Tuesday

These last few days of March are so beautiful that expectations run high: what are your plans for us, April? Because, you know, we're kind of spoiled.

I wake up to a clear sky. It seems that overnight, every new growth gained an inch. The chickens are now energetically scratching for bugs (even as they still fight over the bits of corn or bread I give them), though they chase me when they see me go toward the house. Girls on the run!






After a winter of hiding, the bulbs are all pushing through, promising a long and varied flowering season. It all looks rather wonderful out there!

But I do not linger. After an early (and very sunny)  breakfast...






... I'm off to be with Snowdrop.

She, too, has grown by very many leaps. Perhaps her own trip (to visit her grandparents in Buffalo) had expanded her vision of the possibilities because I surely notice a huge change in her. She has always known her own mind, but there is a certain insistence now that I hadn't quite seen before.

I can make an "ooo" sound, grandma -- no problem!






Snowdrop, I need to trim your nails. Perhaps running around with the scissors isn't such a great idea... But you can run with penguin!






You seem so very grownup, little one...






After lunch, we practice letter articulation (her idea)...






... then go for a walk. This is a day to spend outside -- it has to be one of the warmest ones we've had this year.






We do stop at a cafe and for the first time, we sit outside.






As always, what takes place around her is as interesting as the crumb she gets from grandpa Ed's cookie treat.






Me, I'm day dreaming about all the times I'll eat outside in the months to come.

Back at the farmette, I am so happy to see crocuses popping up in various places, including by the path to the farmhouse door.






No time to dawdle thought. Today is the day Ed and I plant the tomatoes (with a few melons and cucumbers thrown in). I didn't quite count the number of seeds planted, but it looks to be at around 130.





From a gardeners perspective, the crucially important (and therefore most wondrous) growing season has officially begun.

such a day

Perhaps this wasn't the warmest of March days. Maybe it didn't start off with that brilliant burst of sunlight. It could be that there have been more radiant beginnings.

But for me, it was plenty grand.

It's Monday and so much of my time is at the farmette. Glancing at my photos, I have to wonder -- is today about grandparenting? About chicken antics? About the garden? Obviously it has a little of everything.

It begins, of course, with chicken care. Here's Scotch (with the other three girls), shaking herself free of night dust...






As I walk back to the farmhouse, I notice that the daffodils are definitely swelling.






The girls chase after me. It's one of the funniest sights, to see them run along the path toward the farmhouse, or, in the alternative, run with their behinds wagging back to the barn.






And now the sun comes out full force and our moods go from very good to very pink and downright grand!






Even though it's still a little cool, Ed and I go out to do some weeding. Working side by side in one of the back flower fields (too neglected last year -- we have quite the digging to do!), we are radiant. This is the essence of pleasure for us -- to improve something here at the farmette, digging, uprooting, clipping, heaving -- it's all important and as the contours of a better landscape take shape, we feel immensely satisfied.


Snowdrop comes over in the late morning and she is a whirl of energy as she rediscovers her play areas.






Ed shares an orange slice with her. She is delighted with her acquisition.






She looks outside then and spots the chickens and now her attention is focused only on them. I take her out in her little red wagon and here's a change: she likes the ride just fine! And of course, she loves watching the hens eat the scraps of bread we throw at them.






I pull her toward the barn and of course, the cheepers, not wanting to be left out, run behind us. A delightful little scene!






Is the girl happy?

Yes.






And as I wheel her to the mailbox, I notice that by our gravel driveway, the later crocuses have burst into bloom. I am so thrilled to see them!






Snowdrop, get out and smell the air around you!

She does. She does...






In the afternoon, I thought a lot about what it means to be a grandmother. Are you there just for the smiles?






Of course not. Are you there for the excursions that you know will make your grandchild happy? Well, now this is trickier. For the baby sitting grandma (as opposed to the one who shares in childcare in all ways), maybe the answer here is closer to yes. Ed and I are low on pickles -- ones that we can only purchase at our local cafe. I quickly volunteer to pick up some more. I know a coffee shop visit will thrill Snowdrop.

And it does.






In the evening, the weather is so beautiful that I am almost tempted to tell Ed that I would not be cooking tonight but instead -- concentrating on the yard work outside. But, the purchased fish is ready for the pan and so in the end I turn my back on the fine weather. I mean, it's not as if we're nearing the end of the beautiful season outdoors..

Easter Sunday

Poland remains predominantly Catholic. Someone explained to me that even though many these days view themselves as rather more modern in their approach to the practice and even interpretation of religion, they still like to adhere to traditions, particularly if those traditions have social elements that go along with them.

Easter is full of traditions and social elements and so, predictably, Ester is big in Poland. People make a holiday of it. The students (who are my tenants) left to be with their families on Thursday and wont be back until Tuesday and well they may stay away, because nothing much happens around this holiday weekend. Everything shuts down.

Of course, the States aren't so homogeneous, but still, you do get the sense that the country shuts down for Christmas. Not so on Easter.

Take today:

I was up at dawn to let the cheepers out (and it was such a lovely dawn!)...






... Trying to understand if anything had changed in the way the girls coexist these days...






(Ed has his ownview of the whole cheeper dynamic. He'll tell me -- they're hanging out together now just fine. And this is true, but if you look closely, you'll see flighty Henny still proceed with caution when the big girls are there and you'll see Scotch chase any one of the hens if they come near her bread. The details are always more complicated in life, aren't they...)


And after a very skewed breakfast (an orange? you want just an orange for breakfast?? Looks good to me)...





... I notice (as I always do when I come back from a trip) that Ed is hidden somewhere behind billows of white beard and so I trim that, and tidy the farmhouse, and then -- and this is the key point -- I go out to do the week's grocery shopping.

You would not find a grocery store open as usual in Poland on Easter. Perhaps in some cases not even on Saturday beforehand nor the Monday after.

Ed tags along and that is very wonderful, as it's been quite a while since he pushed the cart for me. And, too, back at the farmhouse, he doesn't quite return to his engrossing machining project, but instead he hangs back and we stories around as we pretend to go about our business.

(Occasionally, we are entertained by the cheepers who, realizing that we're in the farmhouse, come trudging to see if I'd be tempted to visit with them. I am tempted and I do go out. With bread. Which starts the whole dynamic of grabbing pushing nipping all over again. I swear, sometimes it's just better to leave them to their worms during the day.)






In the evening, the young family comes over for Easter dinner at the farmhouse.






Her favorites? Well, the asparagus of course (a future vegetarian??) and, too, the berries off of her little dessert tart.






To me, she has changed so much in the last ten days! But, she has retained that happy disposition of hers. Ed throws her over his shoulder-- she grins.






She runs with her BF penguin -- virtually chortling with joy.






Happiness -- so elusive sometimes,  so hard to clamp down and hold firm. Not today, though. Not today.

Paris, one last time

Language -- it's a funny thing. When I speak English one day, French (less perfectly, but still) the next two, then Polish, then French again, I wake up confused. It's not the bed nor the food nor the sights that mess with my sensibilities, it's language. The little bits and pieces of it that you use throughout each day -- the thank yous, the where can I find a good cup of coffee, the would you please move your suitcase so that I can pass?  We are on automatic pilot when we utter them and my pilot is confused.

Last night, however, I was still immersed with the French elements of this week. This was so very apparent when I set out for my final evening meal in Paris.

As if to repeat my previous day's success, I again picked a dinner restaurant in the 7th Arrondissement - this one boasting "only" a 40 minute walk from my hotel. I already knew that I would be adding minutes to that with my various pauses, detours and discoveries along the way, so I gave myself time for them.

It is, of course, my last evening walk in Paris and as I step outside, I am thrilled to see that the skies have mostly cleared.






Mostly.






What, you don't think I give gentlemen their fair share? Fine. Here's a guy whose foot attire is equally interesting.






Back to a few storefronts: this is a cheese store that I have loved for decades. Many many (many!) years ago, I would come here just as it opened in the morning, buy some cheeses and pack them into my suitcase for that day's flights back to Wisconsin. These years there's plenty of good cheese to be had back home. But I have fond memories of those youthful extravagances. In this photo, you see their shelf of goat cheeses.






Further along, I come across a flower shop with the most fantastic entrance. I'd never seen anything quite like it.






The photo with the cannonballs and the Tower? I've taken it perhaps a dozen times over the decades. And yet, the light seemed so right on this evening that I take it one more time.






And now I am at the restaurant that I picked for my final dinner in Europe. It had to be special.  I chose Le Florimond.






I'm not quite sure what to say about it. It is good. Yes, certainly it is good. Everyone loves it -- you should read the reviews! (Obviously duly noted by the very American clientele here.) And such nice staff. Superb staff.

And yet, for me, something is missing.

I start with the homemade foie gras. Good, very good. Toasted brioche, okay, a little onion confit, yes..






Why doesn't it excite me? Never mind -- let's take the next dish: Brittany monkfish with white asparagus. Good, very good. Nicely presented, too.





But somehow I'm not hooked.

I am, in fact, excited by the dessert: chocolate and a basil citrus sorbet -- oh, that is grand!





I would like to think I am not fussy. The problem is, of course, in the comparison. Yesterday's restaurant -- same price, same neighborhood, same rating -- was simply better.

On the walk back I again pass the vibrant restaurant-bar scene that is Paris. I'm including a photo that is rather more like a canvas that a photo, but I like it for its craziness -- Paris in love, a blurry emotion that touches us all in some fashion in the course of life, even as it seems that we feel less constrained to admit it here.






I go by the river again and this will be my last photo from the evening walk. Paris, determined.






The next morning I'm out of my hotel shortly after six. I face a different kind of light, no less beautiful, I think -- the light of a waking city. (Europe switches to daylight savings time Sunday and so I have a reasonably bright walk to the RER train. So different than when I'm here in the winter!)






So beautiful now in this early spring season!






Majestic and proud.







My final photo is one you'll recognize: play me a song with your flute, play me a parting song...






An airport breakfast...





... and easy flights to Amsterdam, then to Detroit, with the expectation of an easy last leg to Madison. My next post -- from the farmette, of course.