Sunday

Today, our waking hours start with breakfast.






For once, the morning is pleasantly cool. June weather. Beautiful and crisp, vibrant and inviting.






We have time today and there is a project that draws us: volunteers are needed for prairie maintenance at the Brooklyn Wildlife Area. We hike there constantly. It's time we do our bit by pulling out invasives that are a constant threat to the native plants that grow here.

Prairie flowers bloom from spring to late fall in places that have not been taken over by honeysuckle, thistle, wild parsley, garlic mustard  or Queen Ann's lace. Walking through the dense grasses, you encounter blooms that are at once delicate and as hardy as the toughest of your garden flowers.







It's a beautiful meadowland of mixed grasses, berries and flowers.






When we work on prairie restoration, we always come back  (in thought and discussion) to our own three acres. I've wanted to manage the land north of the barn ever since I moved to the farmette. Ed has been skeptical. He doesn't think we have enough energy to keep a prairie going. After a year of mowing down the horrible invasives, I gave up trying to do it on my own.

But now the idea comes up again and we talk it over with Don, the guy who oversees the prairie work at Brooklyn.

He talks about staging the work: on being less ambitious. On doing just a little, if that's all we can do.

I turn to Ed -- should we give it a go?
Ed looks at me rather indulgently and he explains to Don -- Nina always wants to do things yesterday, whereas I want to do them in maybe three years...

We are an oddly matched pair!






Cutting across the prairie on our way back...











How many shades of green in that lovely field of grass! This same field that two months ago was a vast expanse of brown...






(Back home now) What do you have against the color brown -- Scotch appears to be asking...







Evening: the young family is here for dinner and guess what! The minute Snowdrop comes into the farmhouse, she goes... grocery shopping with her babies! What a surprise!






Momentarily distracted by polka dancing on Ed's screen...






Dinner on the porch: it's father's day and we certainly have a great dad to celebrate here tonight and yet, when Snowdrop is with us, our eyes inevitably are drawn to what the little girl is up to...






Are we done with dinner yet??






Yes, unless you want dessert...







This is, of course, the week of long days and I can't tell you how much I love the spill of daylight into evening hours. When the young family leaves, I'm not ready to call it a day yet and so Ed and I go out on his motorbike, just to get that great scent of summer air as we zip along the rural roads.

Saturday

In the middle of the night, something toppled. Ed, still downstairs, shouted up -- what just happened?
I, waking up, shouted down -- what did you do??

We speculated what it could be.
Maybe the pounding rain gashed a hole in the roof and things came crashing down... Shouldn't we check? -- that was my contribution.
Maybe the groundhog fell off the roof. Go back to sleep. -- this from Ed.

In the morning, I look around, expecting to find at the very least an injured groundhog if not a hole in the roof.

I find nothing.

I mention this because living on the farmette quite often gives us such surprises. Things topple, screech, bend, push and crash.

Ah, but then there are the rewards: mornings when the wet plants are satiated and thriving, when the birds swoop down in search of the perfect breakfast, when the day lilies begin to show their stuff... Perfection.

Today, three gorgeous flowers open their faces to us.

Tuscawilla Tigress -- I love that name!






Red Volunteer: strong and singularly beautiful!






Frances Joiner: rose on outer edges, then apricot, then a green throat. It's stunning!






Oh, fine. Let me once again acknowledge the potted annuals, and the pensive (and very beautiful) bronze statues that are Ed's mother's contribution to our gardens.







Today is very unusual for me because it is the first day in months when I will not be spending time with Snowdrop. Typically, come Saturday, we go to the farmers market together, but this week the young family is busy and so very early, I hop on Rosie and set out downtown on my own. (Rosie is a jewel for these escapades as she can be parked anytime and anywhere and for free.)

Going to the market alone is an entirely different experience. When I am with Snowdrop and her mom, I am there for the market, as shared with the family, and I only purchase an item or two. My eyes are focused on avoiding nicking the heels of shoppers with the stroller and on making sure Snowdrop isn't facing the heat of the sun. I want her to love the outing (and she does). And there is just enough room in the basket of the stroller for my daughter and I to throw down a few needed items.

Alone, I am focused solely on the vendors. I am like I was when I shopped here for the restaurant. Produce matters. Exchanges with vendors matter. Understanding the growing habits of one farmer over another (for example, watching carefully how they snip their asparagus or present their strawberries or shell their peas) matter.

Because it is ever so slightly less crowded now, around 8 (with the family, we walk over and so we are rarely there before 10:30), I can take a few photos. I know, I know, not many readers love market photos, so I will post just those that give you the essence (in my view) of this season (which, by the way, is just about my favorite: the summer fruits and vegetables are young, just starting to emerge... it's like spring in your garden only better).


(I never buy potted perennials at the market, but they are beautiful to look at!)






Buckets of strawberries? Yes! (Perhaps that wasn't the best idea: moped bumps and sways aren't optimal for fragile berries...)






Peas! Delicious raw, in your salad, or with potatoes, or with your stir-fry!






Always, the bunches of flowers...






New potatoes! In Poland, we'd eat these with butter and dill. Maybe, but the possibilities are endless... Another salad Nicoise perhaps?






The last of the asparagus. This young vendor is very good at picking out the best of the tips for you...






Oh, I get even more: beautiful new string beans! Mushrooms, of course! I room in my moped basket.

 And after, I drive over to Madison Sourdough to buy some breakfast breads...

Home now. Here are the farmers' fields just to the east of us...







And only now am I ready for breakfast. Decadent today, with croissants and pain au chocolat.






I end my photos with breakfast, how unusual is that! After this late morning meal, I have to atone for my morning socializing last week and so I grocery shop for the week ahead. (It offers many humorous moments, as I ask the employees what they think of their new status as Amazon staff. What, you didn't know this? Whole Foods was sold to Amazon yesterday...)

And still later, Ed and I work outside, tending to weeds, chips, and so on and so on. It's not all work -- we have a very long and very beautiful escape to our favorite somewhat run down, but so magical, surrounded by fragrant pines, tennis court.

Perhaps there are finer springtimes to be had, but honestly, I'm just so in love with the one that has been offered to us here, at the farmette this year.

I hope yours was equally stunning, fragrant, colorful and full of the joys of daily life.

Friday

Doesn't it appear as if a day is composed of separate pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that, however assembled, and with pieces that sometimes are there and sometimes missing, it nonetheless always produces a clear and coherent whole?

Perhaps the only question for me is this then -- what will I be using for my picture of this day? Breakfast and garden for sure. What else?

But though I will admit to the similarities -- yes, there will also be Snowdrop and yes, she will be playing/swimming/swinging and yes, occasionally there'll be a cheeper or two, and maybe a glance at the venerable farmhouse, still, none of these pieces seem identical to ones I'd inserted before. A day is an unwritten book for me. I'll have the rough contours of it even before I get up, but I never feel it to be predictable or mundane.

Still, this is hard to convey on Ocean. How could I possibly labor over the detail that is part and parcel of each image here? And how boring it would be to read all that detail! (For example, you wouldn't know it, and what does it matter tot he reader anyway, but in fact, I was truly entranced this morning by the first bloom on one of my newly planted "prairie moonlight" day lilies. This is a really graceful, beautiful day lily, with, in my view, an enchanting name and, I'm told, a delicious fragrance, though I haven't yet experienced that part of it. I must have admired this flower for a good many minutes. But of course, here, it appears as merely an image from my garden walk...)






Breakfast -- such a stable piece of the puzzle! But today Ed wasn't hungry. And still, we sat and gossiped about chickens and children and mopeds and who knows what else. (Java has started to be broody -- sitting on her egg, or sometimes what she thinks may be her egg hours on end, expecting it to hatch...)






This week, a recurring piece of the day's puzzle is my repeat coffees with my lovely friend who is in town. Each time, at a different coffee shop! A wonderful way to spend the hours of the morning!






And then I pick up Snowdrop. Oh, just another photo of us on our neighborhood adventure! This time she is pushing the stroller with me. But what I remember best from the moment when I took the picture is that we were standing underneath a blooming linden tree. The fragrance was profound and at once, I was transported to Sorede (the place Ed and I went to for four years in a row, right at the end of June. It seems that linden trees bloom here and in the south of France in the very same weeks...).






Here is a photo -- the linden tree from today's walk -- that makes me smile, not for its beauty, but for the heavenly scent that it puts forth. (So evocative is it for me, that a Sorede blooming linden is my permanent desktop photo on my travel laptop.)






And here's a happy little girl on the play ground structure. But actually, ours was a fleeting visit. She was apprehensive today. Too many older kids in the park.






And two photos of Snowdrop at the community pool, where we returned today after yesterday's happy hour spent there.


Happy to feel the cool waters...






Happy to send streams of water into the air...






But even though the pool was far less crowded today, the activity around us was a tad out of control. And though Snowdrop wanted to stay in, she hovered near me rather than venturing out on her own.


At the farmhouse now -- well, that surely is a piece of the puzzle that you've seen a lot these past weeks: grocery shopping!






And to be thorough, I should include the absolutely for sure daily repetition of book reading. Only the reading matter changes and sometimes, not even that!






Typically, my active part of the day ends with the early evening departure of the little girl. Yesterday, I was so sure that no other photo would be forthcoming, that I put up a post just after supper, only to find myself a few minutes later riding the rural roads on Rosie -- something that was dreamy beautiful and certainly deserving a spot on Ocean, so I opened up my post and put in an extra paragraph or two to commemorate this piece of magic.

Today, too, there are lovely pieces of the puzzle that continue to emerge, even as Snowdrop wakes up and is picked up by her parents.

There is, for example, the dinner out with Ed and his friend. We go to Estrellon -- a restaurant that has recently opened here under the leadership of Chef Tory Miller -- whom I know from my days of working at L'Etoile, but whose restaurants have climbed into stratospheres that in recent years are over and beyond where Ed and I typically would go to eat (insofar as we even eat out -- a rarity, as I love to cook at home).






Today's dinner is really a return of a favor to a friend. I'm the tagalong. But oh, what a good meal it is to tag along to!

And this photo of the paella - it's pretty. It's delicious. For me, there's more -- it reminds me of all the paella we'd eaten in Spain, in the days when Ed and I traveled there together...






(The dessert? That's just plain delicious: a basque cake with trimmings...)






So yes, I agree: just glancing at the puzzle pieces, they are a touch similar, and many of them -- a tad predictable. Until they're not. And even when they are similar, they are never, ever the same.

Thursday

You know how a day proceeds: each hour is a new card and it may reveal a pleasant outcome, or something you wouldn't necessarily like or call a winning hand.

I do think that, as of this writing (there are a few hours left to the day!), all the cards showed lovely outcomes for me today.

The day dawned beautifully to clear blue skies and yes, warm temps in the upper 80sF (over 30C), but with a breeze and with a significantly lower humidity.

An early garden walk, past the fallen clematis, which I refuse to raise because it climbs right under a bird's nest and becomes their outhouse all summer long...






Breakfast.





You said you weren't photographing me.
I wasn't totally truthful.






And then yes, a dentist appointment, which surely does not constitute a lucky card draw!  But I was so certain I would get a poor verdict, that I could not believe my luck when my good old dentist said -- oh I can fix this quickly on the spot. Splish splash, rubber this, seal that and I'm out of there! What luck!

To celebrate, I stop at the nearby La Baguette bakery to buy their delicious quiches for supper.

A few tedious bookkeeping chores at home (I did not say that every minute was 100% sublime) and then it's time to pick up Snowdrop.

We go to the playground and she does many lovely rounds of play on the climbing structure... (She has invented a game that goes with it and she repeats it every time and it just makes me smile and smile...)






Then up on the life guard chair...






Followed by a bite of scone at the coffee shop...






And then I have this idea and I'm even equipped to execute it, but I'm just not sure... So I ask: Snowdrop, do you want to go to the swimming pool? It's just a few blocks from here...

Snowdrop has once had swim lessons there (at the Goodman pool) and she certainly loves splashing in her farmette wading pool, but last week's splash pad experience has me wondering if it's worth moving ahead with a pool idea just now.

The Goodman pool is Madison's one and only community pool (all the other pools are private and require insanely expensive memberships). Here,  the season's pass for Madison residents is reasonable, and the daily pass -- a trivial sum as well. And so on days like this, it can get very, very crowded.

But Snowdrop hears the word pool and gives a resounding "yes!"

We get there just a couple of minutes before it opens to the public (at 1 every day).

The lines are crazy. I mean, really crazy. It's hot. The sun is strong. Is this worth it? I turn to her: you want to wait for tickets and go to the pool? Again a big "yes!" (Not every minute of every hour is sublime...)

We wait. People are nice. The lines grow so long that I can't see their end. This is when I decide that I better just cough up the cash for a season's pass for us: not only does it make economic sense, but, too, I never ever want to stand in a line this long again!) I look at her -- she better enjoy this!

Then there's the confusion about payment: machines aren't working, computers are jamming, we hold up the now beyond insanely long line just in trying to pay our fair share... But finally, we're in!


And it's crowded. And there are kids, oh so many kids, everywhere. And it's so sunny that your eyes squint wherever you turn. And so I really feel compelled to glob on the sunscreen.

But as we go into the water, the girl is transformed!






She just loves it!






All of it!






A few minutes of splashing in the shallow end and then she ventures out toward the deeper parts. It strikes me that Snowdrop does not understand that she does not know how to swim. I hover. She pushes me away. No, Gaga, I can do this!






She was so enthralled at being at the pool that I did not think I would ever be able to coax her out of it. I finally gathered her up and told her that her babies were waiting and reluctantly, she allowed herself to be showered and then directed to the car.

At the farmhouse. She should be sleeping now.

Snowdrop, it's time for a nap.
I think I need to buy groceries first...
A book and a nap, little one!






It was a beautiful afternoon. Snowdrop's joy was so profound that she could not contain her squeals and giggles. I smile just at the recollection.


In the evening, Ed and I scoot over to our local Thursday farmers market. We want some of those delicious new berries. and cheese curds, and whatever else might be showing up just now. (photo by Ed)






And then we are home, our old but ever so cool home, with views towards flower fields on all sides. Not quite in bloom yet, but summer lovely nonetheless.






Post Scriptum:

Well, even the late hours did not disappoint today. Ed had been working for a while now on getting Rosie the moped up and running for me again. She'd been unreliable at times and since there aren't many old motorbikes out there that Ed can't fix, he set himself up tonight to diagnose her issues. As the sun did its final dip below the line separating day from night, I went outside to keep him company.

I chased Java off her perch in the garage, pulled a few weeds in random places, and then asked for an update.
Maybe I should take her out for a spin?
Good idea. It's a gorgeous night.

Oh, is it ever!






When you're out on familiar rural roads, scooting about in your shorts, with bare shoulders and sandled feet, you feel the essence of summer.

At dusk, the scents are as profound as those in any flower market. The first night prowlers are beginning to emerge...






Suddenly, you feel that arrogance of youth, even if, like me, you're 64 years old. You don't remember, don't care, don't acknowledge all that has rattled you and your physical capabilities in the last decade or two. It's as if your adolescence came back, tapping on your shoulder, asking you -- hey, have you forgotten? You are as you were then...

Yeah, I remember. And tonight, out there between field and forest, I am as I was then...