Saturday

Most of the time, when I go to the farmers market with my daughter and granddaughter, I hardly take any family photos. My mind is on other things: picking foods, maneuvering the stroller, chatting up my girls.

But today is different. I use my camera a lot -- not so much on the foods or vendors, but on Snowdrop and family. Here's why:

It is a brilliant day, though a bit on the cool side. I smile to myself on that one: no need to discuss the terrible harms of wearing a sweater with Snowdrop. (Though even on hot days, it is a pointless discussion. Me: Dear one, it's hot! if you keep the sweater on, you'll feel sweaty and awful! You'll feel ill, I'm sure! Snowdrop: I want my sweater on!) The day is made for little girls who love their sweaters.

Big girls too: Ed and I eat breakfast on the porch and I'm definitely wearing a light cardigan.






A quick look at the garden...






And I'm off to the young family's home for our weekly trek to the market.

Snowdrop is out of her bath and ready to go. It appears that baby is coming along with us today!






(Is it that baby picks up Snowdrop's ready smile, or is it that Snowdrop herself responds to baby's exuberance?)






We are at the market and out comes my camera. Why? Because we're all here today: Snowdrop, both parents and, too, Snowdrop's other grandma who has arrived for a visit with the little girl. (The four of them are in the photo below.)






And so once again, my focus at the market changes. Oh, I poke about, picking up the asparagus (last time for the year!) and strawberries (these, too, are nearly done) and onions, mushrooms, and the rest of the market bounty, but mostly, I am enjoying watching Snowdrop's big girl antics.

Pushing the stroller...






(I can see you upside down, gaga!)






Resting on a bench, waiting for the rest of us to catch up with her...






Enjoying this grandma's company...






And, upon hearing music from a curbside band, dancing.






Oh, does she dance!






Want to dance with me, Gaga?






Listen! The music is starting again! Dance!






And I do, but honestly, today is a day for watching the little one get just that much older, livelier, attuned to the world around her.






There are other beautiful aspects to this walk (here's one: the view back to the Capitol)...






After all, it's never all about grandparenting. On a day like this, the garden beckons.

At this time of the year, the rewards are plentiful. Like all concerned stewards of the land, we work to encourage the monarch butterflies to make this their summer home. Milkweed is a pampered plant at the farmette, sometimes growing in terrifically inappropriate places (typical: in front of the garage where the motorbikes are kept, so that if you want to take one out, you have to wiggle your way around the tall stalks).

But the monarchs don't just look for milkweed. They're enticed by many, many blooms. And today, I am thrilled to see them make numerous forays to our gardens.





There are other details to admire right now and part of the joy is in catching the expected. I know so many of the pairings too well here! I know that this iris will bloom alongside this achillea. And it does, and when it does -- I'm thrilled.






And now here's a very welcome surprise: the first raspberries are ripening!  Snowdrop will be thrilled with this seasonal development!






Toward evening, I do my annual takeover of the plowing/mowing at the farmette. Ed does the month to month maintenance, but I do one massive effort to fill in where I think he has too readily looked the other way.

I don't like working the heavy machinery across the rough terrain and I haven't touched some of the wilder regions of the farmette land since my younger daughter's wedding here three years ago.

But I want to bring back the discussion Ed and I have had about what to do with the overgrown fields out back and one way to do it is to plunge into the thicket of weeds and to take stock.

It is a tough job and (predictably) I break the mower forging through the mess out there. But I've made a dent!

(Working the machine across those fields, I again encounter the butterflies that appear to have settled here. No way will I disturb their homes. Swish! Wiggle and zoom around their favorite flower. Ed! I feel car sick!)





This is our day then. Of little ones and butterflies. Of dances and ripening raspberries. What's there not to like?

Friday

I am waiting in line at the coffee shop with Snowdrop after school. The day is a tiny bit chaotic as I'm trying to fit a lot into it. Moreover, I don't know about her, but I had a night of frequently interrupted sleep due to the heavy storms that passed this way again. So I'm patient (if there is one virtue that I think grandparents should cultivate it's patience and so I am forever pausing, thinking, reconsidering...) but at the same time, I am too aware of the ticking clock on a tightly scheduled day.

The customer toward the head of the line wants a sandwich. Darn! The coffee shop staff move at a very slow pace. Ah well, maybe the guy just in front of us wont make great demands on them.

Indeed, he does not.

I'd like a cookie and a coffee, he says and takes out his credit card. (The rule here is that you can't use a card if your order is under $5.) I know this wont add up to $5, so please put whatever she is ordering on my card (he points to me).

In fact, Snowdrop and I always have a carefully calculated snack that totals to just a few cents over $5 so that I can use the card (a scone and a shot of espresso will do it), but he didn't know that.

I remember reading about such a gesture in a Ramona Quimby book -- a favorite series which I devoured with my girls when they were little, and I thought  -- this is so kind, to reach out to strangers in this way, but I've never done it, in part because I'd feel flustered and awkward and timid -- I mean, what if the recipient of a largess felt insulted by it?

Well, I did not feel insulted. I felt that this town (this world) has so many good people in it and here's one of them and isn't that just reason enough to smile!


Let me return now to breakfast which is a tad rushed, because I have groceries to buy and Ed has meetings to attend. I'd picked up fallen flowers, casualties of the storms, and put them in vases and so it surely feels lush on the porch, but we have to make do with an unusually short time to enjoy it.






Garden walk.






Then the saunter to the various stores, the unpacking, storing, sorting, clearing and now I am off to pick up Snowdrop and we are at the coffee shop.






After our neighborhood walk, we have something important to do: the young family is in the middle of purchasing a new home. It's never done until the day everyone signs mountains of paper and shakes hands all around, but if all goes well, the new home is now identified and the back and forth is almost complete. So Snowdrop and I set out to visit it for a quick peek (a first for me... she'd seen it before at an open house).

Of course, she should be napping by now. Instead, she listens to discussions of "a new home" and moving and she senses the enthusiasm for this project which seems rather strange to her, but because she is a cup half full kind of kid, she finds reasons to rejoice and spends a good bit of time running between the bedrooms and finding pleasure in this grand new place by waging a singular marathon in it.






Back and forth.






And now she is very tired and though my patience quotient is still doing well, hers is wearing thin. I take the little girl back to the farmette and we spend a quiet few minutes cooling off at the wading pool...











... and eating fruits (I cannot think of a fruit that Snowdrop would reject) and reading books.






She naps, I admire the lovely clumps of iris and lavender in the gardens...










Nap ends, Snowdrop plays music to celebrate love and friendship. The world seems like such a caring place.






A little girl, or a stranger in line at a coffee shop can get you to focus and think good thoughts about all that a day puts before you.

Thursday

I used to think that some people were born with an intense desire to nurture and others -- not so much. Some people appeared to me to love parenting -- others just walked through the steps out of a sense of duty. Or inevitability. Or something. Or nothing.

These days, I think it's all much more complicated.

When I first met Ed, he seemed to be completely unaware of the concept of raising children, claiming that there were too many of them and that they were, for the most part, too loud.

And yet, on his profile page (remember, we met on line), he posted a photo of himself and a little boy, walking the market together (kid on his shoulders). I thought that was a pander to women who may like the idea of a guy who is sweet to little kids. But was it?

Snowdrop, on the other hand, seems so obviously nurturing in her behaviors (toward her babies, toward classmates with disabilities) that it's hard to imagine her not being a caring mommy or aunt or foster parent or just individual out there, in a sea of people.

But here's a curious and wonderful thing: Ed has really changed since Snowdrop came into our lives. Whereas before, he reserved his softness for animals and used to make a point of regarding infants as somewhat bizarre specimens, now he is Snowdrop's biggest pal and defender. He is an intuitive teacher and most patient friend to her.

Is it that most of us do have infinite capacity to nurture (and I do not equate nurturing with just parenting or even grandparenting), but only under circumstances that are well matched to our personalities and temperaments?



It's a slower day today in many respects. The weather is unsettled -- first cool and wet, then just wet, then just cool, then neither. And, too, after a really chaotic month, I think we are all in need of routine and repetition. You'll see a lot of that in the post today.

Breakfast, of course.






A garden walk.






(The summer irises are now blooming and they are just beautiful!)






Ed and I have taken on a few gardening projects -- there's that fallen tree that he wants to take care of and there are sagging limbs of other trees that in my opinion are threatening to obstruct the entrance to the farmhouse. (And, too, there are the periodic root issues we have, as our willow has yet again rooted its way into our septic pipes and so we have to have someone come out and attend to this before we lose the ability to take showers and flush toilets).

Mostly, we do everything at a snail's pace.


When I pick up Snowdrop at school, she is bouncy and delightfully eager to do... something. But I steer her away from anything ambitious. We go to the playground, where she does swing until I tire of pushing her...






She asks to go to the pool, but I tell her it's too wet and cold and she accepts that. At the farmette, she begs to play outside, but again, it's just not a good day for the wading pool and the sandbox, despite its cover, is so saturated that you may as well call it mud play. Not today, Snowdrop.






I entice her with a few cherries off our tree...






(And even get her to take off her sweater, but not for long...)






... and then we head indoors, where she spends a good hour playing with Ed...






... eventually getting him to turn on that polka music...






... and to dance with her.





After, they tumble around on the floor in horse play and I do what I always do then -- say be careful, Ed over and over again so that the little one takes up the chant laughingly -- be careful ahah! ha ha ha! Be careful! Tumble, bounce, tumble some more. Thankfully both come out undamaged.


Evening. I stir fry a lot of mushrooms! We've stockpiled bagfuls from our favorite mushroom farmers. Today we indulge.

And the rains come and go and the fireflies dance their summer dance...

long and beautiful

What can I say -- I love these long days that herald the beginning of summer! I love the fact that I can wake up to light and roll over for another few hours in that dreamy state, where the mind hasn't yet taken on the clutter of the day and the birdsong comes in good and strong through the open window.

We eat a late breakfast on the porch...






And I have a late walk through the garden...






And if this were winter, I'd be anxiously counting the hours til an impending sunset. But of course it isn't winter. It is one long and beautiful day -- the first day of summer.

(The Happy Returns daylily is crazily showing up everywhere now and I almost take it for granted, even as just a short while back, I would have swooned over every single bloom...)













Snowdrop and her family are back this afternoon and I meet them for a quick lunch...






... then we kill time, as the young family's house is going through an inspection (it sold almost the minute they put it on the market).

Where? Oh, come on! It's the first day of summer! The pool!






I wouldn't say it's the warmest day of the season (lower 70sF, or about 23C), but on the upside, this makes for a very uncrowded pool.






Three generations of splashers!






Snowdrop comes to the farmhouse afterwards and I am excited to show her the handful of cherries that have survived on our young tree!






Here's a double one! She is an appreciative cherry eater.






(Gaga, I only have one shoe on! I know... Oh, the joys of summer!)






Evening. Snowdrop has gone back to her home. Ed is out biking (if it's Wednesday, then he must be out speeding along the rural roads, barely avoiding smashing his collar bone each time...). I cook up the components of a salad nicoise and then, being Polish, I head out for a walk. It's a national past time: in the evenings, we walk.

I head east, first -- to inspect the damage from a fallen tree on the farmette land. We don't know why it fell. Most likely it was a combination of wind and tree type -- box elders eventually topple. This one was rather large and I doubt that Ed will be able to take it down and saw it into logs himself, but I am as sure as anything that he will try.

Then I pick up the road and I watch the truck farmers go about their rituals of tilling and tending...






The sun plays a game with the sliver of cloud cover and perhaps I should have had the patience to watch this until the final setting, but I was just so focused on enjoying the evening, that the significance of this longest day was a little pushed to the side.






It may have been the continuation of solstice, 2017, but to me, it was just one of those beautiful evenings that make you grateful to be here, now, in this place, at this time.