bouncing around

The weather gods are showing me who's boss! If I thought the night would cool off the bedrooms of the farmhouse -- I was wrong. As Snowdrop's room registered 83 and she followed her routine of snuggling in long sleeved pj's under a quilt, I could see that a brief spell of air conditioning would help her and therefore me and everyone else in the house sleep.

Fine. But this morning, the cool-off finally came. So much so that Ed commented -- my, but it's cold in here!

I was tempted to turn on the heat.

Except that looking ahead, I see another heat spell inching toward us, so that my the end of the week, I may be wishing for air conditioning again.

Do I have weather on my mind? Yep -- that and granddaughter and in this post, you get a little of both. (With more photos of her, because she is sunny by nature, even on a cloudy and cool morning.)

Wake up with a grin. She comes down and nibbles on breakfast number one.







Bathe, then chomp on fruits at breakfast number two. Finally grandma brings out the pancakes. Yay grandma! Yay pancakes! Super yay bacon!






More maple syrup please! (Bacon nearly all gone by the time I sit down to eat.)






Later in the morning, I tell her it's time to go home.
But I am going grocery shopping with my babies, grandma!
Ed comments -- I hear more and more of "grandma" and less of "gaga"...







Either calling name is okay by me. Snowdrop has four biological and two relational grandparents (for a total of six) and each has a unique nickname. Gaga, of course, wasn't really a nickname -- it was a one year old, grappling with the impossibly difficult "grandma" word.

In Poland, a grandma is a babcia, or baba for the very young. I very much remember transitioning from calling out "babu!" to "babciu!" Perhaps Snowdrop is doing the same?


In my restful moments this afternoon, I think about how pleasant it is to do nothing. Ed quickly points out that if I went to Europe less frequently, then I could do nothing much more often.
I scoff at that: it's only pleasant to do nothing when on most days I'm doing a lot.
I disagree, he comments and goes back to his reading. In a reclining position. On the couch.

Is playing with Snowdrop tiring? There is an inverse relation: as she gets older, she places fewer physical demands on me, at the same time, I am getting incrementally older. My grandma was 50 when her first granddaughter was born and she turned 52 the day before I was born. My mother was approaching her mid-fifties when her first grandchildren came onto the scene. The year Snowdrop was born I turned 63. If I ever have more grandkids, I will be well into my upper sixties.

And yet, there are days when age seems irrelevant. I pick up the shovel and attack the spring garden, or I carry a tired little girl after play because I forgot the stroller and I never notice that she is heavy or that the shovel is creating big blisters on the palms of my hands.

But today is a restful day, that's for sure. No yard work at all. Just an occasional glance, with a smile, at the lingering monarchs outside...





... and with thoughts about how quickly and beautifully Snowdrop is soaking up the world around her.

A child takes it in. All of it. Before she leaves to return home this morning, she enters her play tent and finds her black cat there. Oh! your long forgotten cat - I comment. He is my leopard, grandma. He is very fast, you see?  She is remembering something from a nature show Ed was watching last night.





It is one of many times when she astonishes me with her memory. As I drive her home, we pass the Arboretum and I point out how beautifully the leaves are changing in the forest there.
That's where you took my mommy when she was little... Snowdrop pipes in.
This just blows my mind! I noted that little fact the last time I took Snowdrop to the Arboretum -- now nearly a year ago! Don't ever think a young child isn't listening and learning...

(Another lily...)





(The colorful sweep of annuals...)






In the evening, the young family is at the farmhouse for dinner. I almost move the whole project indoors, but I reconsider. How many more meals can we enjoy outside before it becomes just too cold to linger there to the sound of birds and yes, cicadas?






The last of this year's corn is celebrated by what appears to be a standing ovation. Not good decorum perhaps, but at the farmhouse, we tend to be relaxed. (The trout, on the other hand, is only modestly appreciated by the little one.)






(The yogurt on a stick? Perfect ending.)





A weekend comes to a close. The farmhouse is clean, the family well fed, the garden -- in its autumnal quiet.

To a good week ahead!

Saturday

Hot. The kind of hot that makes you not mind the coming of winter. At least it wont be so sticky and steamy in December! (Will it?)

There is, however, the upside: luxuriously long breakfasts on the porch...






The rebloom of flowers I had given up on for the year...





Too, it is splendid to ride Rosie to the Farmers Market on the Capitol Square! I meet up with older daughter and grandgirl there.

Though it is a toasty 86F (30C), there is enough of a breeze that Snowdrop is not convinced that her sweater should come off. So be it. Somewhere along the way she learned to love croissants and sweaters. I'm confident both are a passing phase.






(On the Capitol steps...)






(A quick stop at a shop that, unfortunately, is in the habit of dispensing balloons -- delighting kids, frustrating the parent/grandparent who then has to deal with a kid holding on to said balloon...)






In the afternoon, I tie up farmette loose ends. House keeping, garden keeping -- all the things that pile onto a weekend day for nearly all of us. I admit it -- I am a person who loves order and so a weekend clean up is a boost. When all is tucked in and put away, I am at peace.

[Separately, I love day-to-day order. Perhaps you read the article in the NYTimes suggesting that at the very least, you should make your bed to begin the day right? Indeed! I cannot imagine not making the bed (though Ed has taken over this task, as he is up nearly always after me). If I were never to see the bedroom again until nightfall, I would nonetheless tuck in every corner and fluff up the pillows just so. Order! Bliss...]


We haven't had rain for a while and though most perennials will weather a short drought, I do want to help along those that are just this year establishing themselves. And so I spend some meditative moments watering.

(A delicate and not unpretty autumnal  front garden...)






(Looking toward the porch...)






And when evening rolls around, it's not hot anymore. And I do not expect it to be so hot again for a good nine months.






Ed and I play tennis in the secret courtyard among the pines and the breeze is lovely and comforting, buffering any harshness to the day, the week, the year.

It's a beautiful day after all.


On this Saturday, Snowdrop is at the farmhouse for an overnight. It's been a while since we've made pizza here for her!






As the pie bakes, Ed goes out to put away tools he's been using to bring down a partly fallen tree. Snowdrop finds him there and bums a ride...






... then follows him to the garage, to make sure he does everything just so...






She is bedecked in her mother's best necklaces tonight. A funny combination: the strands of beads, the wild ride...






It's getting late... A snuggle with a yogurt bar...






One last wild run in her p.j.s...






And then it really is time to wind down.
Do you want to go out on the porch and watch the bats swoop down?
No....
They wont swoop onto the porch. They're just gathering bugs in the night sky for their little ones in the barn.
This definitely gets her attention. One bat, another... It's a beautiful show!
What's that? -- she asks.
The sound? It's the song of the cicadas.
What are those?
Night bugs that call out to each other. Their buzz is their way of saying "I love you! I love you!"
I love you, I love you! -- she repeats it, satisfied.

Frogs, cicadas, bats -- they all come out to wish her, you, all of us a good and restful night!

Friday

Everyone tells me how hot it is outside. At the eye glass store, wine store, grocery store: man oh man it's hot!

Don't I know it. It's only because I have faith in the cooling properties of a September night that I don't bother with air conditioning. But let me repeat for emphasis -- Madison is one hot town tonday!

(Spot peek at my garden: a lily here and there, but mostly we're hitting the dormant phase of perennial life.)






The eye glass store visit set off the morning on a low note: I bring my glasses in,  pointing out that the protective coating (hang in there -- this gets intense!) is splotchy and murky and that I can't see anything out of the glasses anymore. Yes, I know I had purchased them years ago. Many years ago. But aren't they under some lifetime (at the very least!) warranty? No? Well then, hrumph. But say, I have this spare pair. True, I didn't purchase them in your shop but they are too tight so might you fix them anyway because otherwise I just can't see and they say it's a beautiful world out there today, if somewhat on the hot side.

By the time I leave the store, I decide that the whole eyeglass project is a big headache, not worth pursuing on this steamy and potentially lovely (if I could just focus on it) day. I need new glasses, but when I look at the tab, all I can think is that the total is nearly as much as a trip to Poland (and if I were to go hog wild with the best possible lens, it would exceed the cost of a trip to Poland) and so I let it go.

Oh, wasn't there a breakfast? Yes, of course, but rather hurried, as Ed had work appointments and I had, well, at the very least, eye glass stuff to look into.






In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop. She is (I can tell) a child that has had a full week. True, she has finally succumbed to The Nap at school, but nonetheless, Friday is Friday. You have to tred more carefully on a Friday with a young school kid than, say, on a Monday.

She shows me some favorite spots at her school playground...






This includes the vegetable patch...





And as we play and walk and munch on snacks she tells stories. And if you listen carefully to the make believe, you'll detect that she is a happy girl, but nonetheless, ready to call it a week and head back home.

(Here she is playing one of our favorite games: we're in the car about to head back to the farmhouse. But before she slides into her car seat, she climbs to some elevated spot and gives directions. She is a "music teacher," I am an obedient passenger.)






And so the afternoon progresses, until her parents drive up and whisk their child away to her safe haven, her yellow house which, she reminds me nearly every day, matches the yellow of the farmhouse.


In the evening, Ed and I drive out to his friends' place out in Lake Mills (a town some 20 miles east of Madison). These good people host periodic reunions for their college pals (Ed is one of them). Between the dozen or so friends there is much to discuss, recall and reflect on. It is, of course, their reunion. I wasn't there, didn't live through those times in the way that they did. Indeed, while Ed was organizing coop life, instructing college kids on the fine art of sailing and fixing ancient motorcycles, I was in Poland, going to Chopin competitions in my free time between university classes and hiking the mountains to visit the highlanders in Rynias.

In other words, we lived in very very different worlds.

Still, as I watch Ed in this mix of people who are as familiar to him as my Warsaw friends are to me, I have to say that it feels good to see this ancient slice of his life.

Too, the view from these people's back yard is magnificent.

Especially as the sun goes down on this unusually warm September day.

yeah, summer.

If you detect a sigh and a shrug there in the title of this post --- yeah, like it or not, it's summer -- well yes, a small part of me has had it with the heat. A week ago I turned on the furnace. Now I'm wondering if I'll be tempted to switch back to air conditioning. I noticed today as I picked up Snowdrop at school that they were running cool air in her classroom. We live in confusing meteorological times.

But not at breakfast: it's clear as anything that this meal is going to be in the pleasant warmth of the outdoors. On the porch.






Pristine blue skies! (Fields to the east of us...)





I pick up Snowdrop and we go to the playground. That's routine. Other kids come and go and Snowdrop always watches carefully before determining if she is comfortable with staying in their midst, or if the tumult is such that leaving is a better option.





A larger group of older kids storms the playground. We leave.

Snowdrop, will you go with me to the farmers market? I need a bagful of tomatoes (in addition to the two bagfuls we picked out a week ago).
Can I carry the bag?






Up she goes onto the high step of the truck. I tell her to weed out the damaged tomatoes. She is amazingly good at this. She is indeed my bestest helper.






And now we're back at the farmhouse.






Our play is also routine. I have a list of things I want to introduce her to, but we never get to it. She is in charge. She knows what brings joy. She is rarely misfires.





It is true though, that we're all still adjusting to the new school year. After days of not sleeping during school nap time, Snowdrop crashed today and slept through 40% of her school day. Me, I'm still trying to figure out when to write a post, given that my charge no longer sleeps here and so I have no down time in my hours with her.

It's all a pleasant muddle.

And that's not such a bad thing. Life is a pleasant muddle. I can live with that.

summer.

Warmer than just warm. Skies bluer than the deepest blue. Bird whistles, the cicada buzz, and of course, the inevitable chirp of chipmunks. Summer.

It's pronounced si-KAY-dya, Nina. (This from Ed.)
No it's not. It's si-KAH-dah.

For my efforts at correcting Ed on this, I get a lecture on how people have variously pronounced this insect's name over the centuries. But however you say it (I'm sure it's si-KAH-dah, but I've also heard SI-kah-dah, which sounds weird, though I do have a soft spot for chi-KAH-dah, because everyone knows that and "i" after a "c" in mediterranean countries gives you a "chi"), the buzz is unmistakable. Like agitated power lines!

I explain the cicada buzz to Snowdrop toward evening as we sit on the porch taking in the sounds of the farmette. The little one is extremely attuned to noises in her environment, asking for explanations for anything from the ping ping ping of trucks going into reverse, to a distant siren of an ambulance. She wants to know what and why. But the insect world is still a great unknown to her. Bugs shaking in excitement to produce a buzz? Really?

It's that kind of a beautiful day.

It starts with more yard work. I say to Ed that it's a futile kind of work because no one will notice if I clip the spent monardas, phloxes and heliopsis.
I'll notice, he tells me. And I believe him. (But I would do it anyway, even if he didn't notice.)





Breakfast on the porch. Ed is a big fan of the ancient pear tree that abuts the driveway. He tries to convince me that the fruits are grand. That we should eat them for breakfast. I humor him by nodding my head.






We watch monarchs and wonder -- shouldn't they be heading south by now?










When I pick up Snowdrop, the topic of "heading south" comes up again. She wants to know why we no longer see cranes in the fields across the road.
Because they're heading south... because now it's fall and soon it will be winter...






At the farmhouse, we play intensely! Every toy is relevant. Every story is told with passion.






She napped in school today. She is in top form thereafter. Toppest of top form!






(I say something silly. She laughs to high heaven.)





Heading into fall, but ever so slowly. Today, it's pure summer.

summer?

On our walks after her school day, I try to explain to Snowdrop that we are now in the season of fall. Even though we aren't, calendar wise. But a toddler's fall should be only loosely bound to dates and day lengths. They should, I think, have the visuals in place: cooling temperatures (so, more sweaters and jackets), drying leaves, pumpkins, harvests -- that, after all, explains the season far more vividly than the statement -- in ten days, we will officially begin the season of fall.

But what if you get a day like this one? The sun is brilliant, the temperatures are climbing, really climbing, a few summer plants are throwing out new blooms.







So is it summer? If it is that, then why isn't the pool open? Where have the sandhill cranes gone?





Those are late afternoon thoughts. In the morning and well into the early afternoon, I work to water and clear several more of the flower beds.






Breakfast for us is late. Very late. Close to noon late.






And not too long after, with a sore back but a much less parched garden, I pick up Snowdrop. A tired girl who is one of only two who are not napping during nap time in school, but a sweet and happy child...






And so it's summer, right? Well, maybe for a moment. Today. This afternoon. At the farmette: summer.






Can't play outside too long though. Must feed the babies indoors!






Babies taken care of. Time for real play. Wait, do I see Snowshoes on your feet, Snowdrop? What season are you in exactly?





No matter. It's what it is: a warm and beautiful day with sunshine streaking bands of gold all through the farmhouse.