Sunday: to Chicago

Though we are far from the end of summer, I am, as of today, shifting gears. The snapping and plucking of spent blooms makes sense in July, when the daylilies are the stars, the garden's heart and soul, the lead singers and the chorus all at once. (This morning I snapped off 465 spent blooms.) But in August,  everything changes. The peak of color will have passed. We'll no longer witness a symphony of blooms, but rather a chamber concert, with prominent soloists that catch you by surprise just because you thought that the time for grand flower displays was behind you.

When I was in Giverny (that garden of all gardens) in August, I understood that the beauty of a late summer garden rested in all that had dried and faded, alongside that which was still flowering. It makes little sense to pick spent lilies or really any other flower at this last stage of summer. They look good where they are -- wilting and drying on a stalk that once was their throne and now is their comfy recliner.

I know it's not August yet, but I'm leaving today to go to Chicago. When I return, it will indeed be August and most of the lilies will have stopped their flowering. So, one last early morning of snipping and clipping. Oh, what's this? Well of course! My morning risers and greeters! Okay, I'll feed you all first...





... and then get to work.

What is it, Stop Sign? One big can of food isn't enough? Oh fine. I'll get you some more.






And now for the lilies -- I'll make you stand tall and proud on this last July trim!






In the Big Bed, the flowers are now more gentle, but no less pretty...






Still, it's the bed of lilies by the porch that just knocks my socks off every time I pass by.






Though in fact, every lily is a work of art for me. A masterpiece in her own right. Sheer genius.






I rarely photograph the bed to the west of the porch, perhaps because it's a little overgrown right now. I permitted some of the spreaders (rudbeckia and asclepias come to mind) to run wild. Next year, I should spend more time here.






This little girl was planted last year. Today it's all full of blushing petticoats. Not ruffles, mind you. Just petticoats.






Okay, one last good look at that porch-side flower field...






And now it's time for breakfast.





It's a quiet and gentle moment for us -- one of our last meals together this summer. Or not! Our comings and goings are complicated and there's a bit of uncertainty as to who will be where when. I try hard not to think about that. It's perfect now, this weekend: family on both ends of it, Ed right there, in the middle, over breakfast, on the porch.


And afterwards -- we must get going. Good bye, oh ever changing garden!


 


My car has been making peculiar noises and so we're taking it to a super duper mechanic who we're hoping will have time to look at it and fix it in the week that I am away. From there, I proposed that Ed invite me (!) to brunch at Sardine. For once I want to eat out, with him, away from the farmhouse, away, away, in a bubble of side by side munching on favorite foods.






We linger, but not too long. I have a bus to catch. And then the El, and now I'm in my most favorite Chicago neighborhood -- home to my younger girl and her family.

I'm staying at the Robey Hotel again... (The building towers over the neighborhood and above the El. I always ask for a top floor, looking onto the city. Sometimes I get it. Today I get it)











It's summer in the city! Living on the farmette, one forgets that cities have their own vibe in July and August. In Europe, many of them empty out as people escape for longer vacations. But of course, we are not a nation of longer vacations. And so perhaps it is not surprising that cities, even ones like Madison, but especially ones like Chicago, seduce you to come out and play and take part in any number of outdoor venues or events. 





















I'm staying the whole week. Both parents are now going to be working full time and I am here to entertain and indulge and cuddle and watch over the little four month old Primrose.

Tonight though, I show up at her house when the little girl is already fast asleep. I go over the plan for the week, eat a quick and lovely supper...






... And then retreat to my Robey room high above the neighboring houses. This grandma needs to be well rested for the week ahead. Goodnight, goodnight all my beloveds everywhere!

Saturday

You know the old saying that you don't appreciate something until you lose it? I'm finding the flip side to be equally valid: you don't appreciate the beauty of something until you get it back.

Today, as Ed and I eat breakfast on the porch on a most gorgeous Saturday morning, we listen to the songs of the birds, the clucking and swishing of chickens, and the faint sound of Ella Fitzgerald, who continues to sing as part of an old mosquito trap set up, and it becomes so clear that the construction noise this spring and summer has robbed us of the tranquility that this season has always delivered, along with the grand pleasure of a breakfast outdoors.







I had already cleaned the garden (down to 365 spent blooms today); note how early in the morning, most new flowers are just slowly opening.






(The side garden by the parked cars: it's where Stop Sign eats and where the young chicks like to hang out...)












... And I'd fed all the chicks and cats and cheepers  that come begging each morning and now both Ed and I are enjoying just being in each others company. We're about to embark on our various tasks and adventures, but today is just ours.

When you have a totally leisurely breakfast on the porch, your gaze drifts this way...


 



... and that way...

 



...and all that idle gazing draws your attention up, way up, to the coating of pollen that has cast a film over the glass roof. We'd hoped that the rains would wash it off. They haven't.

And so for the hour after breakfast, Ed and I attack the glass panels. I slip and slide outside scrubbing them, Ed fills bucket after bucket with water and passes it up to me.

My next moment on the porch is just heavenly. And the sky, as seen through the now clean panels, is the color of bluebells.






A midday garden is always rather stark and the golden yellow tones dominate. But I never tire of it. The same garden can cycle through a hundred different images in the span of twelve hours. And each image is astonishingly magnificent.






In the evening, the young family is here for dinner, along with my daughter's friend who really is like family. Snowdrop joins us in munching a bit before the meal is ready.






We eat dinner on the porch, in the evening light, mellow and sweet, comforting, soothing.











(Don't you think little Sparrow is admiring the utterly clean glass roof of the porch?)






Dinner is done. Some of us linger on the porch, others retreat inside, playing a little, straightening up some, enjoying a moment on the couch....






It's a beautiful evening.






When the young family leaves, Ed and I set out for a quick shopping trip to the big box store. He needs a pair of shorts that fits. And clip-on sun shades for his glasses. And the advice of his sweetie in the purchase of said items.

On the ride back, we glance up and see the moon. The full blood moon was to have been yesterday, but you could have fooled me: it is as big and as red as I'd ever seen it. The air smells of a sweet summer night. All is calm. Breathe in, exhale. Smile.

Friday

Time played tricks on me today: it moved forward faster than I expected. I wasn't prepared for its quicker pace and so now, here I am, at the end of the day wondering why there are so few minutes left.

As is often the case on a busy day, I'll allow myself to step back and let the camera do the story telling.


It's a breathtakingly beautiful day. Cool, sunny, lovely.

July habits are strong and enduring. I begin the day with work in the flower beds.

(looking out toward the writer's shed)





465 spent lily blooms clipped and tossed. What remains is all that outrageous beauty that a tended garden offers.





The cheepers are close at my feet until I acquiesce and retreat to the barn to feed them.

(Cupcake wants to know why Stop Sign gets fed right away, while she and the other girls have to wait. Life is unfair, young girl. It's just plain unfair.)











I love all my flowers, of course, but the flower bed by the porch is the one I've worked on the longest: it has the greatest complexity and it's the one that I study all the time, from every angle, every side.






Breakfast.






Breakfast view.






And in the afternoon I pick up Snowdrop.






We come to the farmette, but again she wants to play outside. Yep, frisbees.






She wants more players. Ahah, will you come and play frisbee with us?






She sees his bare feet and tosses her own shoes aside. The cheepers are convinced they will soon get a treat. They hover. We try to ignore them.






She jumps...






Somewhere in that hour of outdoor play, Snowdrop gets a bug bite in her lower lip. I'm guessing a horsefly, though I did not see it nor hear it. Her lip swells to some great proportions. She insists on a bandaid. Well why not.

We prepare snacks for my guests who are about to arrive. Snowdrop devours half of them: cured meats,  cheeses, olives -- she eats them by the handful.






My daughter arrives with her two good friends who are visiting right now. Sparrow and his dad are here, too, but I put down my camera after this shot.





Sometimes, you just have to let go of picture taking and listen. Young people almost always have clever and funny things to say about... really pretty much anything.


Evening. The light now is best in the back of the Big Bed. So full, so delicate and infinitely lovely.

catch your dreams

When I step out just a wee bit after sunrise, I often hesitate about taking my camera along. I tell myself -- I've given Ocean readers as many lily pictures as they could possibly stomach. So what that each day brings out a completely new set of blooms that have never been photographed before! It's still a lily field. Full of lilies. And bee's balm and phlox and false sunflower and whatever else comes into the mix.

But I swear, I take one look and I am so in love with what I see, that I go back to draping the old reliable camera around my neck again. And again. The moments when the light on a flower is exactly right...






... when the flowers are positioned just so, with their beaming faces all shining toward you so beautifully...

(These are my midsummer queens: their appearance is like a whiff of pure magic; when they finish their bloom, I feel like summer is packin' up its bags)







... those moments are fleeting. Indeed, a daylily bed is fleeting. So is summer. So is life. A photo allows me to take note, to linger, even as my schedule tells me I must move on.






In the thick of a snowless, monochromatic February day, I'll look at these same flower fields and think -- were they really with that much color? It seems impossible!






One glance at a July photo and I realize that it's all there, waiting to bloom again come summer.






Today, I actually was greeted initially not by my lilies or by the cheepers, but by Stop Sign.






She has been eating copious amounts of food. Either her other food sources have dried up, or she's pregnant, reminding us of our feral cat obligation to catch her and have her neutered. If it's a female. And if, in fact, she isn't someone else's cat!

So I feed her. And then I pluck my lilies (402 today) and groan at the damage to the real lilies whose heads and leaves have been eaten by deer, or groundhogs or whoever else is hell bent on devouring my flowers.





Breakfast, on the porch, despite the roar of trucks nearby. Ah, but some day there will be parkland...





This is the morning for me to shop with my mom. We're looking for certain foods she'd grown accustomed to in Berkeley. We find some plausible substitutes at the Coop.





And I take her as well to the bakery where a few times each week, I pick up pain au chocolat for Snowdrop.






Did I tell you how lovely the day is? Partly cloudy, breezy and very mild. September weather, really. Seasons come and go. But the photos stay with us for as long as we want them.


In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop. We do go to the playground (I find a clip in my purse for her hair -- the wind is really kicking things around by the lake)...


 


... and she swings good and hard. But a curious thing happens. She wants to be pushed -- her own pumping never gives her the height she loves. But she also wants to talk and I keep telling her that it's impossible for me to hear her because her words fly off with the wind toward the lake, away from where I'm standing.

And so she asks to go back to the farm.

As we walk back to the car, she tells me that someday she will live in a farmhouse. She'll be like Ed and fix everything. She spins a futuristic vision that is elaborate in detail and fantasy. As we reach the car, she sighs. I want to be older...  -- she tells me.
Well, you are growing up and being three and a half seems kind of fun too...
Growing is only fun because then I can be the age I want to be.
And what age is that?
Ten and a half.

I had to write down her words to get them right. I want to remember that at three and a half, you long for nothing more than to be able to do more than you can do right now. I suppose that when you get much older, you remember fondly all that you could once do, but can't anymore.


We never quite get to playing inside the farmhouse. The day is so grand that Snowdrop wants to stay out in the yard. She picks up the disks and does a mean toss. And another.





And another...








And another.






Evening. Catch your dreams before they slip away (if you're my age, you'll remember the song that gave us those words)...





Beauty pops up year round in a garden, but in July, it throws itself at you. For one magical moment, it is everywhere, all the time.You hold onto it as best you can.