Monday

Oh, the pretty side of fall!






You know -- when sunshine plays with yellowing leaves of a crab apple tree, when it's cold, but not too cold. Green and gold cold.






Well, a little too cold for October. Just above freezing. You tend to hurry indoors after feeding the animals.

I do hurry, in part because it's the day when Sparrow comes over early in the morning, to join us for breakfast.






Invariably, he is in a sweet mood then. Most kids are in those early hours, when they've had enough sleep and enough food and are ready for the challenges ahead. Which for Sparrow includes such serious stuff as staying upright!






Oops!






Let's straighten you out a bit.






No grandkid of mine makes it through babyhood without a cuddly moment reading this book:






What do you think, baby Sparrow, is it outdoor weather? Let's give it a try!






And before you know it, it's time to pick up Snowdrop.






Juggling two young kid temperaments can be tricky. Sparrow likes it enough when I read some chapters of Anna Hibiscus to the two of them. He's even okay with the idea that Snowdrop is then eager to set up a dance school, where she is the instructor, Ed is the student and Sparrow is the audience.






And he is joyous at the prospect of being part of a school picnic lunch, with plenty of misbehaving children  --  that was Snowdrop's next inspired idea.






But at some point he let me know that a nap would have been very nice, thank you. Having been deprived of one, he crashes in my arms.

That's okay. Snowdrop entertains me by making up her own lyrics to "on top of spaghetti." (A song that I had been humming for who knows what reason to Sparrow as he dozed off.)






Toward evening, the little girl wants oh so much to tend to the cheepers. Ed was held up on the phone, so she is on her own. The cheepers are excited: another hand to feed their hungry heads.





Lovely day, no? Oh, there were some quirky moments: Ed's sailing gig got canceled (boat owners decided not to show their boat in Florida) and though he was offered another, he decided to give it a rest for now. Then, my mom had a bit of a set back. Too, the loud trucks resumed construction work in the development around us. But as Ed said -- wow! you press a button and we have warm soup (dinner was a reheat of yesterday's bounty). You click another and your furnace starts. Reach into the fridge and out comes a mango. Go to a doc and you get a vaccination for your child so she can run around and tell stories about school picnics where children misbehave.

Yep. All that, and so much more!

Sunday

Late, very late into Saturday evening, our bathroom counter looked like this:





I know I promised not to post pictures of chores, but repair work on the broken shower so defined the day for Ed (and therefore for me), that I couldn't help myself.

And then, close to midnight, something gave way and something else fell into place (I can provide you with no better details than that) and boom! The shower head once again released water and the handle turned and magically, when it was on hot, the water came out hot and when it was on cold, the water came out cold.

You don't appreciate such fantastic luxuries until they're suddenly snatched away from you.

Of course, it took me the better part of Sunday morning to scrub that shower clean. So why not just scrub the whole bathroom, the whole house in fact, and get that shine back into our small piece of heaven here?



By the time the house is clean enough even for my standards, it is noon.

We sit down for breakfast. I stick my bowl of oats into the microwave. Two minutes later it's stone cold.

Ed, I think the microwave is not working again...

(Eventually, I do cook those oats one way or another and we do eat our now no longer morning meal...)






And what do we do with the rest of this dismally gray and cold day? Yep, we fiddle with the microwave. That is, Ed searches the internet for a new control panel (or in the alternative, a used microwave on Craigslist, because this one is no longer manufactured and no one, no one wants to tear it out of its bracket under the stove in order to put in something new and different). I go back to tidying. There is always more to tidy.

In the end I tell Ed, using my most convincing voice: you are not going sailing until we come up with a fix for the microwave problem!

(This is somewhat silly, since right now, he is not going sailing because for reasons that are unknown to Ed and the sailing crew, the boat is not ready to be moved, so my threat is rather idle.)

Being a guy who looks for the simple solutions in life, Ed walks over to the sheep shed and brings his mini microwave from there as a temporary replacement. So now our kitchen looks terribly cluttered, what with two microwaves. I'm shaking my head in dismay. Ed puts a nice ceramic bowl that we had purchased together in Portugal on top of his microwave and proclaims (clearly trying to win me over) that the whole effect is rather European.






Sunday evening. The young family does not come tonight, as they have another social obligation. I cook for just the two of us. On a cool gray day, simmering up a pot of butternut squash soup and tossing a salad with some farmhouse eggs is pretty near perfect. Not very photographable, but perfect nonetheless.






Late, late into the night, Ed and I make up a grocery list of foods he'd like to have on board the boat (based on what the shore front store has in stock). The captain is asking for such details, making us think that maybe the trip is imminent. Maybe.

Saturday

The frost came and did its harsh work against the nasturtium and all sensitives plants out there. It wasn't a hard frost, but a mild one -- a funny distinction, because for most annuals, frost is frost.

It was cold enough for us to focus on farmhouse work.

After breakfast.






For me -- well, there's a potpourri of little things to tidy up. For Ed, it means fixing the shower. It turns out to be a whole day project and to get right to the denouement -- by the end of the day, it remains broken.

A seemingly little chore turned big.


The afternoon is somewhat unusual in one other way: the kids are at the farmhouse, as the parents are otherwise occupied.

Only minimally encouraged (egged on?) by me, Snowdrop launches a story. A fish story. It has to do with the fact that Sparrow has this toy fish...






(It's a tale of many twists and spins.)






(Funny moments abound.)






(Sparrow follows along good naturedly. Even though his access to his toy fish is at stake.)






(After all, there are other fish to fry.)






Snowdrop reaches a moment of great drama:  Sparrow cannot be on that play mat! There are little fish swimming around and they bite!






No, Gaga! Do not put away that pillow! It's fish food!






(A serious pause for watermelon.)






"Does that mean I can have my fish back?"






Yes, go for it, Sparrow. Snowdrop has moved on to her Lego characters.






Maybe you and I can read a book?







Later, much later, Ed asks me if I want to go to Home Depot or Menards. He wants to dismantle the shower further. He needs a little tool for that job.
Maybe we could play a round of disc golf?

He seems so worn out by the day of work that has brought no resolution to the shower problem. An outing is a great idea.

And it's a beautiful outing. We pass fields of cranes...






...doing their flirtatious, territorial dance...






So many birds, big and small, looking for ways to survive the next season.

Friday

I was thinking that for people who don't have a lot going on their normal everyday, right now, Ed and I have a lot going on. Oh, there are the grandkids, of course. And other family members who need us now and then. I have my writing projects, Ed has his oversight over the machine manufacturing firm. Those are predictable and have been there forever for us both. But recently, we have had the spikes of the unusual. Small stuff, like attending to the park creation in the new development next to us. Trips to Chicago for me, sailing gigs for Ed.

In the summer, Ed moved a boat for a friend along the shores of the Great Lakes. That small adventure stirred his nautical fancy up a bit. His sailing trips were once huge and dwindled to nothing. He always talked of going sailing again, but Ed is big on imagining things happening in the future and then sleeping on such dreams for years on end.

Then along came the internet, offering connections between sailors: those who need crews and those who want to sail as crew. He'd been eyeing activity on the site and just this week, several trips popped up that stirred his curiosity. In the end, he chose a good one: a brand new fancy sailboat (Ed would so laugh at my characterization of this vessel -- a more accurate label would be Nautitech40 ) needs to be moved from one sailboat show in Annapolis to another in Fort Lauderdale. Now. Or in the coming week.

There were many calls, questions, logistical details, and scheduling issues to resolve. To me, it's all rather "of another world." A company that moves luxury boats (because in that price range, what else would you call them?) contracts with these super sailors, who themselves contract with crew to get this thing to its destination. Unscathed and untarnished. Ed finds it all interesting: a chance to sail different types of boats. To be out on the ocean again. To learn how the world of super sailing and new technology operates. Always to learn.

So is he heading out? Who knows. It appears that you make all the arrangements and then wait for the green light. Any day now. Maybe.

Breakfast is a bit rushed. Ed is between phone calls, while hurricane winds rage on the east coast and waves wash away entire communities. Fun times.






In the afternoon I pick up Snowdrop. She is so tired, so very tired, that I have trouble waking her from her school nap. I look around me -- a half dozen kids are also struggling with the wake up moment. Unusual. When I arrive, typically most are up and running.
The teacher shrugs. They all collapsed today, she tells me.

It's cloudy and cold. I carry her from school to car, from car to farmhouse. We spend a good hour reading books. Anna Hibiscus, the little girl from Africa who visits her grandma in Canada is a current favorite, most certainly because it so wonderfully describes the joy of finding yourself, for the first time ever, in the middle of a snowy Canadian winter. Snowdrop is really looking forward to winter!

And now her impish playfulness kicks in.






If we can't be in a field of snow, we will be at a fair, eating foods, having the best time!






Ice cream, cakes, popcorn -- the fair has it all!






There are rules, of course. She spells them out, one by one. The consequences of breaking them are severe. Dare I test the waters of rebellion? Let's just say that my role is always to dance at the edges of misbehavior. I do so now as she works hard to reign me in.





It's good to flip sides occasionally, so that she will be the one who is forced to take the high road and I can acknowledge the difficulties of being spunky and spirited.


In the evening, Ed and I are back in the limbo world of waiting. Will the ship sail? With him? Without him? I do not know.

Thursday

I'm going to post three youtubes that came my way today. If you aren't especially into alternative rock or indie pop (I'm using labels often applied to this musician), skip the first two and just give a click to the third, which is interesting for many reasons, the music itself being just one. I'll get to that one in a second.

My reason for linking to this stuff is because Ocean often takes you to Poland -- of course it does. I go there frequently and you tag along. But I worry sometimes that you get a fixed image of Poland here, as seen through the lens of my camera and it is an image that I have created for you out of a compilation of memories, returns, and rather sentimental, soporific ramblings through known to me corners of that country.

When in Poland, I connect mostly to my generation of Poles. (The exception here is my extraordinary architect and designer, Karolina, who is now my friend, at the same time that she belongs to the next generation of Polish people -- one my daughters would inhabit were they in Poland.) Ocean, for the most part, gives you an older person's perspective. These three youtubes (below) give you something else -- a slice of Poland as seen through the eyes of young people.

Let me describe the clips to you: they showcase the music of Poland's amazing young musician, Dawid Podsiadło. He's just 24 or 25 and his songs have been at the top of music charts in Poland for several years now. The first youtube is of his most recent hit "Nie Ma Fal." It's about a relationship, and the text at the beginning suggests there'll be a more sophisticated video for the song someday, but I'm not sure whether that comment is in jest, since the current one is pretty satisfying. I like it a lot, so here you have it -- music that young Poland is listening to:

The second youtube is also Podsiadło's work and I'm putting it up because the guy is actually fluent in English and his previous album had maybe a half dozen songs in English. Here's one of them:

But it's the third one that I think is especially poignant, because it brings together very many themes for me: the music is by Posiadlo, but this rendition is an instrumental adaptation of Dawid's song "small town" (or perhaps a better translation would be "small town boy"). It's played by two extremely talented cellists. One of them happened to be living in my apartment on Tamka when I purchased the place and though I let him stay there until the end of the university term, ultimately he had to leave. My sister helped him locate another place and they've been in close contact since. So much so that when it came time to film the video to their music, she let them use my grandparents' old house in the village where I lived in my early years (and where I vacationed nearly every summer of my childhood). And so this clip shows off the music of a new generation of talented Polish musicians, as seen against the backdrop of my grandparents' house and a rural Poland that is as familiar to me as the back of my hand.

Here it is:

It's lovely stuff. Give them a thumbs up if you agree.



It's a cold morning, a crisp morning, one where after breakfast...

... Ed tries to coax me into doing outdoor stuff, but I am rather stuck on enjoying the sunshine from inside the farmhouse, with only an occasional glance out the window at the prettiness of the day. I'm just getting used to the sudden change in the weather.

And in the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop. And she picks up a ginger snap.






For the next several hours, she spins a story: when she grows up, she will be going to Antarctica, to be a scientist there. Studying what? Snow! And penguins.






She must prepare for the trip. She asks for a suitcase. She packs the essentials. Everything but the food. Gaga, I wont be going until I'm an adult. (which she imagines is imminent, but still...)  We will pack the food later.  But a few toys, a placemat, a flamingo, a music box, a wooden macaron so they can see down there what they're missing, an Eiffel Tower...






A book! She has to write a book about Antarctica and it must be packed!





All that goes into the suitcase. One more thing, gaga -- a box for the toy penguins.
It wont fit.
We can put it in this pocket! Oh! It sticks out! Can we cover it? There will be snow in Antarctica!

We're set.

At this point, Ed readies himself to go outside.
Suitcase abandoned, she is at his side. We're going to pick flowers! -- she tells me. I had mentioned that we're getting a deep frost tonight. After explaining the consequences of it (no more blooms tomorrow), she is delighted to go out and pick all that she otherwise cannot touch.






The harvest:
















Our day's not done. It's "go to school night" at Snowdrop's school: an evening where the kids show their families what they're up to during the day. When you watch a child show off her routines while away from home, you're inevitably impressed by how independent she can be.





At home, or even at the farmhouse, you're too quick to jump in and provide assistance. To get this, to get that. To pick up the toys. To fill that pitcher of water. At school, the child learns to cruise her own ship.

Sparrow is with us tonight, taking a back seat, as the younger kid always does, as the family admires the growth and astonishing cleverness of the older one in school.

("Where is Snowdrop?")






Eventually, of course, the tables will be switched and there will come a time when Sparrow will have the full attention of adoring parents, as the older one goes off to college or whatever life's ambition pulls her.  For now, he is busy straining to hear the sound of her voice, as she plunges into the production of her next book. Two in one day! I should be one hundredth that fast.

Wednesday

There comes a day when picking up the camera is the last thing that you want to do. It's as if you're so preoccupied/dismayed/stuck-in-one-place that you just can't see anything visually presentable before you.

Today was not such a day, but it came close!

True, when Ed and I sit down to breakfast, I am so mollified, so happy to be sipping that coffee and eating that bowl of you-know-what across the way from a guy who brings serenity to the table each and every morning, that I always want a picture of that moment, before things get crazy (because you never know what a day may bring). And so here we are: Mr. serenity and whatever flowers we happen to have on the table.






But after -- well, it rained and I had chores to do and life's details to attend to. I did look up appreciatively on my drive back to the farmette -- enough to get out the camera (just across the road from us)...





And then I put it aside once more.

In the afternoon, I picked up not Snowdrop, but my mom who had spent some days in the hospital recovering from a fall. There was a grocery store trip thrown into the mix but honestly, none of it is picture worthy. On the upside, my mom is doing well -- being of hearty stock and having taken good care of herself, so I left her to her own devices and headed home, to be greeted with more rain, more mud, more this more that...

And then, toward evening, the rain stopped and the sky cleared just long enough to coax a smile out of me. Out came the camera.





I tell myself that in the future, I'll rise to the challenge and take inspired photos in the rain. But photographing routine chores? Never. Do them, check them off your list and move on to finer things in life. A cup of coffee and a cookie. One flower. A child's laugh, a chicken's run. Anything is more lovely to look at than a person slogging through a bunch of chores.

Tuesday

Well, time to get stuff done outside. The weather is surely right for it: a high today of 81F (27C), with storms holding off, giving me enough time to get out there and clean things up.

I don't cut back all the flower beds. That would be a waste of time and not especially good for the garden which appreciates additional organic matter. But I do pull out major weeds and I trim things in a way that gives a winter shape to everything. Sticks poking out look unsightly. But many dried perennials are quite pretty, especially under a snow cover.

So after a quick look around...






...I bring in the orchid pots and the rosemary, all of which need to winter over indoors, and then Ed and I sit down to a beautiful breakfast on the porch. Last one out there until April for sure!






And after -- hours of outdoor work. I'd like to say I finished all that I wanted to do, but you're never really done when there is so much land to take care of. I still have fields of weeds I want to attack before the ground freezes. And of course, the beds will need another comb through once all the plants are dormant. But for now, I'm satisfied.

(Toward the farmhouse...)






(Toward the barn...)






It's so warm! But it may rain. Or storm. Or neither.

Snowdrop, do you want to go to the playground? (This is after school. For a moment, she is too hot for her dress.)






She swings, we play "family..."






All in the very warm air of an October afternoon.






At the farm, Ed is chopping up felled trees. He'd been out on my moped earlier. She finds it.  
Why is there a basket?
For the produce I bring home from a farmers market.
Do you like to ride it too, ahah?
I do!






Can I try it?






Here's a more age appropriate idea: how about blowing some bubbles?






Such a day! It should end with this light note of a girl catching a bubble, but no: Ed has roped me onto watching a crime drama (Bosch) on Amazon Prime and after a hurried dinner, we run through the remaining episodes of the season, late into the night, guaranteeing nightmares for months to come. But the popcorn was terrific!