Friday

It's a cold and wet day. Really cold and really wet. But I can't possibly mind! I look outside and think -- what a difference a month makes! On April 11, the farmette was brown. The trees were as bare as they had been in December and January. The flower fields were flowerless. It may not be warm today, but still, when I look outside, I see this:






May is like an Impressionists' canvas. The rainy weather and pouty skies merely bring out the subtleties of the color outside. It's all rather magnificent!

Still, we do eat inside and we comment on how good it is to have a snug and warm farmhouse to retreat to on days like this one.





I haven't much to show for my morning. A fridge full of foods for the week, a tank with gas. And a good many minutes looking out at the rain and wondering if I could get Ed to cut the grass again so quickly after his first mowing job earlier this week. The showers have felled a good many of my daffodils, but they surely are responsible for the growth spurt in so many of the flowers and plants outside. And grasses.

In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop. To her, rain means two things: no playground time during the school day (too bad), and the need to bring out the very pinkest umbrella on the walk to the car (yeah!).






Our rain is so constant, our temperatures so low, that even a small amount of outdoor time is not in the offering. It's been a long time since we've had to sit tight inside. And very early on, Snowdrop runs into trouble: something irritates her eye.

Hold on, let me see...
It's gunk! (She gets the terminology from the days she and virtually every child in her class had pink eye.)
No, Snowdrop, it's not that...
It's a sliver! A piece of wood! (Again, something that a classmate of hers struggled with, thankfully in her hand, not in her eye.)
It's not a sliver, Snowdrop. Just a piece of dirt. Maybe an eyelash.

There's nothing to do but to wash it out and then bring something out from the box of hidden treasures -- a few trivial things that I save for times like this. I reach for the Etsy dresses I had purchased from enterprising grandmas who sell hand sewn dolls' clothes. Snowdrop's doll family has lived in ratty jammies up to now. Today, they are regally attired!





The rest of the afternoon is devoted to her babes and us celebrating something or other. Oh, I remember: one of her babies had a birthday. How old is she? -- I ask. Sixty-eight! -- Snowdrop responds.






Much later in the evening, Ed, who has been at tech meetings most of the day asks me if I've seen the little chicks.
I have not.
Should we hunt around for them?

It's not hard finding the three girls -- they're huddled together in the barn. The winds are ruffling their feathers and they are clearly not a happy lot.





It's the coldest day they have ever known. We pick them up (for once, they're cooperative) and put them in the coop early. We've made their corner quite windproof. They happily settle in for a delicious late supper of chick feed and corn (we keep the big girls out for now to give them some space).

It's just this one last day of cold, I say to them, to Ed, to myself really. Just this one last day. I take a whiff of damp spring air -- it really does smell heavenly out there, in the wet, lush farmette gardens. Just heavenly.

Thursday

I have been splitting the month of May between home and the other side of the ocean for a long, long time. This year, of course, I'm staying put.

I'm here for my grandkids, sure, but also, I'm be here for the full period of bloom of the fruit trees and the lilacs. I'm here to leisurely sow flower seeds when the soil temperature is just right. We wont rush (or stall) the tomatoes: they'll go in when sound judgment tells us it's time. There is no deadline, there is no splitting myself between the two worlds, there is no hoping that the rains come here when I'm there. Because, well, I'm just here.

My gardening is very deliberate, but I get sidetracked. I bump into tiger lilies (aka ditch lilies) and vow to move them (Ed pleads with me not to just dig them out and "ditch" them). And more garlic mustard to pull out. And sprouting crab apples from the seeds pooped into the ground by the birds that routinely feast here.  Pull hard and toss.

You have to be a committed gardener to put in as much time into the effort as I do. When I was still working, I used to be miserable when the weather was perfect for outdoor work while I was stuck behind a desk. The feeling of wanting to be working the soil is visceral and it takes hold in spring and stays with you until the bugs and the dog days of summer chase you back inside.

But when you're digging, planting, surveying your past efforts and improving upon them, well then, it truly is a world of peace and calm that you inhabit.

This morning, we began with breakfast indoors. Ed sheepishly asked if we could stay away from the porch because of the truck noise (they're really going at it with grading all around us right now). At first I was incensed. Tune out the trucks! How often do we get good porch weather?! But in the end I agreed. After all, the front room windows look out over the front yard flower bed. I have put in so much work there and the only time we see it is when we are on the road, driving. (On the upside, you and every other stranger that drives by see it too!)







Just one photo from the early morning, before I plunge into work outside...






(And to the north and east and west of us, the trucks rumble by, carrying who knows what, for whatever reason.)






Lunch break. Fallen flowers tucked into the vase, plucked asparagus steamed briefly in a pot...






And in the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop. I also pick up her mom and the three of us once again make our way to Kopke's Greenhouse. The young family wants to add another flower basket to their deck and I am looking to add something as well. The porch, at least on quieter days, is our oasis, our place of great magic. It deserves a summer season of blooms.






(Snowdrop loves my newly acquired pink gardening gloves. I go through at least three pairs of gardening gloves each year.)






The little one remembers to tend to the new flowers...






... She then shows me how well she can ride her trike right now!






And inside, she zips out her puzzles and puts them together without my assistance! When did that happen??






It seems with little ones, we're always asking -- when did that happen? They do not stand still.

I suppose you could say this about chicks as well: when did they grow to be as silly and sweet as they appear to be now?






In the evening, Ed and I walk the fields that are being ripped apart by construction machinery (you can see the trucks, diggers and rollers resting in a straight line formation at the edge of the field).





Though I've requested (and received) the detailed plans for this development project, nothing on paper looks like what's happening here now, so I must be blind to subtle planning nuances.

Tomorrow we will have a quiet, truck free day. Cold rain will be passing through our region and I'm sure work will once again stall.

In the meantime, it's a beautiful evening, here at the farmette! I hope it's beautiful where you are as well...

crazy Wednesday

There was nothing linear about this day. We jumped between extremes, between a placid quiet and a mad dash, between storms and sunshine, between celebration, graduation and worry (unwarranted in the end, but still...).

And it all started off so normal! I mean, there was rain. Well sure, my gardens like rain. Cool, yes, warranting a bit of heat in the house. It's May, I understand.

We eat breakfast inside, in the front room.






I welcome the break, really I do.  I haven't caught up with email, I'm coasting on only headlines from news sources and, too, there is the issue of the swimsuit. I want to find a good one for Snowdrop. Fact is, I've already purchased two. She wore them this week. Size 4 (she's 3 years old). And they're both too small. They'll be fine until, oh, Memorial Day.

So I lose myself in these mundane details of life and suddenly the clouds part and it's warm and, well, I should be gardening.

(We're about to enter the prettiest week of them all -- when the crabs and lilacs open up their pods of blossoms.)





I do go out. I'm in my final big push. Divide hostas now, or else! Finish with the annuals. Secure the vines. Plant the last of this weeks arrivals.

Phew, it suddenly feels very warm out there! Is it me, or is it that the storms have passed and there's a spray of sunshine?

Never mind, it's time to pick up Snowdrop. I have to get her to ballet on time: it's the last class and the little girls will have an audience of parents and grandparents.

But Snowdrop chooses this day to have the longest school nap ever. I arrive and wait for her to wake up. And wait. And wait. And finally, I give up, walk in and rouse her. Hurry, hurry, hurry! -- the words that will carry me through the next hour.

At the farmhouse, I speed through a book as she nibbles on her fruits. I do pose for a selfie, because one of the teachers pointed out that Snowdrop and I are exactly matched in our attire. Indeed! She has a pink-ish dress and purple sweater and I have purple pants and pink-ish sweater! Total coincidence!





Hurry, hurry, hurry!

She takes her time.
Grandma, we must walk slowly! I feel she is sharing some directive from school, perhaps from times of chaos in the classroom or on the playground.
But can't we rush just this once??
No, grandma! Slowly! I swear, she's at a crawl. Snails move forward at a better pace.

I get her to class just as it begins. Phew! Exhale.





It strikes me that this is the first of the many many performances she will go through in her growing years. Schools are full of them. Life is full of them.

This one is especially touching because she is so young -- the shrimp of the class (to remind you: she is in the upper percentiles in terms of height; she just happens to be young). And so to see her go through the steps of a 45 minute class is really quite lovely.





As always, they act out a story (it's called Storybook Ballet for a reason). This one is a very loose adaptation of Beauty and the Beast.

Here comes Belle!






... with her book! As you can see, I'm not the only one taking photos.






The little Belles are waking up the "beast" with tokens of love...






And then it all ends, pretty much at the same moment that my daughter receives a text of her husband's awesome work promotion.






(We go to the store where they pick up celebratory stuff.)





And now it's threatening to storm, only maybe not here, maybe just to the north, or is it east? Who can tell. Storms, clearings, downpours, drizzle -- we've had it all.

I return to the quiet of the farmette and finish up my gardening tasks for this day. And then I look for the little girls. I haven't seen them since the afternoon.
Ed, where are they?
I don't know...

I look everywhere. I call them. I whistle, whisper, shout. Nothing.

I return to the farmhouse.
I can't find them. I feel just terrible. Did we let them out before they have fully developed their street smarts? Were they nabbed by predators in broad daylight??

We are both out now, searching every space where they have been known to wander.

They must have thought us pretty silly as they sat perched on a ledge in the barn (invisible to us, at least initially), keeping an eye on the sudden frantic activity.





Oh, chickens! Oh, spring! How fun and funny you all can be!

Tuesday

I plan ahead. Mostly it pays off. I get advance purchase deals on hotels. Sometimes, good airfares can be snapped if you're prepared to grab them when they pop up. I have a vision of my schedule for next week, next month, and yes -- to some extent, even next year. (Go ahead and laugh: I, too, think it's pretty funny.)

But sometimes my looking ahead backfires. Classic case: planning a trip for right now (departure: yesterday), at a time when I didn't know it would be raining grandchildren for me this spring.

A more trivial example would be scheduling appointments for this morning and then waking to beautiful weather -- the kind where you want to really plunge into garden work. I grumble about this to the appointment persons, as if it's their fault that I picked May instead of, say, March for these things. Still, there went the morning.

By the time I am done and Ed and I sit down to breakfast (on the porch!), it feels more like lunch.







From our vantage point, we can look out on a successful little clump of tulips. They survived the chompers, probably because they're late and came up when the garden had an abundance of other treats for hungry growing families of rabbits, chipmunks and the like.






And all around us, there are the magnificent daffodils! It's hard to believe that a month ago, all was brown, frozen, forbidding.






Look up and you'll see the ancient pear from the old orchard, reaching out and up to the giant willow.






In the afternoon, it turns very very warm. Summer weather. Shorts and sundresses weather. Good weather for a frolic with Snowdrop! And the chickens. The big girls. The little ones haven't caught on to the concept of frolic just yet.






(picking violets)










(running...)






I take out the wading pool.






(she tells stories...)






Inside again. It's a day of hair changes. Down, up, pony tail, pig tails.

I have something for you, Snowdrop.
What?
Well, there's this woman who lives far away and she makes wreaths. ("Crowns" in Snowdrop parlance.) I asked her to make you one with pink flowers (meaning, I ordered one on Etsy).
Where does she live?
Far away.
In Asia?
Actually in Europe. Close to Poland. (The woman lives in the Ukraine -- not a county I've identified for Snowdrop yet.)

The girl loses herself in her story. About tomatoes and pig tails and a crown from Asia. (!)






And in the evening she returns home and Ed and I return to our world outside. 

Monday

Not every plant that is supposed to come back in spring does, in fact return. I'm lucky with my success rate (aided greatly by the fact that I avoid planting fragile perennials; day lilies, for example, are not very fragile), but still, occasionally I lose something. I view it as an opportunity to put in something new! In will go Lullaby Baby, Pastel Inspiration and Wild One. (Lovely day lily names, don't you think?)

But tulips -- well, there's nothing good to be said about a bed of chomped off stalks.  Here, my success rate is one for every ten lost to chompers (rabbits? dear? groundhog? all the above?).

(Daffodils, on the other hand, are tempting to no animal that I know of. The feast is entirely for our eyes only.)





And today, on the eight week birthday of the three chicks, we are grateful that so far, they're adjusting well.

Though this morning, they scared us a bit: they would not leave the coop. No chicken I know stays in a coop when the door is flung open, unless she is laying of brooding. These girls are too young for that. We're immensely puzzled by this, until we pause long enough to listen empathetically, with their sensitive ears: the rumble of the trucks in the fields right next to us is tremendous! They're terrified.

We place the pen close to the barn and herd them into their familiar colorful yard, with food and water. They relax. And I'm sure they're reassured to see the big hens taking in stride all the loud grading and leveling taking place around us. Within a few minutes, they're happy chickens once again.






Breakfast, not so relaxed (I have too much on my list for today!), but lovely nonetheless.






And then I lose myself to planting. With an eye to what's blooming around me. (Always beautiful, stately and pinky perfect -- the bleeding hearts.)










And have I adequately expressed my love for daffodils?






It's a gorgeous day! It's warm -- mid seventies F (24C), maybe higher. Isn't it a great day to dust off the old wading pool for Snowdrop after school?

She's thrilled. On goes the swimsuit, out comes the pool

Let's go, grandma!






Snowdrop, your hair is swaying just like the willow branches!






Maybe we should pull it back in a pony tail? There, that's better.






I'm very surprised to see the little chicks at the pool. They're usually on the bashful side. But the water intrigues them. No, we're not going to let them jump in! We do draw some lines in what's acceptable chicken behavior.






(Ed, in a rather contemplative moment.)






I'm thinking it's time to go inside.
She's thinking -- isn't this a beautiful time to bring out the bubble making stuff?











On these warm, gorgeous days, even if you putz around inside, you don't feel like you're inside. The world is in your pocket. You are in charge!

I'd say the same is true for Snowdrop. Outdoors, indoors - it's all good! (Here, she's proudly demonstrating a character set up she put together.)





Evening. Snowdrop has gone home. Ed and I stay outside for a long long time. Two more day lilies go in, a handful of weeds come out.

We walk over to the construction site to the east of us. The truck farmers had been warned. They no longer till these fields, nor do they pick up the remains from years of growing here. An abandoned asparagus field, an old flower bed -- all making room for the new development.



Back at the farmette, Ed mows a bit of the grass where we're about to put in buckwheat. The old cheepers have retired, the little girls take in the last of the day's sun.






I suppose there are warmer, brighter, better days to be had, but we offer no complaints: this day was one of May's finest. Of this I'm sure.