Thursday

The life of a day lily bloom is one short day. It opens in the morning and is finished by nightfall. True, a stalk has buds ready to bloom in succession, so that you're likely to have several weeks of flowers from one day lily plant, but nonetheless, the beauty of any one bud is intense and very short.

You cannot be surprised that I want to hold onto these days of peak day lily flowers. I thought about them in the winter -- buying a few new ones, studying books and catalogues. And I pampered them in spring. No rain for two days? You poor dears, let me run the hose for a bit.

Come summer, I always am astonished when they burst into full bloom, because even though I've seen it before, the show is beyond magnificent!

Some people love fireworks (also fleeting and to some -- beautiful), I love my day lilies.

I say this so that you will understand why I must devote so much space to seemingly similar flower beds. To me, each angle is different and of course, for reasons stated above, each bloom is fresh, deserving of rapture.

From the middle of the grand flower bed, looking toward the farmhouse:






From the middle of that same bed, looking toward the sheep shed:






From the northern corner of the grand bed, up the path to the house:






(Java, watching, hoping...)






And of course, I have to include a corner of the porch-hugging day lily bed.






Breakfast. I include a little dish of freshly picked berries, because it was so hard to harvest them (mosquitoes!) and so I think they deserve special consideration.






This is our view from the porch every morning. Well, except it's different every day because, you know: one day only for each bloom.






When I pick up Snowdrop after her school day, she is, as always, just a wee bit tired. All the kids in her class who stay the full day are napping when I arrive just after noon. But from experience, I know that she is not ready to sleep now. She has always been a late girl: late to get up in the morning (on non school days), late to nap, late to go to sleep (if allowed to stay up).

During the winter, her afternoons are serene. She plays, builds, draws, learns, reads. Her social hours are in the morning and on weekends. In the afternoons, it's just me and Ed.

During the summer, I shift my focus to the outside world. And because we are so buggy right now, I take Snowdrop to places where I know the bug problem is not too severe. This is the time when I do a lot of watching, but I step back and let her take the lead.





Today, a much older girl tried to engage her in a discussion about the merits of various pieces of playground equipment. Undaunted, Snowdrop explained to the girl her own take on what's worth doing and where she needs help with a climb (my gaga has to help me climb up that ladder). This to me is delicious to watch: Snowdrop has the verbal confidence of a kid who can talk her way out of many interesting situations.

(I know you're a big girl, but you're still not big enough to drink alone from that fountain!)






On these walks, she often sets the rules: you hold this flower gaga... No, I don't want that one... etc.
(In case you're wondering, I have to think she has a mosquito scratch on her neck and thus the bandaid, even though it does look mighty terrifying to see her with an injury just at the neck level!)






Today, she again asks for the pool and this time I am agreeable. Moreover, having seen another child play with a little doll at the pool, I have packed her little baby, the one that is meant to be dunked in water. She spots it right away and her excitement is obvious.











Again the pool fills. Many school buses bringing many groups of kids from day camps and school programs. My job now is to do two things: say to her "come back here, that's too deep for you," and protect her from the rush of older kids.

As I watch Snowdrop, I am convinced that the pool teaches her far more than I could in the hour we are there. True, she does imitate stuff that makes me cringe (but with a smile!): she'll repeatedly dash into the water, screaming (and like them, she can pack a piercing wallop!), just like the big kids. But the real lessons are when she watches how others play. I think she gets that the kids who are blessed with better social skills, play well with each other. The others are more pouty, less exuberant. She takes it in.






It's always hard to get her to leave. But we must. Snowdrop's gaiety is running on borrowed time. She really does need to nap.

Our time at the farmhouse is really not free time at all, it's me trying to wind her down. Get her into quiet activity. And eventually book reading.

She finds this magazine on my table...  I want to read it! -- she announces. No wonder: it's a fantastic sketch of dogs playing in a children's playground.





Not this year, Snowdrop. Not this year.

Wednesday

And the storms rage and the mosquitoes rejoice and -- wait, wasn't that yesterday's post? Has anything changed?

In fact, it has. You can't stay mad at the world forever: it's time to do your crazy dance of waving arms and kicking legs (bugs hate motion) and forge ahead with the day.

In the early morning, after the night storms have rumbled away, I go out without protective clothing to survey the (very wet) flowers...






... and to pick (the very wet) berries, waving my arms, kicking my legs...





I am reminded of when, nearly seven years ago, a construction guy who was helping with the fixing up of the farmhouse said to me -- I see the footprints of mice in the dust.
Mice? Really? How do I get rid of them?
You can never get rid of them in an old house. They have thousands of routes of entry.
So... I live with mice?
No, you learn to play the game: you try to outsmart them. You win, you lose. It's a challenge.

Since then, we've trapped and released dozens and dozens of mice. It's not that you get used to it, but you learn to live with it. It's a late fall and winter game that completely goes away in the warmer seasons.

To be replaced with the buzz of bugs.

Breakfast. We watch the swallows (raised in the garage) dive through the air and we wish them a happy hunt! Hummingbirds are enjoying the bee balm (which spreads like crazy but I love it anyway -- I pick some for our table), the occasional monarch pops into view.






The raspberries are rich in flavor, the blueberries, harvested yesterday at dusk, despite the uptick in bugs then (who goes out into the fields at dusk??) are large and delicious.






The sun pokes out for a few minutes -- lovely after a period of heavy rain!

This is our summer this year. Still uniquely beautiful.


But when the time comes to pick up Snowdrop, the storms come back, fast and furious. Well, there's always the library, I mutter to myself as I get in the car. Yet by the time I am at her school, the waves of thunder and streams of rain have moved on! The hot, steamy air returns. Impossible to make plans!

We go to the playground. There's shelter close by if the rains return. And the girl insists on rubber boots. Just in case. (Hey, sweet one, the girl on your shirt is also wearing yellow boots! And look! A yellow leaf! The day is full of gold!)






But the air is the opposite of crisp. You feel wilted, sweater or not.






Or maybe it's me who wilts under the blazing heat. Snowdrop seems to manage just fine.






A coffee shop respite (a gold finch!)...






And we return to the farmhouse.
May I have a pony tail, gaga?
Let it not be said that the girl is always predictable. Maybe someday she'll say -- can I take off this sweater already?

Happy to see ahah...






Happy to play in her own corner of the farmhouse.

As I try to move her toward a nap, she grows a little pensive. She finds a photo of her mom and studies it intensely...






... then asks to read the book about her own trip to Paris. Mommy photo, Baby Raffi and the bowl of fruits, right there, by her side.






If family relationships are on her mind, they are on mine as well. I have a daughter in Chicago, a sister in Poland and a mother in California (to say nothing of nephews in still other countries). In many ways, I am the lucky one: because I don't dislike travel and I'm able to do it, I can and do see each at one point or another. But it's unlikely that all of us will ever meet in one place, at the same time.

I take another garden walk -- braver, bolder...

(Scotch, hoping for a handout...)






The wind picks up. Will there be storms tonight? You can't tell. You can never really tell.

Tuesday

And the trees keep falling and the mosquitoes keep biting and the storms threaten and the summer is turning out to be quite the interesting (for lack of a more appropriate term) season!

Yet, like the unattractive wallpaper that you swore you couldn't abide for a single day -- it just had to go, the minute you moved into your house -- after a while, you get used to the new status quo and though I can't say I don't notice this summer's perturbations, I accept them and adjust the day's plans accordingly.

Morning walk through the gardens -- with a bug swatting paddle.






(Day lilies and the tall lilium -- all grand.)






(Lilies in the roadside flower bed as well...)






Breakfast, taking it all in from a safe and comfortable place...







Yes, of course -- I wish I could get closer to my gardens. There's a lot of tweaking that you can do all summer long: deadhead spent flowers, support tall stems, pick out a few weeds. And the berries -- I really must pluck them this week! But I love whatever I can get. Like with your children who grow up and move on, you learn to take what life offers. In the case of my gardens -- I get visual bounty, from the porch, or during my quick morning walks. I am satisfied.


I pick up Snowdrop at the usual noonish hour, but maybe she is tired, or maybe because it is a sticky day, she isn't that keen on getting out of her stroller at the playground.

I look out at the lesser lake -- such still waters! There is no wind at all. Warm muggy air that refuses to move on.






The girl is hungry, that's for sure. She devours the croissant and asks for a coffee shop treat. Okay, let's pause there for a few minutes. (She is perhaps the only one in the place not glued to a computer screen.)






We leave a few scattered crumbs on the floor and I find the broom to sweep them up. Snowdrop takes over. She's not bad at the task!






Revived, she asks if we can go to the pool. Of course!

Waiting by the gate for the doors to open at 1, I encounter a woman, a grandma actually, who has been here at this same hour every time we've been here. She looks at Snowdrop and smiles -- I see a different sweater today! She knows Snowdrop's devotion to her cardigans. That's okay, my little girl insists on a princess dress every waking hour of the day. Even at the swimming pool.

(Here's a moment without a sweater -- when we're getting ready to change into a swimsuit.)






One of the first in the water -- loving it so very much!











Look, gaga! Another schoolbus! Yes, it will be another crowded day at the pool. I'm not surprised. It really is muggy out there.






We don't stay long. Maybe an hour -- it's all you need to refresh yourself on a day like this. Besides, raffi, the baby of choice is waiting at the farmhouse. (Feeding her cakes is serious business!)






In the late afternoon, just before the rains come down again, Ed comes in from surveying the farmette lands -- the beetles in the orchard, the cheepers in the coop, the mosquitoes out by the blueberry bushes...
I've got good news and bad news -- he tells me. The bad news is that the tree we worked on yesterday -- it toppled completely, right onto your rear flower bed. I can't leave it like that. I'm going to have to go and clear it out.

Where in that is the good news, I wonder?

For me, of course, the good news is that I can still sit out on our porch, listen to the drizzle on the glass roof and look out on this...

Monday

Once again, storms raged last night through south central Wisconsin. Repeat lightning, pounding rains that caused flash floods and, of course, the furious winds.

And once again they toppled a huge farmette tree -- one that fell across a distant flower bed, resting in part on a poor, sagging birch. That section of the yard, right close to the sheep shed, now holds the official designation of being a total mess.

Ed's comment this morning? When the other tree fell down (about a month ago) and I had to clear it, I kept saying -- thank God this happened before the mosquitoes came!  

No such luck this time. In fact, a good rain like that only promises a swell in their population.

Clearing a partially felled tree is grueling and sometimes dangerous work. You can't make mistakes. Doing it while bugs are buzzing around your head and landing on any possible surface of skin or clothing makes it only worse. True, there is the protective mesh clothing, but zipping yourself inside it proves to be surprisingly hot. Who would have thought that putting on a porous nylon cover would make you sweat!

The rains interspersed with sunny days have been, of course, good for the flowers and today the lilies really exploded. Looking out from the vantage of the porch, we are finally seeing the gorgeous, varied blooms of the lily bed.






... against the backdrop of an almost Impressionistic palate of more distant blooms.






I take a pre-breakfast walk, ignoring the bugs, enjoying the beauty of a garden in full bloom.






Okay, breakfast.






Later, driving out to pick up Snowdrop, I pause for a second to give an appreciative nod to the roadside flower bed. It is in its second year and so it's finally starting to fill in. It's also impossible to photograph well, as it is very long, somewhat sloped and not too wide. But I can give you an idea of just one segment of it!






It's pretty warm outside, but Snowdrop asks to keep her sweater on and I offer no comment.






We go to the playground and she so wants to swing, but the sunshine has warmed her favorite swing to an uncomfortable degree. I offer a solution: place the sweater on the seat! Yay sweater! Happy girl!

I'm catching the children! -- she tells me as she swings towards the beach were little ones are playing.






A thoughtful spin on the climbing structure...






Strengthening those arms!






And finally, a climb up on the life guard chair to enjoy the bowl of fruits that Gaga brought for our little outing.






Oh no, all gone?






After this adventure, I drop Snowdrop off with her parents -- she has a 2.5 year old check up (looking great!) and I have a free afternoon.

Well, to a degree.

When I return home, I see that Ed has not tackled the tree yet. It really is an odious job, but it must be taken care of soon. We're not sure the birch can support the heavy old tree and it would be a shame to lose that too.

I give one huge sigh and then offer to help. I'll wave the mosquito paddle around you.
That wont be safe. Two of us standing under that tree is definitely not a good idea. Do your projects. You need your afternoon. I'll take care of the tree.

Still, time passes and he stays inside.

The bugs are at their lowest number at this time of the day... I prod.
You're right. I'm going right now.

He stays put. Honestly, Snowdrop bounded into the doctor's office with greater enthusiasm that he has for working outside today.

In the end, without further talk, we both go out to tackle the job. He saws, I pick up fallen limbs and stack them in his tractor wagon. We do this until he starts feeling too tired to be safe with that power saw. Half done. Maybe more.

A monarch crosses my path as I return to the farmhouse. She dances from one milkweed flower to the next. We'll watch to see if she laid eggs.

The butterflies and bees, the flowers, the peas, tomatoes and berries, the blooming crab, the overloaded lilac -- they give us so much joy! At every single breakfast on the porch, we talk about how beautiful the world is outside.

This day had elements of the flip side: tending to the land when it needs help, when it's not so pleasant out there, when the air conditioned farmhouse seems like a spot in heaven.

But all I need to do is glance out again, catch a glimpse of that butterfly. And of the lilies, daisies, irises, phloxes, asters, sunflowers, campanulas, lupines, lavender and a million other daintily beautiful flowers.

Ed and I know this one truth: working the farmette land together is, for us, important. And deeply satisfying. And the benefit is obvious, at breakfast in the morning, or when a pizza guy delivers pizza (last Saturday) and says -- I just want you to know, like holy shit, the flowers here are just amazing!