Sunday

It's minutes before midnight. Where did the hours go? Surely not to a leisurely breakfast. That's a fifteen minute affair.






To garden work? Nah... It's too warm and too buggy still.






Some part of the day went to a hike. Ed and I returned to our favorite nearby trail (Ice Age, near Brooklyn). Oh, we enjoyed it, but we were surprised at how buggy it was. So we did hike...






... but we did not linger. At least not beyond the minutes I spent admiring the monarchs.






At the peak point, we do a selfie.






Here's the view:






Back in the forest...






Looking out over the prairie. Whoa, this could be Tuscany!





The evening was complicated. Ed and I went over to the young family's home. He'll be throwing an eye on the water accumulation in their basement. I would be chasing Snowdrop.

In the end, he and Snowdrop's dad replaced a sump pump and Snowdrop and her mom came to the farmhouse where I finished up dinner preparations. With a lot of snacking on the part of the hungry girl.






... and helping gaga cook.






When the men return from the pump job, Snowdrop is delighted.   
Ah-ah read!
Snowdrop, say please.  
Pleeeeese!






Good job, little one!






By the time we eat it's plenty dark. Snowdrop moves from highchair to big people chair.






She is happy. And yes, we are as well.  Big grins, deep sighs of relief. And a fine meal, outside still. Happy. For sure.

Saturday

It's a beautiful Saturday in south central Wisconsin!

Morning glance:





There isn't a breakfast to speak of. I'm not unreasonable -- Ed is exhausted and asleep. I have a market date with Snowdrop and her mom. But unexpectedly, a good friend shows up, someone whom we haven't seen in a long long time and so I pull Ed out of bed and as long as he's up, I may as well bring out a few of the breakfast accoutrements.





And then I take out the old rose-ah-roo and I moped my way to Snowdrop's home. From there, we walk with her mom to the market.

It is our habit to first stop at Graze for a bakery snack. Snowdrop always gets a croissant. Baguette, croissant -- important words in a young child's vocabulary! (It is also her reward for putting up with the very slow moving walk around the square: Saturday markets are always very crowded.)






Marketing done. We go out onto the green for a romp.






Snowdrop loves these minutes. Run, walk, push stroller -- they're all her favorites.





And when she's happy, she doesn't hold back. The world knows it. There's a reason why her school teachers call her "happy girl."






After the market, I moped home. The soy fields across the road from the farmette look very autumnal now. Are we that close to the cold season?





In the later afternoon (and possibly because we had such a good time a week ago at the Jefferson Sheep and Wool Festival), Ed and I go to a more distant but promising by the sounds of it Monroe Cheese Days Festival.

Not to take credit for being farsighted, but as we pull into town, I have a feeling that this is going to be different and not necessarily in a good way. In this small village of 10,800, there is no parking to be found within many, many blocks of the town square.  Eventually, we snag a half legal spot (you could argue how much of your tail can poke into the yellow strip) and we follow the stream of pedestrian traffic to the noise at the village green.

There are many blocks leading into the square where I could have taken a similar photo. The conclusion? There are very many people here today.





And we hear the complaints from locals who are on the retreat: too many people! What, says another -- do you want them to expand the village green?

I myself wouldn't go that far. But it is awfully hard to warm up to a cheese festival where the excitement seems to be about things other than good cheese. It is, for example, far easier to grab hold of countless beers and fried foods and whatever other junk stuff you associate with local fairs than to get your hands on local cheese.

Here's a pleasant respite: old tractors, as displayed by proud farmers.





















And here's one more rather sweet moment: watching three men play modest melodies on the alphorn.






The one bit of cheese we sampled came at this place -- where the woman was carving a cow head on a slab of what turned out to be very good cheese. I know, because she picked up the reject slivers and handed them to whoever was nearby (me). Yum.






The more typical consumption at the festival looked like this (he's dabbing his fries in what I assume is melted cheese of sorts, while in line to buy a fried cookie dough sundae, or some such good stuff):





Oh, I suppose I'm a touch unfair. There was a tent in which some cheesemakers (I have no idea as to which ones and how good they were) displayed their stuff and allowed you to sample some of what they produced. That tent had a line that was at least an hour's wait. You bought your beer, added another, then another, and eventually you were inside, sampling.  Well now, as I told Ed -- you could ask any of the cheese vendors at the Madison market for a sample of their cheeses and you'd get it on the spot. No fuss, no wait. Most stores in town selling Wisconsin cheeses would do the same. Why wait the hour or more to get in the tent, not knowing if it was worth the wait to begin with?

We left not exactly disappointed (the tractors, the horn blowers, the people-watching), but glad nonetheless to be out in the quiet countryside again.






(Pumpkin stand on the way home.)






Evening photo: much like the first one in this post only different. Subtly so. But that's what's so grand about it. Not in your face, just gentle and pretty.




so

Friday in photos

A tiny breakfast. Both of us feel like last night's Chinese dinner had enough food in it to keep us going for at least a week.






I panic that I did not get enough food. I dash to the store for a pound more shrimp and another baguette and another pie. Then I pick up Snowdrop who discovers the baguette and makes me feel glad that I have a second one. Amazing how well she can articulate the word baguette. I swear there's a French accent to it!






Ever since we swept up her crumbs in the coffee shop, she reminds me that she is ready to do this at home as well.






I am lucky: she decides to have a very long nap today. I get half the dinner cooked while she is resting. The reward for her when she wakes up: freshly sauteed shrimp, heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, fruit.






Reading one of her favorite books.






Rain, she'll tell me. And she is correct: we had quite the downpours in the past twelve hours.






A favorite post nap activity -- get up on our bed and play with my beads. Mostly amber from my Polish past and one or two strands of something inconsequential. She loves it all.






Snowdrop goes home, I cook up the rest of the meal. Shrimp dish ready. Chicken thighs and drumsticks, stewing in wine. And couscous -- a real mystery to our Chinese visitors -- rice? no, not rice... They examine it very carefully.






The weather is good enough for us to open up the porch and use the table there in addition to the two tables we set up in the kitchen. Just enough room for everyone to have a place to put his or her plate down. And to move between the indoors and the outdoors.






On an impulse, I bring out a bottle of Islay whisky at the end of the meal. Perhaps they liked it. I know I enjoyed having a wee dram in their company.

It was a very good day!

Thursday

Well, the end of the week will not be calm at the farmette. Sometime last night, possibly when I was entering the first stages of sleep, I offered to cook dinner for the company visitors and of course, for their hosts at Tormach this Friday. This was confirmed just a few minutes ago and since I am with Snowdrop now and tomorrow afternoon, and I have an evening out with the visiting delegation tonight, that leaves me only with a half a day (tomorrow) to shop and cook. For 17 people. Gulp.

I think I can do it!

But Ocean will have to take a back seat in the next hours.

I offer you just a few photos.

Breakfast on a cool but beautiful morning on the porch.






And a glance at the garden, because Ed and I did spend some time this morning tidying things up -- snipping, carting away piles of spent weeds and plants -- the normal September stuff one does (and that we neglected due to this summer's heavier presence of bugs).






Apart from the yellow stock of mock sunflowers (several different varieties) and emergent asters, the color right now is in the annuals. And they are, as always, eye catching.






The weather is so nice that I take the stroller to pick up Snowdrop at school. I never know if she'll be too tired to walk home.

Today, she is not too tired. She reaches for her little bunny rabbit...






... and gives the stroller a light push.






Maybe a sweater, Snowdrop? Oh, look! A sign telling us there are schoolchildren present. Indeed there are! And you're one of them!






At home now. Snowdrop, did you take off your socks in school?
(What must be going through her head) Let me try to remember... did I?






Play ball, read books, feed penguins. Favorite routines. Always making sure I am not too far away, watching, assisting with the next move, the newest idea. A toddler is independent, but she wants you there to catch her falls.

And to play ball.






In the evening, I feast on Chinese food.

The moon is very bright tonight. The full harvest moon doesn't really shine down on us until tomorrow, but we wont see it then -- storms and rain are in the forecast -- and so we take it in now. No photo to show you its luminosity but just imagine how grand it must be. Or step outside and see for yourself. Be dazzled. And then take out those extra blankets from your closet and keep them near your bed. It's getting chilly out there!

Wednesday

It will be an unusually busy set of days for Ed, as a team of factory heads is in town to discuss future product development for the company with which he is so intimately affiliated. I am, therefore, very happy to have the big Amazon box delivered before either of us scatters for the day.

You could call it my early Christmas present for Snowdrop, though honestly, I am not the only grandma out there who wants so much to provide her grandchild with the tools and toys of childhood. A bike belongs to those for sure.

In my own childhood, in the Polish village where I lived with my grandparents the first years (and nearly every summer) of my life, you had to bring with you from the city anything you would want to have there. That's a lot harder than clicking on Amazon and reaching for your credit card. Still, there was always a bicycle for me to ride and I made heavy use of it, even though there were no firm roads to navigate -- just packed tracks and meadow paths. I rode them all.

I don't think Snowdrop is quite at the age where she can take off and explore on her own (and the idea of her biking anywhere that's not a dedicated bike path terrifies me no end, as bicycles and cars are not a happy mix here), but I have been wondering for a while now how she would take to a balance bike -- a two wheeler that comes without pedals and that is designated for the 18 months - 5 years age range.

Well now, the little one is 20 months old and winter is fast approaching. If not now, then we'll have to wait until next spring.

And so I buy the bike and it comes this morning and Ed, who will probably assemble many kid bikes in his lifetime (and whose first youthful jobs were all about fixing bikes at New York City bike shops), mumbles -- well, if you had to buy a new one, I'll give you this much: it's really well designed.

And then we eat breakfast...




And he takes off and I take off and the bike waits for Snowdrop's arrival after school.


Later, much later, I reflect on the bike and the girl: did she love it? I wouldn't quite go that far. But she tried it.





And protested heavily when I wanted to leave it outside. It belongs to her world!

Predictably, she wants her animals to ride it.






That's a tough request to honor, so we put it aside for now and she goes back to her three favorite activities -- having a book read to her (conveniently, I happen to have one about bikes...), playing with foods...






... and throwing a ball.






I'm happy that she does periodically come back to the bike and she definitely likes the feel of the helmet.






(Dancing is with her "hat" on...)






Growing confident is a process. She can decide for herself how far she wants to take bike riding this year.


In the late afternoon, she goes back again and again to her helmet.






She has me ride her bike up and around the farmhouse. She giggles at the sight. I don't blame her: big gaga, little bike.


Late in the day, she and I take a walk into the fields to the east of us. We look over at the strips of flowers - the last of the crop for this season's markets.





Snowdrop takes it in, like she does countless other experiences she confronts each day. Every walk is an opportunity and a lesson, sometimes in something so simple as in our walk today: avoiding mud, cars, and thistle.

She trusts the grownups in her life.

We go back. She solves puzzles and scribbles in my notebooks.

And finally, Ed is home and she is just tickled to see him.





He has his weekly bike ride and he is late for it, but the little one coaxes him to a ball game and as you will have guessed -- he does not say no to her.

We are rewarded with a nearly 100% catching of his throws.






With lots and lots of giggles throughout.





I think about my childhood years. Not the really really young stuff (who can remember?), but elementary school. Tomboy years -- where catching ball and riding a skateboard gave me perhaps the day's finest moments.

Ed comes back late from his bike ride. I go out with a flashlight to find tomatoes in our patch for his supper. I notice that the moon, two days short of being full, shines brightly over us tonight. Over you as well, I hope.