Thursday

When the sun hides behind the clouds, the landscape looks undecided: green in part, with a dusty tone, but autumnal for sure.






We're to have a frost tomorrow and so anything that's blooming now is having its last hurrah. Oh, day lilies!






It's brisk when I go out to free the cheepers. But beautiful, too. The soy is not yet harvested. The sky is Midwest-magnificent.





We do eat breakfast this early morning, but it's hurried -- so much so that I forget to take that commemorative photo. Ed's sleepy, I'm a bit distracted.

In the middle of the night he and I chatted about girls who don't act like girls. I'd been reading the article in the NYTimes on tomboys, and as I spend time with Snowdrop, I think about the new twists and turns in the gendered world she inhabits. I myself was a tomboy -- loving my skateboard, wanting badly a pair of PF flyers so I could leap further and faster than those around me, feeling inclined to discuss politics loudly at recess, gravitating toward athleticism rather than what was then regarded as feminine.

I loved breaking "girlie" expectations and felt tough and strong in my roamings around New York City, or later -- the rural landscape of Poland.

The problem was that I also loved boys and being tough and strong seemed then not so desirable to, say, a high school or college guy. (That changes over time, of course, as some men like strong women, but surely I felt that in chasing boys, I had to tone down the strength and develop something akin to demureness. I was convinced that boys liked demureness.)

I think about this as I watch Snowdrop take on her own robust challenges. Who knows how she'll approach gender expectations. (They don't call girls who violate them tomboys anymore -- they're "gender non-conformists," but honestly -- that just doesn't sound very empowering to me and in any case, we are more accepting of girls who follow differing paths now, so who knows what it even means to be a non-conformist. Too, if you're a gender non-conformist-strong girl who wants to hold hands with boys, I don't know that you'll have an easy time of it, no matter how grounded and confident you are.)

So with this in the back of my head, I give you Snowdrop on this day. Sweetly confident, ferociously curious, strong and tall. Wouldn't it be grand if she always liked herself this way!

After her bath, waiting for breakfast.






Going right for the abacus.






Waiting for our next game.






And finally, a whole series on what I would call "being tempted by the apple."



standing up




sitting down




finally taking to the floor









way overrated!


Later, much later, I am home at the farmette. The wind is strong, the temperatures are falling. I tell Ed not cooking dinner tonight would be very nice. We eat take out Indian. I'm feeling very fortunate.

Wednesday

My granddaughter could easily seek employment as an inspector of the exactness of cleaning services. She crawls around and looks for specs of dust and if she finds something -- say a cat hair or a piece of dry leaf brought in from the outside, she examines it with utmost care.

Perhaps for this reason (and also because we have house guests coming this Friday), I felt compelled to vacuum early in the morning.

This is not a complaint. I regard this day as farmette perfection! Nonetheless, after a beautiful sun awakening...






... where the Gaura looks positively gold-touched...






... and the cheepers seem almost haloed by the morning rays...






... and the robins, oh the robins!






... they disturb the quiet and scream their daily run for crab apples...






... and before we sit down to breakfast...





... I vacuum.

In part because this week Wednesday is Snowdrop, the cleaning inspector, at the farmhouse day!

She is, as always, enthralled by the cheepers, enthralled by the tall grass, the weeping willow, the leaves, twigs, chips -- all of it.






And well she should be. It's a glorious day outside! Blue skies, the color of her eyes!






Such magic! All of it duly noted, smelled, touched...






And in the farmhouse, Snowdrop is dimply thrilled to come across her bearded grandpa Ed.






He's especially gentle and sweet with her today, as if somehow the farmette charm has taken over all of us.






She eats now like a pro...






... plays with stuffies, but also, as of today, with toy trucks and cars...





There is much more that I could photograph on this day -- of Snowdrop in our stroller walk, of her snuggly  moments, her stubborn climb up my treadmill. Of her jumparoo session (I think she'll never outgrow it: I can imagine her at 30, jumping up and down with glorious abandon),  and her evening here, because it isn't until p.j. time that she returns home. But I put away the camera early on. You don't need many photos to illustrate a beautiful day.

Tuesday

As someone said on the radio this morning -- today, for the first time this year, it feels like October!

I agree. I pull on Ed's bulky jacket to let the cheepers out and, returning to the farmhouse, I am exceptionally grateful for the few remaining flowers lining my path to the door -- I know that in a few days, they'll all be gone.






We eat breakfast in the front room. Ed is surprised that this morning I eeked out a small bouquet from the garden. I tell him it's likely to be the last one.






We talk about elements of the week ahead -- it will be a busy one. I see the look on his face -- too much detail, you're throwing too much detail at me! That's okay. He'll retreat to the sheep shed for the remainder of the day where he'll regain his peace.
Just don't forget to be here for the grocery delivery (yes, we need more fruit and I have no time to pick them up)! And you might want to throw some wood shavings into the coop and... 
Too much detail!
I smile and drive off, thinking -- well, juggling detail keeps the mind sharp. I'm keeping us cognitively healthy.


Snowdrop is a super late sleeper this morning. Finally. Up and bathed and ready to eat. She has that anxious look, as in -- are you going to feed me already?






She wears herself down after, practicing everything that's new and difficult.
No, you don't have to hold onto me, grandma... I don't think...







There, see grandma?






Oh, that girl! Sometimes she has me forget that she is just a tad more than nine months old. Consider this photo: doesn't it seem like she is participating in a debate and winning the round?






Snowdrop is only a babe when she is snuggling against you, sucking her thumb in that peculiarly Snowdrop fashion. At other times -- like here, when she is asking Virgil (in my interpretation) whether he is a Halloween cat...





...she seems like she a school aged child.


At the end of the day, my daughter comes back from work and she and I take off. We need a moment to catch up. We grab a drink at Gibs.






Such a good week! Time with both daughters, time with Snowdrop!

Wait, have I neglected Ed? Later, much later, I ask him that.
Shhh! He tells me. I'm listening to the debate.

it's Monday...

This should be a farmhouse day for my granddaughter, but sometimes schedules change and so here I am, back at the farmette, no change there, letting out the cheepers at daybreak...






...and yes, breakfast, a bit rushed because Ed lingers outside too long (he feels the need to console Isie boy, who is wooing us with plaintive requests for our attention).

(The cat is on Ed's shoulder in the photo.)






You're noticing that there are blooms in the garden still? Yes, especially the annuals: a telltale sign that here it is, middle of October and we have not had a frost yet.






And here's breakfast.






I suppose it's predictable, too, that I should have to devote two hours to phone calls with airlines - a complicated spring trip requires careful attention. But then, I put it all aside and rush over to greet the girl!






What's this -- you didn't know she is a Dodgers fan? The young family is all in blue and white and you'll have to ask them about the significance of this baseball game today, because I surely do not know.

Me, I just play with Snowdrop. She acquired a new toy over the weekend.






At her age, she can approach it in many different ways...






Snowdrop seems to have grown even more (in all ways) over the three days I didn't see her, gaining confidence in her explorations. It is a joy to chase her as she gets herself into various pickles then just laughs and laughs as I reach for her with exaggerated effort!

But for the real challenges, she reverts to a more serious countenance.









look grandma, we got pumpkins!


And as she watches me do this, do that, I swear, she is working on perfecting an eye roll. As in "oh grandma, you're so silly!"







What can I say -- grandmas have a right to appear silly!

Minneapolis

UPDATE

How quickly an evening passes when you sit down to that wonderful event called dinner with your daughter and her husband! We're at the  Corner Tableand the food is predictably wonderful. I'm about to plunge my spoon into thick mushroom soup topped with three gougeres. I consider myself to be a super gouger baker (it was my job to whip these up when I put in my Saturdays at the L'Etoile Restaurant ovens. But these meet my strictest requirements -- they are perfect.





As is the evening.


SUNDAY

We all rise early today. The young couple has to run someone over to the airport and I tag along so that we can then proceed to brunch. Not immediately though. It's so early that the brunch place isn't open yet. We use this gift of extra time for a walk along the great Mississippi.






I think about how these are paths that are weekend walk targets for this Minneapolis young couple. I circle a lake, they trail a river...






It is unusually warm. We comment how Fall is cheating us of the crisp autumnal air. But it's not a serious complaint. To be very warm in October in the northern most parts of the Upper Midwest is not a common thing.

Brunch. I remember eating a Sunday morning meal at the Bachelor Farmer some visits back. I loved it then, I love it today, especially (but not only) because it is that last time that we can sit together around a table and I feel as I do in the last minutes of any magnificent trip -- that I must take it all in, all of it, to the last drop, because it is soon to end and though in life, with grown children, you recognize that there will be many endings to fine meals and fine visits, it always feels a tad melancholy, even as I love home and have nothing but good things waiting for me at the end of the long bus ride.



more serious




less serious


We eat and talk about my plans (so many plans! so many!) their plans, their days, my travels. Your children are your best audience and yet I know I mustn't wear out that beautiful attentive listening stance and so I try to recognize the moment when we must leave the table and move on.

But not yet home. My bus doesn't leave until 4 and so we have time. We meander in and out of new stores that have popped up in this up and coming neighborhood of old warehouses and renovated brick buildings.





I buy a coat hanger.

I buy glasses! Remember my dilemma about getting a second pair? Resolved! My girl gives great shopping advice: the frames are cheap and lovely. I'm excited!

And then we return to their downtown apartment with the lovely big window that looks out onto a city park...





And what do I do? Of all things, I have to clear up some issues with airlines for distant trips, but important trips and so I work on that for a few minutes, but not for long, because we have one more walk to take and finally, just a few steps from the bus stop, a taproom to pop into and a goodbye beer to drink together -- hoppy, happy beer, something that is so fitting for this hoppy happy warm day.

Beautiful weekend, you wonderful hosts, you! Thank you. So very much. Sniff.






And now I am on the bus and there are so many students heading back to my home town that there are two buses. I am comfortable, I have my books, magazines, memories.