farmhouse vacation

First, the data: 375 plus a dozen frogs.

Yes, the number refers to snipped spent lilies, though I did not get to the task of cleaning the garden until late afternoon. By then, I thought the bug population would have calmed down and I went out without mosquito netting. Mistake. It was a harsh set of minutes.

The number is both artificially high, because I dug into a bed I hadn't touched yesterday (hence -- two days' worth of lilies) and low, because I had to leave about a dozen wilted blooms, as they were occupied by these guys:









Hey, wait, you're a bee and that's not a lily!

Back to the frogs, or at least a sampling of them:










It can be a challenge to see them!





The flower beds are looking good for August. By now the garden typically takes on a dried appearance, but this year's rains have helped keep it vibrant and fresh. And every day is still a hefty lily blooming day!










Even though I know it wont last.





(Henny isn't in this next photo, but she is back to following these two around. They all seem much relieved to be a threesome again.)





Breakfast is outside once more, as the day is pleasantly warm.





Immediately after, I hop on Rosie, wave to the flock of sandhill cranes...





And meet up with my daughter and her little girl for our walk to the downtown market.





It is a sentimental walk, because it is our last one. Next week at this time the young family will have moved to their new home and it's a lovely place in a lovely location, but it's not walking distance to the downtown farmers market.

Today's jaunt is spirited and fun and we talk about how the future will play out as the details of our daily life are bound to change, even as so much will be as it is today.

(The onions aren't going anywhere! Snowdrop, pick out two for me!)




(Oh, the August market flowers! They're abundant and cheap. They also don't last very long, but the few days that they stand tall and proud in your vase, they are magnificent!)





I am loyal to Stoneman's, our local corn farmer, but before there was a Stoneman's in my life, there was the Bee Charmer on the market square -- her main focus is in fact honey, but her corn is also special: it's gentle and sweet and today I stock up on some half dozen ears.



Out of necessity, Snowdrop and I pop into the Capitol building and though she has been inside at some earlier date, it's been a while and she is mesmerized by the interior!



(Eyes drawn to the voluminous cupola.)




(Outside again, finding mommy...)





Time to head home now and for the little girl, there will be only one more night (later in the week, just before the move) at her current home, as she is embarking today on a vacation -- to gaga and ahah's farmhouse!



That's right -- she is with us for the next four days and I will not be exaggerating when I tell you that I have been thinking about this visit for a long while now. I am like the proverbial grandma (like my grandma was in fact) -- a person who needs to ready everything because the grandkid is coming!

A warning: I'll be posting fourteen photos from this first day of Snowdrop's farmhouse vacation. Unless you love tracking a grandma's devotion to her little one in every detail, you may want to say good night now and call it a day.

But for the grandparent in all of us, here's the start of Snowdrop's farmhouse stay:


Her babies have a new high chair (that they share). Ice cream and tea anyone?






I'm playing "hello everybody!" 
If you say so, Snowdrop...






Can I do yoga on the mat?
Go for it!






Dinner: chicken brats and market corn and garden tomatoes.





Do you want to try an ice cream bar? (It's really a strawberry Greek yogurt bar, but hey!)
Yes... What is that?
Here, try it! Ice cream on a stick!





Can I have ahah's too?






Like it?





I do like it!






After dinner, I clean up, Ed plays with her.
Ed, are you really supposed to turn a kid upside down right after a meal??





From Ed: shall we go pick tomatoes?
From me: the bugs...
Ed: They're not the worst. We can wave the paddles.

We're off. Snowdrop is thrilled to be out and about at the farmette once more.






She loves freshly picked baby tomatoes...






Purple clover is pretty nice too...






But tomatoes are better.






Finally, quiet play, with a new addition for all her countless character stories that she so loves to spin...





An old book, a new book, a kiss and a hug.

in and out, on and off

It is a cold morning. Windy, wet, cold. Would have I worked in the gardens had I the time? On the one hand, the wind likely hushed the mosquito frenzy. But the wet cold air -- how inspiring would that be?

It's an academic question. I have no time. I have before me grocery shopping for the week and it will be an unusual week so it requires great thought -- all this takes up most of the morning.

Yes, there is the usual wonderful breakfast, but it's indoors. I mean, it's in the mid 50s F (12C) out there -- would you really rush to have your meal outdoors?






But here's a surprise! When I look out (and try not to notice the spent lily heads), I see Henny! I haven't seen that chicken for weeks! Months, perhaps. Today she decides to put her coop roosting to rest and join (in her own skittish way) the world. I greet her with bread. Welcome back, you pretty little hen!






(The three girls, pecking away...)






Groceries put away and off I go to pick up Snowdrop.

A nod to the beautiful cranes across the road from us...





... and now I am at the little girl's school.
Ready to go? Hmmm... I see you have sandals on. Would you like to switch to your regular shoes? It's cold outside.
No, I want my sandals.

I have to smile at how firm she is in her conviction. Must be sandals today! Oh, okay...


We go to the coffee shop first.

(Snowdrop eating, a woman thinking, a goose wearing necklaces...)







(Revived!)






Outside again, I suggest a cover for her bare legs. It's so beastly windy!

She wants to wear the jacket. I have no argument with this.






But here's a surprise: after a few minutes, Snowdrop announces that she wants the jacket off.
Okay...
And I want to take off the sweater!
Okay...






Here sits a girl who wore her sweater, tightly buttoned, when the thermometer climbed to summer highs. And today, a day that nears record lows, she appears like this:






But hold on to your hat, dear hannah,  back at the farmhouse, I hear the familiar plea: may I please have my sweater?







Happy to be cooking and feeding her babies again.





While she naps, the sun comes out, the winds calm down. I cannot help it -- I must clean out the garden, at the very least in the most visible places.

I do only 90% of the work, but hey, you can appreciate how well it looks to the naked eye now, can't you? Can't you??

(The tallest girls...)






(Loving the sunshine...)






(All is right in the lily world again...)






After Snowdrop's nap, her mommy comes and plays with her ice creams and cakes (of the toy kind)...





And then they're off and Ed and I are off as well: the two of us scoot over to Estrellon -- for a great dinner of tapas and paella with some of his work friends.





If I had to give a one sentence summary of the day, I'd have to admit that it's unusual on many counts -- the weather, the flower fields, the chickens, the little girl's movement in new directions...

And still, the flowers bloom and the sun (eventually) comes through for us and all seems right in our corner of the world right now.




Very right indeed.

Thursday

A gray, stormy buggy muggy day. Yes, I do understand: it cannot be a daily bill of blue skies and cool summer breezes. Still, I almost decide not to clean the garden. I have a "what for..." attitude!

Then I remember that tomorrow I most likely will not have time to clean the garden and the weekend looks rather mad as well, so out come the mosquito pants, the jacket, the hood and bucket in hand, I tell myself -- oh, just a few... Which always leads to a complete job because once you start, why stop?





Besides, the spent lily count is once again going down (364 today) which means that the wilted blooms are more visible if you let them dangle, but on the upside -- it takes less time to snip them off.

Let me put up a quad of closeups, just to give August colors some prominence here:

(red-faced, with beads of rain on their pretty petals!)





(blushing a more delicate pink -- a rare modesty for an August garden)






(I think of these as screamy mimis!)





(tall and sophisticated)






Alright, I am so glad I did my work! A view over the Great Bed:






A view toward a corner of the porch:






And finally breakfast with Ed and no, he is not surly, even though he surely looks like the guy who doesn't like his granola today.






Let's cheer him up with a view from the porch onto the gardens!






But you know who is really in a superb mood? Snowdrop. Despite the fact that we cannot do any of her favorites -- pool? forget it... it's threatening to thunder; playground? we'll have to see... -- she comes out with a zest for the day that is disarming!





But in fact, as we set out toward the coffee shop, I see the dark clouds pushing their way in. I hurry. No lingering today, Snowdrop! Let's pick up our peach and strawberry scone and run like crazy back to the car!

She loves it. When I pause to catch my breath, she prods me -- Gaga! Run like crazy! And then laughs with all her heart at the ridiculousness of it all.


(Passing the cranes, Snowdrop always greets them and, in my best crane voice, I greet her right back on their behalf!)






At the farmhouse, I change her in preparation for an outing she has later in the day with her mommy. She is impish and full of fun, darting away from me, finally allowing her self to be caught but only because Ed is ready with the polka music.





And she tells me  -- look, gaga! I'm dancing without a sweater!






Indeed, little one! You surely are in control here! And today, you are full of play! (Ahah goes after her with a wolf puppet...)






Finally, a bit of quiet play...





... followed by a nap.

After, well, you don't imagine the little one has forgotten about her babies, do you?
Ed wonders why it is that I encourage her "girlie play." I do laugh at that: with Snowdrop, as perhaps with many kids, you can encourage a lot of things, but a child will always have her favorites and honestly, I do not know what really fuels that love. Neither of my girls loved baby dolls. Snowdrop adores hers.

Character play (inventing stories with tiny figures) was big in their lives -- it is in Snowdrop's life as well. The girl likes to build -- but with a purpose, not for its own sake. She has infinite patience in trying to make things work and loves (more than my girls did) watching someone (Ed comes to mind) fix things. Snowdrop thinks the idea of camping is the coolest thing on the planet. My girls were never sold on that. So... what pushes a child to love one thing over the next? Sure, there's the parental (perhaps sometimes grandparental) hand, but there is something more that guides them in any given direction.

Here she is, after her nap, tending to her three babies, just in the twenty minutes or so before her mommy comes to pick her up:
















Later, much later, Ed and I motorbike over to our local farmers market. I'll not show you pics of produce, even though in this low key market, you can get many images without spectator interference. It's never crowded.

But I will return to the sandhills that we pass on out way out. (Snapped from the backseat of the motorbike.)





These birds, in my view, are beyond beautiful. Cranes evoke for me and for many others something that is quite spiritual. Perhaps it's in the birds' movement. Or the way the bird reacts to your presence: with a touch of fear, but ultimately -- with grace.

To me, it is beyond sad that there is a proposal to introduce a crane hunt in Wisconsin. These great birds have a long life span, but they produce few offspring. The argument is that they do some damage in spring to the emergent corn crop, but hey, they also control insect populations and scientists claim that that it isn't that hard keeping them out of the fields in the fragile season.

I'm not a scientist. I can't speak knowledgeably about ways to protect this most graceful bird and the farmer's corn crop. But I do know that the crane stirs Snowdrop too: both of us regard spotting these birds in the field as a highlight of our afternoon.


Storms rumble through. Rains, thunder -- all of it. Let's end on an upnote though.  Perhaps the cranes will keep returning here. Without threat from the likes of us humans. Perhaps the bugs will recede and the rains will subside.

Perhaps.

I mean, one has to trust that a rainbow does grace our skies every now and then and the world is a kind and hospitable place for us all.

Wednesday

Today was to be a day of no obligation. No commitment, no rules, no lists, no schedules. (Unexpectedly, Snowdrop had an activity for the afternoon and so I did not need to pick her up, nor bring her to the farmhouse.)

So you'd think I'd turn this day on its belly and cavort left and right with the freedom that it offered! You'd think I would do something big -- explore the world, take Ed out on a breakfast date (hey, that would be very big!), or read a whole book, or write a whole book! Days with nothing scheduled are so rare -- use it well, use it creatively!

Well, okay, but first I must clip the garden (oh, that counting habit has really stuck: 450 spent lily blooms this morning).





So many colors in an August garden! Is there any color that's missing? Sure -- it's a rare flower bed that will have a true blue in the second half of summer.






You do have to be very careful when you snip spent blooms. For example, if you move fast and your head is covered with mosquito netting, you can very well miss this:





What, you're not seeing it? She blends well into the background, warts and all!

Okay, garden work done! Pots watered! (Yep, from wet weeks, we have moved to a dry week: pots don't like dry weeks.) Lilies cleared!





Breakfast? For the first time since I can remember, Ed is not hungry, not even for fruit. Too much pizza last night!
I'll keep you company -- he offers.

Well fine -- I may as well buck my own trend and eat something that is not oatmeal. It would be cool to have a bakery within spittin' distance, but the closest good croissant is 15 minutes away by car, so I reach for a bread product that is now two days old -- Snowdrop was to have it for snack but hey, it's now available! Heat it for a few secs in the oven, add tasty jam, and with eyes closed, you can pretend it's just baked.





From the porch, looking out... (This is why we linger for such a long time over breakfast!)





Ed has a scheduled lunch meeting and so now is my time to truly soar into new levels of solo adventuring!

Instead, I fill a bucket with soapy water, climb up on the porch roof and scrub the window panes clean.

It so happens that the pollen in the air really clings to glass and despite torrential downpours, our glass roof has a thin coating of plant dust. I'm sure no one would notice or care, but we know it's there and I really do love a sparkly clear glass roof. So I scrub.

On the upside, it takes a mosquito a very long time to discover that there is a human form way up high in the sky and so none reach me until the very end and by that time it's too late -- I've done my work. (In other words, I have a lovely hour working outside without bug interference.)

Too, and more importantly, I get an aerial view of my flower beds. For instance, here's a look at the Great Bed that borders the path to the sheep shed and barn.





This is the time to sing to yourself (not necessarily quietly -- on the roof, the world is yours)! Predictably, I stick with this beautiful old number:

Later, much later, Ed and I zip over to the farm up the road to pick up what will be our August staple:





It's incredible corn! Really, you cannot compare it to the stuff you buy elsewhere. And right now it is at its best -- young, tender and sweet.

The storms that were predicted for this evening moved elsewhere and so Ed is out biking (as is his habit on summer Wednesday evenings). And it strikes me that I ought to bike too! A short but intense loop! Up the scenic rural road, to check on how a favorite prairie is faring.





We live in a beautiful spot. We really do. Every once in a while, Ed asks -- do you want to move somewhere where there are no mosquitoes? He isn't really serious, but were I to waffle, we'd push the thought one step further. Of course, I gasp in horror and remind him that my family is here (which he well knows).

But honestly, we do love our small corner of the planet. We wish there weren't the mosquitoes -- this is true. But we cope and wiggle our way around them. Bugs are everywhere. We've had tremendous mosquito encounters in Canadian Rockies, in New York's Adirondacks, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. And if it's not mosquitoes, then I'll find other reasons why one place is less perfect than another.

But forget the bugs. Look instead at what else this place has to offer each and every day: beauty, peace, seasonal change. And family nearby. Pretty close to ideal, don't you think?