiar.





We pop a bottle of Cava to bubble away the evening and watch two episodes of Grand Designs on youtube. Happy New Year indeed!

with a bang!

Lyrics, dancing around in my head: five golden rays! four dirty pots, three cold hens, two stubborn people, and a cat with an upset tummy!

Yes, yes, it is the last day of the year and it's freezing outside and we are without water and Isis is rebelling against the uninteresting cat food we are giving him these days.

There you have it -- our day in a nutshell: a heck of a closure to 2014.

But oh, that sunshine! That misleading sunshine, distracting from the fact that it's 2F outside, with a brisk wind giving a real punch to any mortal attempting to work outside.

(The cheepers venture out for their morning treat, but then quickly retreat back to the barn. Why didn't you tell us it was this cold?!)

We eat breakfast. Plenty of clean dishes still, but the stack of grubby ones in the sink is growing. We have a large container of water, but it's not nearly enough to guide us through a regular day.





Ed notes that my voice has a bit of an edge to it. I have to admit he is correct. My plans for the day are in shreds and the farmhouse, instead of being polished and ready for the new year, is a mess.

We talk about places we have lived without running water: I note that my first years of life and many summers thereafter were spent in a village in Poland where my grandparents brought in water by the bucket from a well outside; Ed remembers the months at sea, sailing with limited water supplies and, too, long ago, several seasons spent in a shack in Tennessee without water or electricity -- a self inflicted Thoreau-like existence.

Yes, sure, I see how spoiled I've become: today I want my water. I want a clean house and I want to make a very special dinner -- lobster tails, purchased yesterday at $8 a tail, with potatoes and corn on the side. And I want to bake. And let's face it -- I want to use the bathroom as I see fit, luxuriously indoors, upstairs, with a view toward the gardens and crab apples. Spoiled, I tell you!

But I also want to be a good partner in farmette life and so I tell Ed that we can postpone attempting the fix of the water pump until tomorrow. Thursday's high of 30F seems positively tropical when compared to the single digits we're seeing today. And that wind!

But he knows that deep down, I'm longing for a resolution. Outside, he untwists the wires, finds another problem with a failed connection, drives once again to Pumps and Equipment (quickly! before the world shuts down to celebrate the passing of another year!) while I sit and wonder how it is that bringing water inside can be this complicated.

(While the cheepers watch and shiver. Or, is it the wind that shakes them this way and that?)





And now the new pump, the pipes, the wires -- are all laid out in the sheep shed, ready to be walked over and streamed into the well. As we step outside, the monster pipe suspended between us, Ed hesitates.
Cold? I ask.
No, the wind. 
I see his point: we have to hold that damn thing upright and steady while he bolts it into place and tapes wires to it every half dozen feet. I think about the stack of dirty dishes and the chaos inside. I know Ed's braving the horrible weather because he knows all I can think about is the sink with the dishes and the toilet that no longer flushes.
We can do this tomorrow, I reassure him.
He hesitates again, but only for a moment. Let's do it.


 


Among the most uncomfortable minutes of 2014, I'll surely include holding onto the pump and pipe with frozen hands and a frozen shoulder. Ed's made of hardier stuff: without flinching, he tightens the pipes, tapes the wires and somehow I do not let go of any of it to send the whole thing crashing to the bottom of the well. Sometimes you know that if you mess up, the consequences are just too harsh to contemplate, so you hold on.

And he finishes the outside job just as the last sun streaks disappear and the dusk of a New Year's Eve sets in.







It will be many more hours before we have water again. The wiring in the basement poses additional hurdles -- for no reason other than because Ed is, by this point, exhausted.

But by the time of the evening news, I can wash my hands, my face, my dishes, my worries away. We have water. I make our supper while my guy showers and warms up under the quilt.





2014 surely made its way out with a bang!


Ocean readers -- I know I have no great power to make your next year wonderful, but I do so hope it can be the best that it can be. And that we can help each other make it just a bit more cheerful and kind. Happy, happy 2015!

water

How cold was it today? Well, we never saw more than 14F here, at the farmette (so, at the hottest point we were at -10C).

But, the sun is out and that's very heart warming! So much so that you forget about how cold it really is.

The cheepers forgot. They came all the way to the farmhouse door for their morning treat...






...then buried themselves under the bushes, all tightly meshed in a hump to stave off the cold.

Ed and I eat breakfast in the front room, loving the sunshine, feeling its energy, scheming great plans for the day.






To cross off the ordinary chores and errands, I do the weekly grocery shopping. As Ed helps me lug the bags into the kitchen I point out to him that the water pressure in the kitchen is really low.

"Probably the filter..." he tells me. Out come the tools, the coils, the filter. After a few minutes the pressure is even lower.

Damn.

We're in the basement now. I'm playing my usual clueless assistant role. I turn switches when asked to do so and stare at boxes of wires thinking that maybe one would be frayed and I'll discover it and the problem will be solved.

Ed is gently cursing. A broken water pump at the farmette would be a big deal. A huge deal, in fact.

He takes out the starter, switches the capacitor, cleans the contact points. No luck.

We call Farm&Fleet. They have a new starter. Ed goes down to check one more time if everything else is operational.

It isn't.

"It's not just the starter.  It has to be the pump," he tells me. Shit. 

The pump is, of course, submerged. 50 feet under the ground. In the well. It's heavy. Connected to a pvc pipe.





It takes both of us to pull it out and in the end, it snaps off. Just like that.
"Good thing I had the foresight to connect it to a rope."

One broken pump and snapped pvc later, Ed is on the phone calling Pumps and Equipment. Who even knew that there is a store called Pumps and Equipment?

A bit of luck here: it doesn't close until 4:30 and it is now *only* 3:30. I remind Ed it gets dark early. It is, too, biting cold. The cheepers are still hiding -- they refuse to go back to the barn -- the sun is low, it is just too cold for them.

Was I singing "all is calm, all is bright" not too long ago?

In the middle of the entire operation, the Chicken Mama -- the true owner of our cheeper brood -- stops by to visit with the hens and Oreo. (Yes, Oreo has forgotten her and pecks away at her ankles.) I glance at my watch. Why does the sun go down so fast? Is it a race? Come on, put the brakes on!

Ed is off to pick up a new pump. Well, not so fast. He'd left the ignition on in his car. Battery's dead.

Of course, I can count the ways in which this calamity isn't a true disaster. We have another car -- my trusty red, fender-less Escort. Then, too, Ed can figure out most things that break. And he can fix them (that has its downside: he wont hire help). And the Pumps and Equipment store is open, and it's not their holiday, and it's not our holiday, and I don't have house guests, and my older girl lives 12 minutes away, and she has water. I know all that. But right now it just feels cold and the busted pipe and pump are lying on the frozen ground and we still have to put a new contraption on and work the thing back underground and connect it in some mystical fashion to all the wires dangling at the side.

Hell-kite! (That's straight out of Macbeth and sounds much better than a repetition of the standard shit.)

Ed comes back with various pumps and pipes and starters and all other relevant bits of equipment. It is, by now, dark and so of course, the installation has to be put off until tomorrow.

It will be a night without water. On the upside, the furnace is working magnificently!

catch up

The first thing I did this morning is get up and freeze. I was not prepared for the sudden nip in the air when I went out to set the cheepers free. Jacket for sure next time!





















And then, after a wonderful breakfast...






...I hunkered down to write. I had this story idea several days ago and I did with it what I always do -- I put it down in draft form. It was awful.

Typically, when this happens, I return to it again and again until I'm satisfied that it's not an embarrassment to the human race. You know, in case we implode and some future Martian finds it as an example of the written form.

But this year, Christmas took all my emotions and energy out of writing and into family and fun and so the bad story festered.

Until today. Now it's no longer an embarrassment. I will eventually find a home for it, but at least that future Martian will no longer think that we were weak in our abilities to formulate sentences.


Ed and I had wanted to bowl this afternoon but both of us were so lost in our projects that time came, time went, and eventually time disappeared.

So here I am, touting chicken photos again. Just know they are sweet, sweet chickens. Spoiled to death, sure...





But ever so sweet and earnest.

Sunday

This is it -- the final bit of holiday. And, too, the final set of hours when both young families can come together around a large table and share a meal with us.

As if to emphasize the utter splendidness of this year's long holiday week-end, we wake up to a full monty, in terms of sunshine. You would not be able to paint a more brilliant sun, giving that deep blue to the sky that we love so much on winter days here!

Ed and I are up earlier than the younger set, because of the cheepers...






...and because I have things to do in the kitchen. But before I pull out the knives and whisks, Ed and I sat down to a light breakfast together, just the two of us, to tide us over.  And yes, today we can eat in the sun room! (Most of the heat in this room comes from the sun and throughout the two week period of cloudy skies, we'd had it closed off.)






(The cheepers bask in the sun too...)






Then come the brunch preparations. I like to do a full mise en place (meaning I like to get all ingredients in their final stages of preparation before I start to cook).






I am also a ridiculously orderly cook. I don't like leaving messes around me. Clean up as I go along.

The brunch menu isn't at all elaborate and everything comes from a cookbook that my girl requested for Christmas (Huckleberry): A cauliflower-mushroom-gruyere frittata (thank you, cheepers for the eggs!)






...and Honey Crisp apple flapjacks.
















The farmhouse is at its sunny best and the kitchen table is just the place to linger for a long long time.






Of course, eventually, the Minneapolis couple has to take to the road, but it is a happy send off because we all know that within at most two weeks, they'll be back.

(They are a committed soon-to-be aunt and uncle!)






(To the joy of the expectant couple.)






In the afternoon, I help my older girl and her husband take down their tree. Typically, they keep it up 'til the New Year, but not this year! They want order in their house and we are able to do the full clean up in the light of this brilliant Sunday afternoon.

(Though their cats could not understand why we were removing their very favorite place of rest.)






(Last photo by the tree before it comes down!)






Job done. I drive back to the farmette just as the sun is setting.






Oh, I hope your week was equally full of the pleasures that matter most to you! And if you haven't had enough sunshine this month, may the next few days dawn as brilliantly for you as they did for me today.

(At sunset: )