Sunday, lovely Sunday

I'm getting spoiled. In my mind, the beautiful, sunny and warm weather is here to stay. We can work outside, there will never be another mosquito to bother us, the plants will emerge, every Sunday will be as beautiful as this one!

Is there a problem with being overly optimistic?

Snowdrop woke up a bit on the early side, but she was in grand spirits and she let me tidy myself up before I went in to attend to her.

Her terrific spirits continued until the hour her dad came to take her home (and I'm sure beyond that) and so I had a morning of gloriousness pouring at me from all sides. If you expect drama or disarray -- forget it. It was a clear sailing type of day.

My post will be in three parts: the first will have several Snowdrop vignettes from her morning at the farmette, the second will be about working the farmette land with Ed, and the third will be a ramble on... well, I'll let it speak for itself.


Part I A Joyous Dance


She is up! I mean really up! From bed to high chair and let's not let that hold her back, she is UP!






Set free, she goes straight for the colored pencils. We draw. Snowdrop always gives me a page in her sketch notebook and keeps its twin for herself.

I ask her what she would like me to sketch. She says: candy cane! Say what? okay... She continues: and Snowdrop sitting in high chair holding candy cane!

I do not know where she gets some of her ideas.







We're holding off on our "real breakfast" until Ed wakes up . When he appears, she is so happy! Ahah is up! Ahah is up! Hi ahah!






Before we even sit down to breakfast, she wants him to join us in dance.






A happy, happy dance.






Ahah, you dance!
He never, ever tells her no.






Finally, our breakfast together.






And then Ed rushes out while the ground is still partially hard from the night frost. He wants to use the mini loader before we have total mud out there.  And Snowdrop... well, she's hooked: she wants to watch him work the big machine.  She wants to be outside!






Yesterday: scary loud monster machine! Keep me away! Today: exciting machine pushed by ahah to grow the flower bed. Let me watch!






Back in the courtyard, Snowdrop and I deal with the pesky cheepers, who want so much more attention now that their free ranging habits have clicked in again.






In the farmhouse again. She wants to ride her balance bike. I want my bike hat! Snowdrop, you don't need it inside. But I want my bike hat! Ask nicely. Please!






But in the end she sheds it. It's in the way when she rides the bike over to the table where "treats" are waiting for a "drive up" tea party!






I'll leave you with that photo. It's so.... Snowdrop.


Part II Teamwork


Even before I moved to the farmette, Ed and I had learned to work side by side trying to make something of the farmette land. I was very amused when he said today -- why don't we just turn this whole place into a hobby farm instead of clinging to the idea that it's a house with a big yard?
Wait, you mean you haven't been thinking of it as a hobby farm up until now? We're hobbyists. We experiment with various aspects of farm life!

I suppose it's how you look at what we do. Me, I've thought all along that we come up with endless new ideas, some thought out, others -- rather random and not altogether well construed -- and we ride out the wave of a growing season and witness what comes of it. Sounds pretty "hobbyist," no?

Here we are in a time release photo, February 19th, in shorts. Hobby farmers extraordinaire! (Be sure to read this as it was intended: with humor. I know we are quite amateurish in all that we do here.)






After working the front bed, chipping it, leveling it, making it ready for spring planting, we walk back to the young orchard. We planted nearly two dozen fruit trees back there and it has been such a hands-on experiment for us to watch them grow! For two years, the trees were attacked by deer. Finally Ed set to work on building cages for them. The trees are growing now, despite the early years of damage. We are so thrilled with their "can do" attitude!

We spend a productive hour pruning the branches, hoping that doing this on a warm February day is a good rather than totally foolish thing.


Part III A Walk Before Sunset


I spent just about all my childhood summers in my grandparents' home in the deep Polish rural countryside. When I was little, I mostly played in the yard of course. But very quickly, I looked beyond the fenced yard. The river, the meadows, the forests -- they became my playground.

And not surprisingly, I was granted a lot of freedom early on. In the (American) suburbs, you need your parents and their car(s) to get you places. In the more remote villages of Poland, we had neither the paved roads nor the cars to get us places. We walked. A lot.

My sister and I often teamed up with other kids from adjacent homes to do an evening walk just before the sun reached its final dip to the west of us. These walks were so important to my adolescent sensibilities that I remember to this day the light, the quiet, the color, the peace that we felt then.

And so you wont be surprised that when today, as Ed finished up work with the rental loader machine and I walked the rural roads, I was reminded of that special light, not February light, but evening light, nearly sunset light, Polish light, familiar light that seeped in with that beautiful predusk quiet that I associate so much with the fields and meadows of Poland.

(Fields just to the east and north of us...)






(Nearly sunset...)





So goodnight, Sunday. Goodnight crazy warm weekend. So bold. So beautiful!

a Saturday like no other

I'm sure we're toppling records: the sun is strong, the air is still and so very warm! It's 62F (17C) right now and I honestly contemplate joining Ed in shedding pants in favor of shorts. It would have been a February 18th photo of the two of us for the ages.

But hey, maybe we can simply take pleasure in having a day that itself is surely for the ages? It's so grand to look out and think spring thoughts and to imagine it all to be just before you!

The day is made special, too, of course, because of Snowdrop's weekend visit. Oh, these are going to be familiar vignettes because they tell a story already documented here during previous visits.

She likes to help with the pancake preparation...






She loves to eat breakfast with the two of us...






And she loves that I bought her her very own honey bear.











It is also no surprise that I want Snowdrop to spend lots of time outside. That's a bit of a challenge. She is supremely focused on indoor play.

Perhaps she's apprehensive about the rumbling machine outside. We watch Ed through the window as he moves the monster back and forth over the flower bed. In the end, the desire to do stuff with him trumps and she finds her jacket and heads out.






We join Ed on the front flower bed. I show her the stubs of spent flowers and point to tags that often have a wee picture of the flower that will be growing there again. She loves these identifiers and would very much like to take them all back with her!






Oh, but Snowdrop, that's last year's stuff! (A valiant attempt to distract her from that project.) Look at all the new space we're creating for this year's plantings!





I'd like to believe she's impressed.


So yes, she does enjoy our outdoor moments, but the smile is never more heartfelt than when we come back inside and eat play foods that she dishes out for us.






Still, in the afternoon, I try to coax her out again.

No, gagie. I want to play in the farmhouse.

But but but little one, there's this!






I sweeten the deal: do you want to go to the sheep shed to visit ahah (who is spending a few hours working on a new and improved hatch release for the chicken coop)?
Yes!

She has lovely minutes in his big black chair (purchased a long time ago to entice me to spend more time visiting him) studying a listing of invasive species that are endangering Wisconsin flora...






... then, predictably, she lures us both to his kitchenette -- which boasts nothing much these days, but does offer a spectacular view of the fields to the north of us.






On our way back to the farmhouse, we have a spirited visit with the cheepers. You perhaps may recall that Snowdrop has very real conversations with them. She's having one in the photo below.






And there is one new game we like to play these days. It's "can you find the statues that ahah's mom made?" The bronze figurines are scattered throughout the yard. Last I counted there were nine and she knows them all. But counting them off is great fun and giving them names, too, adds to the pleasure of searching them out.






I'll end the outdoor adventure portion of this day with one remarkable find. I think Scotch, our brown hen, is equally astonished. Crocus leaves! Can you see them?






Evening. Pizza making! Now if that isn't a reliable farmhouse thing! (She's sampling the tomato sauce here.)






(Always so happy to get her share. Always mushrooms and garlic. Always with lots of cheese.)






We watch a little TV -- always a nature show. This one about the exquisite smartness of cows, monkeys, cormorants...





But perhaps this weekend must be recognized for Snowdrop's incredible love of stories. She tells them to her various stuffies, or her duplo characters. But she also loves to listen. Read her a good tale and she will love you for life. We must have gone through a hundred reading sessions today.

Night time. Ed asks -- you exhausted?
Sure, but in such a good way.
Goodnight.
Goodnight.

why does this Friday seem like something other than a regular old Friday?

Some days are so calm and ordinary that you feel like you're merely floating through each hour, exerting no effort, enjoying the gentle breeze that pushes you along.

This is not one of those days. We are moving along alright, just a bit tumultuously! Oh, not where one side is shouting some obscenity and the other is toppling into murky waters and still others are wiping sweat (rightly so) off their collective brow.  Ours is a controlled and not unpleasant chaos. Most assuredly though, this is not a conventional Friday.

Perhaps I ought to put out the two overarching themes of my forthcoming weekend -- each crucial in its own way: first of all, we have record breaking weather here, in south central Wisconsin: with a high of 58F today (14.5C), it feels more like May than the middle of February. So sunny! So fantastic! So weird!

Secondly, for a number of reasons, Snowdrop is spending the weekend with us at the farmhouse. And so quite obviously, everything is going to be a bit topsy turvy, as she will be setting my agenda for the next few days.

Oh, but these are just the basic parameters. There is so much more before us!

But breakfast is deceptively calm. A bit rushed, as Ed has his tech meetings and I have my weekly grocery shopping to attend to, but nevertheless calm.





And then he is off and I am off, but here come the twists and turns. First, after many hesitations, negotiations, considerations, we have decided to rent that skid steer loader (basically a machine that you use for digging and hauling), crossing our fingers that Ed can haul that thing home from the bobcat rental place behind his truck. If he never arrives, I'll know that he got stuck somewhere and can't get home.

And here's another twist: when I pick up Snowdrop at school, I see that she is diaper-free and sitting on the potty. Well now, isn't it lucky that we have before us a warm weekend!

It's as if we were to throw everything into a caldron for the next few days, without any clue as to what might emerge at the end of it all.


I cannot resist taking Snowdrop on a short walk after school. So sunny! So very pleasant! (And yes, there is another unusual element -- the kids had pajama day at school and so she is, in fact in her piggy and elephant pj's.)

She begs for a snack and so we pause briefly (believe me, very briefly) at the coffee shop and since it is really so pleasant outside, we take our snack out to the patio. But Snowdrop is really eager to get up and get going. The playground is right there, within eyesight...






That's fine. We can check it out.

It's not entirely operational. Puddles, melting ice -- the tell tale signs of February are still there. Still, she loves climbing the life guard tower...






... a place that offers a fine view onto the melting lesser lake.






A few minutes on the swing...






And then we stroll our way back to the car and come home to the farmette.


A contemplative pose...






A few pieces of fruit...






A playful Snowdrop...






And she naps and Ed comes home tugging that machine with him and it looks like the day will move along smoothly, no?

Not entirely.

The machine makes deep tracks in the muddy soil (much to Ed's dismay).






The trips back and forth, from pile to flower bed are tediously long...






Ed wonders if he should give up and wait until we get a solid frost again that would harden up the soil. Surely we'll have another deep freeze this winter?

("What is ahah doing out there??")






Evening. All is calm again. Snowdrop has us drawing together for long stretches of time...






Therapeutic, no?

Yes, the girl is here and happy and the sun shone brightly on us all!






Perhaps the pace here at the farmette was a bit robust on this day. That's okay. Tomorrow will surely be staid.

Maybe.

Perhaps not.

Fine: most likely it will offer its own great surprises.

We're looking forward to it.

Thursday

Oh, the irony of it all! Three days ago, Ed and I admired the growing mountain of wood chips north of our property line, thinking how wonderful it would be to make use of them. We inquired. We got the go ahead.

Two days ago, after having many truckloads dumped and spread directly on a farmette field (how neat is that!), we realized that we had no grand plan for that field. So now what?

One day ago we investigated renting a skid steer loader to dig into that still growing mountain of city chips, so that we could haul load after load to our own ever-expanding flower beds.

And today, we first patted ourselves on the back for having the truck driver dump the next four truck loads of chips right on our property, then groaned again as we realized that we could not easily bring a skid steer loader over here and therefore, in addition to having a field of chips, we now also have a mountain of chips, with nothing more than a wobbly cart to help us distribute them for future projects. All this to be figured out... tomorrow.

Our week has been chock full of chip issues.

But breakfast is lovely anyway. Just a touch of sunshine. Enough to put us in the sun room.







And here is a most pleasant surprise: Butter, our white hen has been finally, in the last month, resumed laying. One out of four hens giving us eggs -- a pretty miserable haul.  But today, Henny, who had been eggless for two seasons now, popped one out for us  for us! (Hers can easily be identified -- they're always green).





So, two of our four girls are now giving eggs! (Ed, the realist, reminds me that it could all stop tomorrow, so I shouldn't feel too chipper about any of it.)


I put aside thoughts of chips and cheepers and pick up Snowdrop at school as usual. (Where did you get those lovely sneakers, Snowdrop? I got them at a shoe store! I can almost detect an eye roll. I mean, where else, gaga?)






Mommy's at home during some of the time we are there...






Yes, Snowdrop's energy level is picking up again...






Though quiet play is still her choice for this afternoon.






Later, much later...  Wondering. Why it is that this is that and that is something else...






I have a secret, she tells us, pointing to her ear.

Who told her one? Will she share it?






No, she settles into reading instead. A dog party! How well I remember reading this same book to her mommy, who once thought the idea of a dog party was beyond the beyond.






I leave them then and drive out to Thai Noodles, where I pick up our favorite dishes. From there, I drive home, bedazzled yet again by one beautiful sunset.