Saturday

Thinking back, I guess I have to admit that I didn't always understand the American parental big picture as my girls were growing up. You'd think I would -- I've lived in this country for a long time, I haven't any language issues, I even went to most of grade school here. But when you yourself haven't lived the entirety of what I would call an American life, you sometimes do not realize the importance of some of the little things. As you're busy playing Polish folk songs during your Sunday cleaning, other moms may be doing something else -- for instance, just a random example -- putting together care packages for their kids at camp.

When my first girl went to camp, I was told that bunk-mates routinely get boxes of goodies to share from home. My reaction was -- well that's curious! first they send off their kids for months away from family, then they send packages of sweets to sweeten the separation!

When my second girl went to camp, I realized that I should have participated in this ritual. It's what you do: you put together a package of treat. But what do I put inside? It wasn't going to be Skittles and gummy bears. And so I baked my daughter's favorite cake and spent a fortune shipping it off to Michigan.

I think it arrived more or less intact.

I was reminded of this today because my littlest one and her husband are driving down today to visit with little Snowdrop and her family (which includes grandma!). Now is the time to bake for her one of her favorites -- Maida Heatter's black and white bundt cake (a defining feature is that it's more black than white), the same recipe that produced the cake that traveled to Michigan nearly 20 years ago.





It will be part of tomorrow's brunch.

Let me go back a bit. To the morning meal:






And to my visit with the cheepers. The temperatures are climbing today and they sense that upward direction because lo! They are on the move!






Well, at least my two bold ones -- Butter and Scotch. I feed them the rest of the corn bread and tell them not to get too heady about the weather. We are only at the beginning of February!


And then it's off to Snowdrop's place where we all unite, waking up the littlest one...






... so that she can visit with her aunt. Oh, you're here aunt! I'm so surprised and happy to see you! 








... you too, my Minnesota Uncle!






It's a long drive from up north. Little Snowdrop feels vicariously tired!






As it's a special occasion, we open a toy from little Snowdrop's Buffalo grandparents and we are all very impressed with the melodies the little babe can produce (with the help of very bouncy feet and batteries)!






We eat Chinese take out...






...and of course, there are plenty of arms to hold little Snowdrop. And little Snowdrop takes full advantage of that.






The love pours from all corners of the room ...and beyond.

Friday

What a curious day! Do you have them? Days that are filled with the great, the banal, the disappointing, the unavoidable, the dreary, the sublime -- but when you sit down to write about it, you think -- well now, it all sounds rather ordinary, doesn't it?

But it's not ordinary at all! Or rather, it's grand that at the end of the day I can sit back and say -- hey, my life is as good as it was at the start of the day and perhaps maybe just a tiny bit richer. 

Before I fill this page with details that probably will make no great impression on you, let me alert you to something that should make an impression: it's a film I watched early in in the morning. It's a documentary short, but it runs close to 25 minutes, so don't click and expect something the length of a tweet. The film is in Polish, but with English subtitles. It is nominated for an Oscar (category: documentary short subject; you might be interested to know that TWO of the five films in this Oscar category are Polish -- the other, "Joanna," is about the beautiful blog of a young woman/wife/mother who is in her last months of life and it is also stunning and I think likely to trump in this category).

The film I'm posting here is unforgettable. It is so deeply moving and so well done (in my opinion), that I may have posted a link to it even if it wasn't Polish. It's called "Our Curse" and it's made by a young couple about their first months with their child -- a boy born with a significant breathing disorder. But honestly, even if you are not particularly fascinated with the topic, watch it for its greater theme. I wont tell you what that is. You'll want to draw your own conclusions.




And now to the threads of my day.

Breakfast. Let's start there. It is predictable, satisfying and gentle. Yay breakfast.






And let's include the cheepers. It's a bit warmer today -- in the twenties and so again they are tempted by the outside world. I'm there, with treats! Such a simple thing: it's cold, but partly sunny, they're wistful, I reach out with cornbread, they are satisfied.






The clouds come and go all day and yet it feels as if the sun is always with us.






Next, I book a spring flight to San Francisco. These days, the entire enterprise of finding good, inexpensive connections on the best possible days that are satisfactory to all concerned is no small task. It takes forever!

As does my continued search for a replacement car. The one in Green Bay was too good a deal. I put off going for it until Monday. Ed said that was a mistake. He was right. The car sold.

Two mammoth tasks follow: weekly grocery shopping and farmhouse cleaning. I should never do them back to back. They take too big a chunk out of the day and they leave me with the feeling you would get from watching too much TV: where did the hours disappear???

I've saved the best for last. Because my daughter is, today, celebrating an enormous professional accomplishment, I agree to stay with little Snowdrop all evening long until a very, very late hour. Normally I'm good for baby sitting until 10, at the latest. You know how it is, once you are retirement age -- you get sleepy earlier every year. But tonight is special for the young couple and I want them to indulge themselves in all forms of celebration and so I pump myself with many macchiatos and I welcome this darling little girl to the farmhouse. Ed is unsure if he had a tiny cold the last day or so and so we decided he should use this evening to stay away from the precious one and work on his projects in the sheep shed. And so it's just me and little Snowdrop. And Isie the cat, who disappears upstairs when Snowdrop utters her first baby sound.




(with lily the rabbit)


I'll post now. The evening's young, but we have a lot to explore!



(with dancing mousie)

Thursday

Can a day be green and blue in February? In Wisconsin?

We almost drove to Green Bay, very early today. I found a blue car there that I liked and I made a deal over the phone -- good price, great make, only seven years old. Green Bay, blue car!

But at the last minute, I changed my mind. Too hurried a drive (2.25 hours each way), too much compressed into one morning -- so we did not go.

But I can carry the color theme in a different direction: Ed's a little blue about the loss of the stray cat. The vet said she was fading rapidly and yet it does feel like we hastened her death by taking her to the clinic. Yes, it was the right thing to do, but it was also a sad outcome for her and for us.


On the upside, the sun is out, the skies are a beautiful blue color and that's enough to put anyone in a better mood.






We eat breakfast in the front room, just because the colors of the nursery furniture and toys create, for me at least, a cheerful aura for a morning meal. Too, we get the late morning sun rays.






We both tend to the cheepers today -- I coax them out for some cornbread while Ed cleans the coop (hey, he has the arms for it! I can't reach the corners!).






And I take on the glass porch roof once more: the snow had blown into huge hills and valleys on top and though we don't think there is much danger of it crashing the roof, still, it is northern exposure and if I don't shovel it off, it will take forever to melt.


I hurry with these and various sundry chores so that I can be on time for my visit with little Snowdrop, whose hair, freshly washed, looks like a big mohawk...






... and who happens to be dressed in green and blue today!





Oh happy girl! Keep that curious gaze out onto the world! On this one month celebration of your life, know that you are so loved by so many!

the vulnerable

We are bracing for another Arctic blast tonight.


 



May it be the last one. I think the cheepers should be alright. They have learned to band together in true "we few, we happy few" fashion, emerging victorious from each bout of severe weather with nary a feather out of place. (Well, except for the two molters that have many feathers out of place; we cannot undo the forces of nature.)

To improve their chances, I did what a chicken loving internet writer suggested -- I baked that cornbread and handed over a big chunk of it to them. They were delighted!






Other animals are having a tougher time of it right now. This morning, Ed found a very young cat in the barn. We've seen strays before (remember Cammie? She came, stayed, then disappeared forever), but this kitty seemed different: stuck in the cold weather, probably weakened, somewhat traumatized. Ed took her in and tried to feed her...





...but she really needed a vet. She seemed terribly feeble. He speculated whether Isie boy would mind if she stayed here and again I told him that I thought he would mind. So off the puffy girl went -- the hope being that the vet could help her and that eventually, her seemingly sweet disposition would win her a home somewhere.

[Update: she does not survive. The vet finds shock, infection, significant trauma. Sigh.]

Our breakfast, which comes even before the trip to the vet, is a touch somber. It's tough to have abandoned cats appear at the farmette. Where do they come from? Who let's them go?






The sun comes out, though only for a little while.






In the afternoon, I play for a bit with little Snowdrop. She is one day short of a month today and though of course she seems to us robust and solid compared to the week after birth, still, she is so young! So in need of help!

I could just show you her dimple again -- clearly displayed in a moment of sleepy contentment...






Or her curious gaze in her wakeful hour.






But maybe I should end with her more vulnerable moment. She has those too. We all do.

Tuesday

Because it's Tuesday and an especially crowded Tuesday for the young parents, little Snowdrop will be spending the afternoon at the farmhouse.

That means everything else for me has to be plugged into the hours of the morning. And so I'm the one volunteering to open up the coop. It's a motivator to get me up and moving.

Still, I stall for a bit. It's too cold for the cheepers to come out of their huddle. As I look out at the very gentle sunrise -- the kind where there is just a faint wisp of haze, giving us a cornflower sky...






... I see that we have visitors at the farmette. I know they hope for young fruit tree bark. No luck, my deers! We finally protected the trees from your assault! And indeed, the deer move on...












Breakfast. A jubilant meal. I don't know why we are especially spirited today, but we are.






I tell Ed that if we're to ski, it has to be in the morning. And that's fortuitous, because we have that gentle sky now. The afternoon is to bring more snow.

Very quickly, after our morning meal, we head out.

The trails aren't groomed yet, but there are tracks now that we can follow and, too, we're back in the swing of things. Yesterday it took us 1.5 hours to do our park loop. Today we did it in 45 minutes.



(at crossroads)


And just before noon, little Snowdrop arrives! She's sleepy at first and so I am content just watching her and letting Ed have a swig at keeping her in her restful state...






... but in no time she is ready to be entertained. We explore the world of bunny rabbits and penguins.












(Is that a dimple, or what?!)






And she is such a good little Snowdrop, that I even have time to bake another cornbread. (The last one was to be shared with the cheepers, but Ed whittled away at it enough for me to feel the need to make a second -- this one with fresh corn and kefir.)






Little Snowdrop enjoys the fragrance of baking at the farmhouse.


The snow comes as promised...






I put on Raffi's Douglas Mountain. A children's record that I had played some thirty years ago. Snows are a-falling on Douglas Mountain, Snows are a-falling so deep, Snows are a-falling on Douglas Mountain, Putting the bears to sleep.






... and little Snowdrop and I dance and dance.

Monday

The day after the storm. Blue skies, calm winds. Cold, but beautiful!


















But we're in no hurry to get going. It's a long, slow climb out of the single digits out there and neither the cheepers nor the two of us (make that three -- Isie boy is right by our side) are anxious to be out and about. The blizzard had gusted snow into the barn and even after we swept a good bit of it out, the cheepers were greatly disappointed to see their sacred turf suddenly dusted with the horrid white stuff.



(what's this?? Yuk!)




(we'll just stay inside the coop... can you serve us your cornbread in here?)



Eventually there is breakfast.






And inevitably there is the shoveling. And by late morning there is that great desire to be out in the snow and sun. Even the cheepers consider (albeit briefly) stepping out into the world.


 



For us -- it is our first skiing of the season!





The trails in our county park aren't groomed yet and so it's slow going. We work up a sweat just moving across the deep snowbanks. Off goes the hat!






But it is truly magnificent to be skiing again! I remember why, in fact, I do not mind winter in Wisconsin.






In the late afternoon, I visit my daughter and little Snowdrop just as she announces her readiness to eat.






And here's a real treat for me: in the evening, the young parents bring her over to the farmhouse, so that they can finally grab that meal, just the two of them -- postponed from yesterday, due to the blizzard.



(Ed, with a cookie and with Snowdrop)








Little Snowdrop was magnificent!


 


Ed? He fell asleep on the couch to the sound of the wind up lullabies I played for the littlest one.