the weekend: family album

Let me say it right at the outset: you may find this post to be too over the top. Too photo heavy. You may want to shout at me (though I know you're too polite) -- Nina, reign it in!

I will have to respond: I understand. But you see -- this weekend was so intense and beautiful, that slighting favorite photos is impossible for me. I've whittled it down and still it is, I agree, a handful. For you. But honestly, not for me.

So here's the deal: I promise no denouement, no interesting revelation. No good story, no mishap or adventure. You can skip this post and no one would be the wiser.

Or, you can look at my photos and smile, because surely they are not really just mine. We all have these superb family moments when everything about life seems fine and beautiful. My weekend was not unique or unusual. It was yours and everyone's. For all the days that go wrong, there are these -- the ones that go very very right.

Because there is a photo overload (understand: I will not see my daughters or Snowdrop until after I come back from Poland, so for me, it's not an overload at all), I'll keep words to a minimum. I'll merely give a phrase that tells you what I think a given scene represents.

Let's go back to Saturday. Remember? My younger daughter and her husband are at the farmhouse for the weekend. We meet my older girl and Snowdrop and, too, Snowdrop's grandma Charlotte (who is in town for an extended visit) downtown, for a market stroll.


 



(I love having you all here with me!)






(Playing with my aunt and uncle is the coolest of all cool things!)






(After the market: a quick peek at the toy store...)






(Snowdrop gets a balloon, grandma Charlotte makes sure it doesn't blow away.)






Lunchtime: at Snowdrop's home. Can I have some of your baguette?






Mommy, can you read me the book about how we belong together, again and again and again?






Later, at the farmhouse, Snowdrop wants to show her uncle (who always comes with good music to share) how she loves to dance. I mean, she really loves to dance!






In the meantime, my younger girl helps me cook. I've chosen a Jamaican curried chicken with squash for the main course.






And a rustic apple tart for dessert.






My daughter's husband is also very good in the kitchen. She consults with him about the caramelization of the tomatoes.






Finally, dinnertime. Snowdrop entertains her family with an intricate tale that keeps us spellbound!






The dinner draws to a close. Snowdrop (who has insisted on wearing her new winter boots all evening long) gets a spin holding on to Ed's big hands...






Late night story sharing, sleepy hours, not willing for the night to end and then boom! It's Sunday. I offered to do brunch at the farmhouse. The young family (and grandma Charlotte) arrive...






A happy Snowdrop.






My younger girl helps me with the frittata (this time it's with yellow and orange peppers, mushrooms, corn, gruyere cheese and fresh herbs)






We all love our time around the table.






To be clear: it's not just one table: we're again using a combination of square and oval tables brought together from various farmhouse corners.






Before and after, Snowdrop, at play...






... getting ah-ah to dance.






... showing grandma Charlotte where the cheepers roost. Then, happily running back to the farmhouse.






... where she practices independence on the very steep farmhouse stairs.






And here you get a break from family photos, because in the afternoon, Ed and I go out, just the two of us, to the Arboretum. We drive over, listening to This American Life (no. 599, entitled "Seriously?" I highly recommend it). You need to exhale after that. We try to reclaim the peace that this day offers.

Just six photos from that walk (plus a selfie!):










































And then it's evening. The young couple has left. I'm cooking dinner again. The colors of fall are just outside my kitchen window,






And the young family comes over. We're having predinner drinks, but Snowdrop wants to work the stairs again. Her mommy keeps an eye on her.






Snowdrop is irrepressible.






Dinner. Shrimp and pasta with tomatoes, fennel, garlic.






Snowdrop hurts her finger. She lets me kiss and make it better. Ed snaps.






I have a tiny bit of heavy cream in the fridge. Enough to whip up for Snowdrop. To put over raspberries. I'll end my family album with three photos of an appreciative Snowdrop.


















An incredibly busy weekend. But I wouldn't rewrite a single minute of it.

Tomorrow I leave for Poland. I'll be there for a week and it will be a very busy week. I have an apartment to get to know, but, too, I have one of my very closest American friends (and her husband) there, in Warsaw for the week as well. And of course, I have my sister and my Polish friends -- all to merge together into one  cohesive whole.

Confusing? It wont be, if you follow along. My next post will be en route. Sometime tomorrow.

Saturday excuses

It's a full day! From breakfast (with my visiting daughter and her husband, where Ed explains his latest machining project)...






Through market time (with Snowdrop and her aunt)...






Until dinner (with our oddly assembled tables)...





The stories will come tomorrow.

Have a beautiful rest of weekend.

Friday's schedule

Yesterday, as I drove back to the campground, I thought about the Fall this year: we were ready for it and then it seemed so tentative. At times humid, at times wet, always buggy, with tempting days of brisk sunshine that never quite stayed around long enough.

But of course, right now it is splendid! And we surely are well positioned to admire the colors from where we parked for the night.

(Driving along the Wisconsin River)






(The final stretch of road to the place where we pitched our tent)






(The bluffs, at the close of the day)






(Our tent, at sunset)






(The last rays)






There are somewhere between 30 and 50 trail building volunteers for a supper of tacos (beans for people like me who run away from ground meat), but most hover near the barn. A hardy few eventually follow us to the campfire.


(This photo is a selfie, on a time release)






I tell Ed that campfires will always remind me of Poland. We had them all the time: young kids, gathering branches, building a hot blaze that would turn to embers and blacken potatoes we'd stick in the hottest places. There would almost always be singing. With guitar, often my own. Lots of singing.

Of course, we don't sing on this night. Many of the volunteers are tracking some ball games and the rest of just watch the flames dance. I add logs to warm a larger space, though on a chilly night like tonight, your back will always stay cold.






By 9 we are ready to call it quits.

Ed and I fall asleep to the loud noise of coyotees. Packs came close, then retreat, always making a racket, barking, howling, acting like wild kids out to make trouble.


And in the morning, we wake to frost.

You don't really get cold if you have a good sleeping bag, but I went for comfort and brought my lumpy fat pillow and so I kept my head outside the bag. Every time I switched positions, I'd hit a cold spot on the pillow and my face would cringe.

All the more reason not to want to get up and get going. Indeed, we don't rouse ourselves until after 8 -- by which time the volunteers are off and away, building the trail.

Not us. Both Ed and I have full days today and there is no time for outdoor work.

But there is time to admire the bluffs in the morning light.






And then, we take the ferry back, find a good coffee shop in Waunakee (a town to the north of Madison that boasts: "we are the only Waunakee in the world!") and have a very lovely working breakfast.






And then Ed goes to his tech meetings and I plunge into the craziness of this day which includes a wonderful session of physical therapy to give me some hints on how to keep my lower back from bugging me when I stand (!), and it includes grocery shopping for a weekend of visitors (my younger daughter and her husband will be with us until Sunday!), and it includes getting a haircut (because I'm going to Poland next week and I cannot be seen by my friends in my most ragged state), and it includes meeting up with Snowdrop's other grandma and walking with her to pick up the little one at school -- a routine that she will be following by herself all next week.

So you get a few photos of Snowdrop, who is, of course, delighted to see the both of us at school.

(You see? I walk down all by myself!)






(And I like to push the cart, like this!)






I linger at Snowdrop's home. She takes off shoes, puts them up and away...






She runs, she pretends, she plays...












... but I do not stay long.

I'll be seeing the sweet girl later in the weekend.


I should mention that the day included a rather nervous return to the farmette. We had taken a chance with the cheepers. Most of them go to sleep on the light tree branches -- safe from most harms that can befall them. But Java is a coop girl and almost always falls asleep there, before Ed puts the other girls away with her and locks the door.

Before our night away, we toyed with the idea of closing the coop with no one in it, forcing Java to fall asleep with the other girls, but in the end, we wanted to keep the roost open and available in our absence. Not that the hens are laying much these days, but closing up their home would be confusing. We left it open. We rarely see predators and we hoped that this, too, would be a clam night.

It was and when I came home with groceries, all girls ran out to see me. I was very relieved!


Evening. Ed and I are just now coming together in the warm farmhouse. I had seen my daughter for a drink, he had seen a friend for lunch. We exchange stories. I prepare supper and remind him to lock up the cheepers.

He goes out and comes back within a brief few minutes.

We have a situation, he tells me with a bit of a grin.

This is something that I love about him so much: nothing ever fazes him.
I turn off the pot that's set for cooking tonight's veggies. What happened?
Well, as I got to the coop, I saw that two hens were in the tree, two hens were upstairs in the coop and downstairs, a possum was eating their feed.

Now, this could be terrifying. Possums eat chickens. At the very least they eat their eggs, but when things get tough, they'll go after anything.

We make a peanut butter sandwich and Ed places it in a trap, just outside the coop. A half hour later, the possum is caught and released at a distance, and the cheepers are in the coop.

All is right with this corner of the world. And that's such a good thing.

eleven

I write this in the late afternoon, over a cup of coffee here, at the Blue Spoon in Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin.






This is maybe the hundredth (maybe thousandth!) coffee shop that I have visited purely for the benefit of WiFi. And for as good a cup of coffee as can be had (which in this case is not bad at all) away from home.

Ed and I are indeed away from home, though a person who is clever about Wisconsin geography may say -- pshaw! that's maybe an hour and a half from where you live! If it's not home, then certainly it's your backyard, so to speak.

It's true. We are not far from home.

I would say we are celebrating, Ed would say we are merely doing what we love to do every now and then. We would both be correct.

Ed's birthday is today, though he never ever wants to do anything at all about it. Unfortunately, he is stuck with a coincidence: October 20th also marks the beginning of our being in some important fashion together. Eleven years ago, he and I understood that however different we are, there is a fundamental something that draws us to each other. It was obvious from the get go and we have stuck it out now for eleven years, mostly ignoring all the ways in which people may think we are mismatched.

So despite his distaste for celebration, he is forced to celebrate, because I do and, well, he's usually not too far from where I am.

Today is also notable for the confluence of several other unusual events: first, you already know that Snowdrop is visiting with her other grandparents and so I have no time with her at all.

I can focus on you, Ed! (said with a wicked smile)
Alright, gorgeous... (said with apprehension.)

Secondly, it is also the first day of a big effort to build a new segment of the Ice Age Trail. Perhaps you remember that Ed and I love hiking this trail which meanders through most of Wisconsin and that we usually devote at least one day each year to volunteering on trail work. (So that would mean we will have worked at least eleven times on the trail together.) This particular segment isn't too far from us, which suits me just fine as I am these days a reluctant driver and an even more reluctant car passenger.

Finally, the weather: it's crispy autumnal and promises no rain.

I suppose some would call the forecast unfriendly in that it warns of frost tonight. And did I tell you? Ed and I plan on camping with the volunteers on the trail.

But we've camped in frost before and honestly, a good sleeping bag makes the experience rather wonderful.

And so immediately after breakfast... (Happy birthday, Ed! Alright gorgeous...)





... Ed and I take off.

We head north, crossing the Wisconsin River on the Merrimac Ferry on a blustery and gray skied morning.






We pitch our tent in the prairie...






... and join the others who of course have been at it since dawn.

The views here a grand! During the entire work day, we face the bluffs -- the same ones that rise over Devil's Lake and the play of light on the fall colors is just sublime.






(Lunch break)






(The clouds begin to break up now)






(Selfie time! Alright gorgeous...)






(An increasingly blue sky)






(Working the pick against stubborn roots)






(The beauty of fall...)






I do stop earlier than the rest -- just so that I can drive down to Prairie du Sac -- eleven miles from where we are working.


(It's a pretty drive)






Will we stick it out tonight? The food wont be good, the night will be cold. Will we pack up and return home by the light of the moon?

That's for tomorrow's post. Right now I'm heading back to the trail. Eleven miles, eleven years, or sixty-six, depending on who is counting what.