Monday

A day of quiet.






Work? Oh yes, of course. Plants to move, weeds to pull -- yes, I suppose you would call it work. But I don't rush it. I take the time to regard what's before me.






We're reaching a transition now. First came the daffodils. Then we have the the peonies and irises. In another week we'll be moving on. For now, we're reeling in waves of great loveliness.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                          


A late breakfast on the porch...






And again, pockets of work. Water this, support that. The new bloomers? A purple and yellow (german) iris...






... and one purple against a bed of yellow (siberian) irises.






 Oh, the beauty of a late spring garden!

Although it surely feels like summer. It's a warm day -- the kind of day that you know invite the storms the next day. But I can't worry in advance of it all.

(Chicken in purple.)






I'm grilling for the family tonight. Snowdrop hasn't been to the farmhouse for a while. What does she find first? Penguin!






Dinner is a total delight.


 



Snowdrop loves her corn, her chicken brat, her asparagus.






And -- no surprise there -- she just adores the farmette rhubarb cake with whipped cream.






While the adults linger on the porch, I take Snowdrop for a walk. Oh, what a difference three weeks make in a little girl's life! Yes, there are elements of the same. Cheepers!






But there is also the new twist or turn: a love of playing ball, for example.











Perhaps the biggest challenge is keeping her out of the flowers.






But really, is it so important? Yes, for the lessons it teaches about respect for growing things, but then, why do we let her pick dandelions? Besides, Snowdrop is not one to tear into a flower bed. She may pick one bloom -- always to give to a loved one nearby -- and then she'll return to her spirited play.







I hope your Memorial Day was... grand.

Sunday

Picture this: partly cloudy skies, a brisk wind, temperatures hovering in the seventies F (mid twenties C).

Isn't that the perfect set up for a day of outdoor work?

I'm up with the cheepers at 5:30 and though I fully intend to get back in bed and continue the countdown to a good night's sleep, I cannot walk to the coop without noticing something that needs to be done in the yard and once I start working, I keep on going.

Initially, I work by the driveway (such a perfect place to watch a sunrise!).







(It's the week of the heaviest bloom  for my Weigela shrubs -- my variety is aptly named "wine and roses"  and it is just such a stunning border plant!)






I weed the new bed by the front of the farmette as well. It'll be a while before it  fully fills in, but there's a certain dainty loveliness to it even now. Here's one heavy bloomer:






The cheepers follow me, but I tell them that the main road is no place for chickens. If anyone were to drive by, they'd be surprised to see free ranging chickens without the barrier of a fence to keep them away from the traffic, but I never worry that they would run out onto the pavement. Why does a chicken cross the road? That's not a question that worries us at all. I need only say "chepers!" loudly and they'll move to wherever I want them to go.






By late morning I force myself to switch attention to the farmhouse. Sunday is cleaning day and I've been away from that obligation too long.


Finally, a late breakfast. On the porch.






Ed and I talk then about things that really need our attention outside. I'd clipped off large limbs that were blocking light. I'd weeded, I'd cleared the ever-spreading raspberries from paths, I'd transplanted errant cosmos. What next?

Ed has to clear some honeysuckle from the side of the property -- a very unsexy but necessary task. We both need to finish mowing -- he, with the big mower, me with the hand pushed little guy that will work the tight corners.

All the while, I feel so happy with our efforts. I look around and I recognize the imperfections, but I know this to be true: we did all the work ourselves. All the chipping, the pruning, the planting -- on and on -- we gave it our time. It's immensely satisfying. We don't quite keep up with it in the way that I think we should, but we do alright by this land.

(Ed asks: are the peonies supposed to be this big? I say -- no, but this year, they are!)






In the late afternoon I take a walk around the lesser lake with Snowdrop and her mom. Oh, is she full of enthusiasm for this venture!






This love of outdoor walks is surely born of her adventurous spirit.






Today, she insists on holding both our hands even as she is in the stroller. For a brief second, I am reminded of pushing her stroller in Paris as the rains came down and I struggled to keep an umbrella over the both of us. One hand pushing, the other -- holding an umbrella, or today -- her trusting hand.


They say this grand weather will continue. Really? I could ask for nothing more.

Saturday

And now the farmette landscape takes on the radiant colors of youthful glory -- the pinks, the purples, the dainty yellows -- so full of vigor and cockiness! Oh, how I love to see our land transformed in this way. If it can change from the dull brown of March to this, well then there is hope in this world for the best transformations, isn't there?

I'll start with the early morning walk to the coop. There was rain, which is a good thing -- rain and sunshine in good amounts are needed now. My rose, my poor poor rose that keeps on giving blooms every year even though by early summer the beetles will come and her leaves and petals will take on the impurities that nature gives to all living things. Right now, though, it displays its first flower and it is a beauty.






And now look toward the barn -- because this grand flower field is where the peonies are most exuberant, especially when coupled with those explosive irises.






All those weeks of planting, tending, weeding -- they are for these brief moments when it all comes together like this.

(Looking now toward the porch of the farmhouse.)






(With a quick peek at another iris that likes to nestle its blooms deeply inside the green stalks.)






Ed and I have a lovely breakfast on the porch -- honestly, I dream about these mornings in the winter months.






And now I sprint a little, because my daughter and granddaughter are waiting for me so that we can all walk downtown to our main farmers market. I worry that this is a long haul for Snowdrop -- the walk there, the stroll around the square, the walk back. She is a strong and active girl and even on our terribly long walks in Paris, she always had her periods of play in the park.

I needn't have worried. You could say that she had a modest version of Paris today: a croissant at the start of the market stroll (though I swear, she has that expression that says -- is this as good as it gets now?)...






... and then a really superb romp on the grassy lawn of our Capitol.






Yes, it may as well have been the Champ de Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower. Snowdrop is delighted to be set free.






Just rewards for being such a good stroller child.






In the afternoon, Ed and I set to work outside.

We finish planting the tomatoes. The tally: we have 99 strong growers and another 11 little guys that may or may not make it. And we have 10 cucumbers. Ed does finally admit that we may have over planted, but the fact is, the seed packets come with so many seeds and though they're not supposed to all germinate, most of them do. And so now we have tomato craziness out there.

I also do some hand mowing around the tough spots and of course, there is the perpetual weed pulling. Too, I have to undo a chicken mess: I'd planted cosmos seeds and the cheepers scratched the soil and scattered the seeds, so that suddenly I have sprouting cosmos in ridiculous places. Thanks, girls.






But all the work is against a backdrop of this:





It's just simply sublime.


And now comes the tiredness of a good day's work. The breeze is strong, the air is warm, the scents are heavenly.

It has been a brilliant day. 

the epilogue

Several people have suggested that I produce for Snowdrop (if not for myself) a photo book about her adventures in Paris. Oh, do I agree that this is a worthwhile project! When we play and she adapts to being home again, I can see that without words to describe her experiences, she is a child of the today. What matters is what is now. Wouldn't a book of her trip remind her of what mattered then?


Still living in a different time zone, I wake up at 4:30 and begin the project of crafting a book for the little one. With interruption for coop opening at dawn and for a few weeding hours. And of course, for bloom spotting.

Today, let me spotlight the most difficult flower to photograph -- the white iris. It's blooming profusely along the driveway and it is so beautiful that it leaves me speechless.






And here's the wild indigo -- typically the flower pods are blue, but I have a few yellow varieties that are stunning in this transition period of late spring.






And of course there is breakfast. On the porch.





\Now back to the book project.

I have created photo books using blurb.com and I have come back to this site for the current book project. I am impressed how much easier it is to work on this now! I forge ahead, the world be damned.

But not for terribly long because in the late morning I am again with Snowdrop. (Ah, she clutches her lego rocket from Paris...)






We both have changed since the time before travel: the trip was a significant event and she seems months older than when I last played with her in her own home.

She is at once more serious and more playful.






I feel she is still tired from her great adventure and so I guide her toward quieter play...






But in the end, she shows quite a bit of spirit. Ask her to dance and she'll bob up and down with a vengeance!

Toward the end of the day, her mom and I take her for a longer walk around the lesser lake. I feel very tentative about this: will she protest that the walk does not end with a pastry? A bread store? A park?

My worries are preempted by a cloud burst. No, I have no umbrella. Snowdrop gets wet, we get wet. It's as if we needed that -- to rinse off the last bit of post travel displacement before we plunge into a Madison summer.

In the evening, I finish the book for Snowdrop. Sixty five pages of photos and text. Too long! -- you'll say. Maybe. Though in many ways, not long enough.

the calm

In the predawn hours, when your post-travel internal clock makes you think it's time to abandon sleep, I lay in bed thinking endless thoughts about the past ten days.

This is not normal for me. After travel, I put myself in the calm of the farmette again quickly: the day of arrival actually and I focus on what's ahead. But for many many reasons, this Paris trip was perhaps the most intense of all trips I've taken. There were dozens of components to it and as someone mentioned in the comments -- there was the unusual (in a good way) aspect of multi-generational travel. There was, in other words, a lot to reflect on.

It's no secret that I love being with my family. And that I learn a lot about just being human by watching my daughters grow in their own families. Thinking about all this kept me up this morning. And of course, there was the ever fascinating aspect of traveling with Snowdrop to mull over. [Someone mentioned in the comments that they were glad the trip back was easy. I may have given the wrong impression there: none of it was exactly easy. Snowdrop is capable of being as loud as any toddler you've seen in some stages of discombobulation. Her parents had equipped themselves with all known to them resources to help her stay calm and she did, beautifully, in trying circumstances, except for the handful of minutes when she didn't. Too, in Paris itself, Snowdrop was sick for two evenings in a row -- not day times, just evenings -- and we thought one more should lead us to a Parisian doctor. Luckily, the third evening she was fine. And finally, you just never know how much is too much for a young child. Several times I wondered if I had planned something that was unreasonably demanding on her. And still, we all felt that this was an incredibly fine and fun trip for the little girl. That she grew in it -- that she thrived and prospered was a given. I, of course, thrived right there along with her. And not one of us doubts that Snowdrop simply loved Paris!]


When the sun finally cast its first rays onto the fields and dew laden grasses to the east of us (at 5:24 a.m.) and I stepped out to open the coop, I began to feel the calm of the farmette again.






The beauty of the Parisian trip will never be eclipsed, but it can be tucked a little to the side, so that I can take in the loveliness of what I have here right now, which includes a lot of buds bursting with late spring blooms.

Iris and peony -- they're the leaders.










Everything is so incredibly lush that even Ed is somewhat taken aback -- it's as if each plant grew and multiplied overnight.

This is a view I rarely photograph: path looking out from the farmhouse, to the sheep shed and barn. The shade garden (to the right) is so dense! When did that happen??






The annuals -- let me give a grateful nod to them:


 








It's unseasonably warm this week --we're to have a high of 86F (that's 30C) today. In May! A storm passes through in the morning and the air is damp. Still, we eat a very modest breakfast on the porch (I have to buy groceries, we are down to nearly empty cupboards!)...






... and just as the sun begins to reemerge from behind clouds, we set out to plant our tomatoes. They're very strong this season! We don't know why -- the seed type? the right amount of light? the warm days spent outside? We put in 54 this morning.

(Scotch rushes over -- what are you doing without me???)






Planting. Lots of planting, Scotch.






Scotch: Oh, well, that's boring. Let me go eat your coreopsis buds while I wait for you to be done.






We return to the tomatoes after I grocery shop, planting another 36 in the afternoon.

(And oh, the weeding that I do! Oh oh oh!)


I take a break in the late afternoon. For a moment, as I sip my espresso in the new cup from the rue Monsieur le Prince, Paris overwhelms me again.






And again I push it aside. Ed and I ride his motorcycle to the local farmer's market and though I remember the numerous motorcycles Snowdrop would point to in Paris (prompting always the response -- yes, just like the one grandpa Ed rides back home), I also remember how brilliant it is to ride behind Ed on a warm evening, where the pleasure is not in the destination but in the act of getting there.

One last glance at the garden: these images where several blooms are grouped together to form an unusually beautiful whole is really why I garden. Here's one for you:





I left in cool spring weather and I came back to summer. And that's not such a bad thing!


P.S. A million thanks to all who wrote in comments or elsewhere while I was in Paris. It's grand to read your words when I am away (and of course when I return).