Wednesday

Every once in a while, I really do love being up early enough to catch the sunrise. Today is certainly such a day. The stunning colors last only a minute or two, but oh, what a minute it is!






Very quickly, the clouds take over. Ed and I eat breakfast in the front room...






... and you could say the cheepers join us, because they make a rare trip to the front yard, sensing our presence, wanting to be close. (Here they are -- just below the windows.)






But after this meal, the day is a blur. I have my last long day with Snowdrop, so this, of course, fills most of the hours. (I'm not traveling until next Monday, but she has a bunch of other grandparent visits before her, so that I'll be retreating for a bit.)

Because I wont have her under my guard again until November, you'll see a lot of her here today. I know that there is such a thing as too many photos of a grandchild. But cut me some slack today!


As I lead her out the school door, she really lets me know that she wants to go for a walk and though I know she is tired, I give in  -- though it does mean that I end up hoisting her on my hip for a good chunk of our time out. Here, she is still happy to be tromping along...






Enjoying the leaves, the still plentiful flowers...






And of course, the pumpkins. She spots them instantly! Papkins! -- she tells me excitedly as I try to think of a reason why we should ignore them and move on.






They're big. Snowdrop has a solution: gaga help pick up!





Time for distraction.

Little one, can I interest you in an oatmeal raisin cookie at the coffee shop? 

We walk on.
 
Inside, she points to the pain au chocolat. That one!
Oh, the croissant?
Okay! Kwason!

We eat it outside, toward the front of the cafe, but she knows that there is a playground in the back.






I don't think she quite has the stamina for it. We walk back to the car and drive to the farmette.


When she first comes into the farmhouse, she almost always goes straight for the bike. She eyes it, touches it, tries to make the wheel turn. But she doesn't want to ride it.  The trikes at school -- she loves those! They don't wobble. This one not only wobbles but falls down. He gut tells her to proceed slowly.






The rest of the day? Well, of course, she wants to go outside.

As I spin around the rural roads and rutted pathways, I notice how quickly we move into the season of the brown tones...






Snowdrop wants to walk, but I wont let her do that until we move away from the road and into the farmer fields.

There, we review the remaining flowers..






And as we reenter the farmette lands, we discover pine cones! Oh, do we have a good few minutes finding them underneath the tall white pines!






The afternoon draws to a close. We go inside, I get her to try on a pair of winter boots... These are wonderful moments, though not particularly photo worthy...






She plays with toy foods (new additions: shrimp! pizza! croissant!)...






She pulls Ed out into a game of ball...






(So happy to catch it!)






And for a long time, she and ah-ah engage in a drawing frenzy.






She's inspired!






One last photo, just to show that both Ed and Snowdrop have that impulse to release their most inner tease:






So this is it for now. I'll surely see Snowdrop in the days ahead, but far less than I see her now.

In the meantime, I have an unusual day tomorrow. I'll be here, though not really here. I'll find a moment to post, I know it! But I don't yet know how that could possibly happen, given that I plan to sleep under the stars...

But I am hopeful! Until tomorrow!

Tuesday

The internet's down. I'll go down to the basement and reset the router. I'm trying to not always ask Ed to fix things.

I pick up the black box that we perch on top of the water heater. What's the darn piece of plastic stuck to it? Or is it something else? It's a snake skin! A snake skin??? We have big fat snakes in the basement??

Ed!

He comes down to confirm my worst suspicion. I just rebooted the machine a few weeks ago so this is pretty recent.
A snake has passed this way fairly recently??
On the upside, they eat mice...

There is always an upside.


It's a brilliant day today.






It's getting cool, but not so cool that we can't eat breakfast on the porch.






And when I pick up Snowdrop after school, there isn't a doubt that we should spend at least a little time outdoors. The sun is strong, the leaves are gorgeous!

I take a different route today and we pass a house where some enterprising kid is selling pumpkins out on the front lawn (with a can nailed to the porch steps to collect cash when, as now, no one is there). Snowdrop had already been to a big pumpkin patch with her parents over the weekend, but she does love those pumpkins, so why not bring another one home?






This then will give us Part I of our fall colors on Ocean: Snowdrop among the pumpkins.


(Let's buy the very smallest one, Snowdrop. This one! It's only $1.)






(I appreciate your love of the bigger ones, but I don't think that one will fit in the stroller.)






(Oh dear. I do not have a single dollar bill. Let's go to the coffee shop where I can get some change! And yes, I'll get us an oatmeal raisin cookie.)






(Ready to go? We have to find the house with the pumpkins again so that I can leave my dollar.)






(She likes the pumpkins, but she also likes the leaves!)






(Are you sure we can't manage to haul these home, gaga?)






(Fine! I love my little one! Warts and all!)






(It fits perfectly in the toy stroller!)






Part II of fall colors? Well, it happened after my time with the little girl. Ed had taken a kayak out on a river that I had absolutely no interest in navigating. And so I had timeto kill before I needed to go home and start in on dinner.


I go to the Arboretum.

The light is so beautiful now, toward evening! Sure, the fall colors aren't at 100% (a website rates them at 75%). But for me, they are sublime!



Here we go, fall colors Part II:






(The wild turkeys again...)






(So pretty!)






(Gold!)






(And ruby red!)





Was it a grand day? Yes! -- snake skin notwithstanding.

Monday

Maybe we could attach a tracking device to her... Let's see how much they cost...

I know Ed is mostly joking. A tracking device on a chicken?? Nonetheless, we're perplexed: Henny is hiding her eggs again and this time we cannot find the spot where she is laying. And so we are back to having four chickens and only Butter, the oldest and wobbliest of the hens, is giving us an egg every dozen days or so.

The harvest moon was bright and bold last night, but the morning is cloudy once more. And we have yet another day that is more like early September than late October. As we eat our morning meal on the porch, we note that it is almost humid. Sticky cool. I put on a light sweater, I take it off. Nothing feels right.






Still, it's a good day to keep Snowdrop outside. As she and I leave her school just after the noon hour, I tell her that the car is parked by the playground. We have to walk. I know she is tired and I offer to hoist her on my hip, but the sight of all those leaves excites her and she chooses to continue on her own.






Surely a fortifying treat is in order. Coffee shop! Yes, that's right! You know the way!






An oatmeal raisin cookie bite, outside, in the wind -- let's get that hair out of your face!






And onward --  to the playground!






Let me post four photos of the bold and happy girl. These are the last days of such carefree romps out on the equipment. Let's enjoy them with her:





















With a last peek-a-boo shot to finish our time there.






At the farmhouse, she plays with trucks. She really is into trucks.






...When she's not into food games, books, stuffies, or just messin' around with ah-ah.

Snowdrop's frequent grin is like a sky where the sun refuses to hide for long.

And in fact, the sun does come out, here and there, and it adds that golden touch to the farmette landscape that's pure magic.






In the late late afternoon (pre-evening?), Snowdrop and I go out to feel the warmth of this warmest of warm October days.






I ask her now if she wants a stroller ride. She runs with enthusiasm!






She loves these rides, but only if they turn into the fields where she can get up close and personal with the flowers, the plants, the rutted roads.






We look out over the fields...





Fall has always been so very pretty here. This year is no different.

Sunday

In the late afternoon, one of my daughters asks me -- what did you do today, mom?
I was about to enumerate this and the other, but instead I said -- not a single thing that I especially  liked.

In many ways, that seems harsh. I ate breakfast with Ed on the porch -- a fantastic thing, given that it's the second half of October!





And, too, I liked the consequences of many of my tasks. Eliminating a whole bookshelf load of books and putting the shelf up on craigslist (what? no calls yet?? damn! Okay, I'll go down to $20...) -- satisfying. Cleaning the shower curtain of rust, tending to the orchids...

Ed, we need to bring in the orchids. I see that it will be in the upper 30sF every night this week.
We bring them in.
Oh no! I got that wrong! The weather page I had up? That was for Warsaw!

So, mostly satisfying. But also tedious and insignificant in the scheme of things.


You will not be surprised, therefore, that all the rest of my photos will be from dinner. Here you go -- the pictures that, at least for me, demonstrate that even a day with very little at the outset, can ultimately end with quite a lot going for it.


(The arrival.)






(Playing with ah ah.)






(Snowdrop, I found a toy truck that's just like the one we see cleaning the streets on our walks...)






(Yes, sweet one! We can eat outside!)






(You are a fantastic eater...)






(Yes, you can be excused... We just want to linger...)






(No, not done yet... Go play with ah-ah. Oh, but your independence is so disarming!)





She helps us then to put away the chickens. She is all smiles and sweet impulses. Did I say something about a day that was full of tedious elements? Right now I can hardly remember any of them.