Monday

A day of brilliant light and spiffy fall colors. How many more will have before the leaves tumble and leave behind a landscape that stays naked until April? You never know. Gusty winds and pelting rains could bring it all down pretty quickly. It's important to take in everything that's bright and beautiful now, today,  before we are pushed into the next season (visually, if not according to calendar readings).






The morning sunshine moves us to the Sun Room (how apt!) for breakfast. In these colder months, we chase the sunny farmhouse spots from east to south to west. It's worth it!






In the afternoon, I pick up the kids and suggest an outdoor adventure. Actually, I don't merely suggest it -- I insist on it. If we are to catch autumnal colors, it better be now! I borrow the young family's travel stroller (the one they necessarily had to purchase in Amsterdam), I ask Ed if he wants to come along, I pack a bunch of snacks  and set out.

As I suspected, initially the kids balk. It's so much easier just to head home where toys and books and warm sunny spaces await them. But I don't give in to this. Every season deserves a respectful outing where we notice all that's grand and beautiful about it. Today we pay homage to autumn and there's no better place for it than here, at the Arboretum.






And it is beautiful. And the kids take note.






(a snack, and a hunt for the reddest maple leaves...)
















(tall grasses)






On the return drive, Snowdrop asks if we could stop at Culvers. If you're not from these parts, perhaps you'll not have heard of it -- it's a fast food chain originating from Wisconsin. What sticks in my mind is the commercial for it -- Culver's: home to the original butter burger.

I ask her -- what would you like to get there? I'm thinking -- she'll want the frozen custard. Surely that's on her mind on this sunny if not too warm a day.
The fried cheese curds! -- she answers without hesitation. A true Wisconsin girl!

It's a true indication of how much we love these kids that I pull over and fill the car with the smell of greasy curds. Three out of four of us wolf down the fried breaded melting curds (though one of the three knocks off the bits of batter). (I'll let you guess who's the holdout!)


Finally, home. Farmhouse home. These two mainly play in their own spaces, but every once in a while, they come together, like this:






Sparrow is a pretty tired guy. He naps at school but not nearly long enough. Toward evening, he is in my lap,  barely keeping his eyes open. It's a long day for everyone, but without doubt, a most beautiful day -- with all the colors and scents of spent leaves and autumn sunshine.

Sunday

Such an easy day to summarize: Ed and I sleep long and work hard. There you have it. We are both on the couch right now, tuckered out.

Initially, the day has a very conventional start to it: at around 7, we go to feed these guys:

(Dark Blue, waiting.)






(Stop Sign is around as well. Perhaps she slept in her little igloo -- who can tell.)

In the sheep shed, all eight are there, happy, bouncy, warm. We play with them a little (meaning we try to get them to stay calm and trusting, which is hard when they have both of us there towering over them) and then both Ed and I go back to sleep. We're catching up on some very short periods of rest!

Breakfast is, therefore, late.






Then it's just a question of getting a huge cleaning accomplished in the farmhouse (that's my task for the day) and for Ed to finish working on the brakes of my car. We each spend over three hours on this stuff. I surely have the better deal, as it is cold and damp outside and warm and cozy indoors. Indeed, with gentle music playing and a lovely soy candle burning, I'd say I have the upper edge on bringing out our inner hygge! You don't know what that is? Ask the Danish. Or read about it here.

I also snip a few nasturtium blooms. They wont survive this coming night. Let's enjoy them together one last time, here:






In the evening, the young family comes for dinner.

(She spins tales, he fits lego blocks together...)






(oh, and walking: he is super into practicing moving about in an upright position!)






Dinner: she likes squid and corn, he likes pasta with the occasional shrimp.






Happy kids!






(she brings out the art supplies...)






Sparrow does wonder why he wasn't given a corn cob. I boil up some water and cook one more for the little guy. Yes, he is ever so grateful!





It's such a good evening! We talk about next weekend, and too, about the weeks after. We watch the kids play, lending a hand when needed. We exhale. We've had some tough days, but here we are, eating well, watching the kids play. Exhale.

missed by one

It may be cold outside, but we did not have the anticipated freeze. When I checked the thermometer at 6 am, I saw us hovering between 33 and 34F (around 1C). But I did not need to see the numbers -- the nasturtium was not (entirely) a floppy mess when I stepped out to feed the cats. It (mostly) survived for a few more days!






But whether we reached that frosty number here on the farmette hardly matters. We've done most of the necessary work to get us winter-ready. All that remains out there is purely visual: I need to shape the spent perennials so that they look decent once winter sets in. Cleaning and clearing. A handful of tulip bulbs still left to bury. Raking and mowing. Clipping and pruning. There's no rush with any of it.

As for the cats -- well, Ed was right. They're all going in and out of the cat door as if they had been doing it from birth. Even Dark Pink, yesterday's holdout, has no trouble popping in and scooting out.

They are in a good place. This morning at feeding time (which resembles a whirling dervish of cat fur!)...






... I sit with them and rub their heads, their back and I know they are content. Group hug follows (no, I'm not part of that!) and then they break into smaller configurations. Some go out, some stay in. The sheep shed is at long last their safe haven. (So long as neither of us makes an unexpected sound: today I turned on the warm water, which triggered a small "puff" sound as the water heater went on. The cats flew en masse out the cat door.)

(the beautiful Dark Blue)






Breakfast is late. I don't know why. Call us lazy on this day!






Though we actually do get serious about stocking up at the farmhouse and getting ready for the month ahead. It is our last completely quiet day for a long while -- perhaps not until after Thanksgiving will I wake up to the thought that nothing awaits me, no one is counting on me. I have plenty of young family in the week ahead, and then both young families the weekend after, and then, well, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves! One day at a time!

And so with the thought that we ought to do that which will get us ready for a more busy set of weeks, we go to Walmart and buy lots of cat food. A crazy supply of it, so much so that we are the subject of questions and speculation in the check out line. How many cats do you have, anyway? (Nine to feed, counting Stop Sign.) How long with that last you? (We're hoping until the end of November.) And so on.

At home, Ed and I talk about what to do with Stop Sign. We still do not know if she has hidden kittens somewhere. She comes to us twice a day, eats a copious amount, then disappears. I trailed her recently and saw that she crosses the road. She clearly has a destination.

Ed thinks it's a matter of time before she figures out that there is good stuff to be found in the sheep shed. That, in my opinion, would be unfortunate. It's no secret that I don't really like Stop Sign's manners. She is most comfortable with me (though I wont try to touch her), she is scared of everything else, including the cheepers. And she is positively hostile to her children. They say that spayed cats dont really get into cat fights (cats are territorial, but not confrontational), but in this case, her kids want to extend their cat love in her direction and she regards this with the distaste you save for your very worst relatives.

In my view, the best we can do is create an alternate environment for her that she will find acceptable. She is currently eating on the porch. Today, we set up an igloo like space for her, shielded from wind, with padding inside. Last winter she survived in the garage. We think this is better. If she brings any kittens, we can run a heat source to the igloo. Safe from predators, fairly protected.

Alright, enough cat talk! Our farmette has so many other things to offer!  Even as the days grow shorter and colder and the winds gust fiercely enough to make the birch trees shiver and the crab apples shake.





Sushi for dinner. Just because.

freeze

Any Wisconsin gardener who is not scurrying around her precious yard today, bringing in pots of tender plants, picking the last of the tomatoes (or any other fall bounty), has either given up on the whole shebang for the year, or is ahead of herself and has done all this earlier. Me, I'm scurrying. Three pots of annuals -- to the sheep shed. Four grand orchids split between the house and the sheep shed. One rosemary bush to the house. And so on. Tonight, we expect a freeze. Not just a light frost, but a real freeze -- the kind that will make your garden shiver and wilt.

But first, the cats. Ed and I are a little at odds here. On a continuum, where you have "cautious and risk averse" on one end and "tough and gutsy" on the other, he and I land on opposite poles. Typically, this is sort of amusing. He teases me about my cautious nature, I nag him constantly to take better care. But there are times when we clash. Over small things.

Today -- bang! We go to feed the cats together, for the fun of spending time with them. And this is when Ed decides to let the cat door down to its shut position. Little magnets hold it in place. I worry that the cats will not be able to get in or out. They now have to push against it with their heads. Will they?

Most of them manage just fine, but Dark Pink does not. She stays outside pushing and scratching ineffectively with her paw, meowing all the while.

This is too hard for her! You need to change that door!
You need to wait. She'll figure it out.
It's wet and cold and she is hungry.
She'll figure it out.

She didn't figure it out. She went back to the garage with what I'm sure was a broken heart.

Of course, Ed's probably correct. In fact, she may be flipping the damn door, back and forth, even as we speak. Still, I know that I am more protective with the kitties. If I think they need help (by my human calculation), I want to step in. Ed's a big picture guy. They are capable of doing this, Nina. Let them do it on their own.



After the cats, after the plants, we eat breakfast.






The winds pick up, the temperatures drop. Are we that close to November? Yes we are...






In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop. Just Snowdrop. On Fridays, Sparrow's dad is with him.





Snowdrop and I spend the bulk of the afternoon reading. We finish yet another Ramona book. At the end of it, my eyes are brimming with tears. Snowdrop, too, feels the emotional swell of the final chapters. The story line is so sweet, so touching in its simple truth (it's about the little spunky 2nd grader and her relationship to school, to her family -- in other words, it's every child's story).


We have only a few minutes left afterwards. Snowdrop wants to watch an Olivia video. Now, I have nothing against the videos. They're all of ten minutes long and they usually have some small  message of hope and resilience. But Snowdrop gets hooked on them. Once she is given the go-ahead, you can bet she'll ask for another. And another.






A little amused, a little exasperated, I finally tell her (after listening to impassioned pleas for "just one more!") -- I am never ever going to play a video here for you again! She is crestfallen! "My friends will probably tell me that they go visit their grandmas and watch videos there. I will have to say that I cannot watch any at my gaga's house! That will make me so so sad!" I smile and tell her that of course we'll watch stuff together. I didn't really mean "never."

We get in the car then and I drive her home. During the ride, she is quiet and then she asks -- Gaga, why did you say that? About never watching videos?
I tell her it was just a momentary feeling of frustration, a small overreaction.
So you said it to get me to stop asking for more? 
I suppose so... It was a little bit of a tease. I wasn't serious. Did you think I was serious?
Yes. And it made me so so so sad...

I told her then that it was a bad tease. That you should never tease someone in a way that makes them sad. I said I would not do it again. To myself, I thought -- how myopic we are in the way we listen to stories! I'd just finished a whole book about a little girl who felt that her behavior was causing her mommy, her teacher, any number of other people in her life to not love her. In the end, she learned that she was wrong, that she was very much loved despite, no, because of her spunky ("sparkly") personality. Why had I so quickly forgotten that simple truth -- that kids take your words seriously? Very seriously?

Ramona had wanted to be her family's little rabbit. I reminded Snowdrop that I had once referred to her that way: bunny rabbit hop hop.
She asks -- When you call me by an animal nickname, can it be that? Bunny rabbit hop hop?

I catch her foot with my free hand and give it a squeeze. Yes, little bunny rabbit hop hop. Yes I can. 


In the evening, Ed and I spend time trying to reassure the cats again. It appears that in our absence from the sheep shed, they had gone exploring. Their sheep shed adventure took them over the keys of Ed's computer, triggering a very loud video on sheep sheering. The sudden flash and noise of it send them all flying to the barn.

Come inside, little guys. There'll be a freeze tonight. Come inside.

group hug

It's a little awkward when humans do it -- gathered in a circle, in an embrace of protruding elbows and squashed faces -- and still, there's tenderness in the effort. Group hug! A show of team spirit, of support, of love.

Cats, on the other hand, have no problem with this at all. As I feed them in the sheep shed, I watch as they first eat, then, taking a pause, they gather on the deliberately lumpy blue quilt (they like the hills and bumps!), with Dance going down first, then the others, all eight of them (sigh...) piled high for one big mass of cat fur, licking each other's faces, purring in deep contentment.

Cats are not pack animals. They can function alone (Stop Sign surely does). On the other hand, if socialized and rewarded for their playfulness, they retain that kitten love of closeness. In this particular group, they are indeed like a pack of kitties. A tad fearful of strangers, happy to find warmth among their brothers and sisters.


A morning of catch up work, some of it outside...

(planting Hellebores, aka Lenten Rose; Pepper always follows my digging practices very closely)






(we're getting a freeze tomorrow... so long, nasturtium!)






(Autumnal prettiness...)






All this after breakfast, of course.







As I glance at the paper (is it still "the paper" when you read it online?) and learn that Olga Tokarczuk, a Polish writer, won the Nobel Prize in literature. She is so very different from the last Polish Nobel laureate in literature! In 1996, Szymborska won for her very beautiful and very readable poetry. Tokarczuk, who is both unconventional and outspoken (and therefore not necessarily popular with some in the Polish government), writes in ways that force you to think as you read. The Polish Minister of Culture tweeted recently that he hasn't been able to finish any of her books. (A statement more about him than about her writings.) She may not be an easy read for those pressed for time and so may I suggest at least a look at an essay about her? It appeared in the New Yorker this last July. (You can read it here.)



In the afternoon, I pick up the kids.

(If he is interested in a book, she then is interested as well. Even if it's a flap book for toddlers.)






Yesterday, she was more independent, he was more clingy. Today, she is more tired, he is happily occupied with any number of silly things.


(She settles into drawing, he sorts snack foods on the floor)
















There is a bit of a challenge: Snowdrop has dance class later in the day and she is not one who likes to stay within the confines of a schedule. When she is engaged in play, she can be extremely pokey, begging for just one more minute, delaying, delaying, until the clock has moved dangerously close to the hour of class. It's not that she doesn't want to go to wherever it is we're heading. She just wants to go there on her own time.

(Sparrow watches, trying to understand why there's suddenly a rush to get going...)






There was a time when I could whip up two little kids into some state of readiness and  cart them off to one lesson, then the next -- no problem. But today, I am very much aware of the fact that I am a generation removed from the moms and dads who are chasing toddlers in the waiting area as their daughters (the class is 100% girls) dance. Since we do the transfer of kids and their stuff at the ballet studio, I must cart all their school junk along with a squirming boy to the lesson, at the same time that I need to hold on to Snowdrop's hand in this very busy with traffic part of town. I'm wondering how this will work when we add snow shoes and snow pants and caps and scarves and mittens to the mix! Today, we merely have to contend with a little bit of a downpour. "Cover my school painting, Gaga!"

(Storybook Ballet)






In the evening, Ed and I talk a little about the cats. The dynamic has changed a bit: Little Gray was the one you could always count on to be at your side. Now, it depends. Every one of the lot has at least a little fear left. We can work to lessen the grip of that fear, but with 8 of them, it's slow going. But there's progress! These guys may never be lap cats, but they definitely are inching toward being our good pals. Little Gray set a good example.

new beginnings and a funeral

Gorgeous day! For sure the last of the beauties! Blue skies, warm breezes -- simply stunning!

I have an important assignment this morning: I'm to go to Snowdrop and Sparrow's school at drop off time. It's the little boy's first day of school!

But first -- cat care. Oh, hi Stop Sign. The holy terror is at the front door. I feed her in her own private station on the porch (accessed through a cat door). It's best that way. She is pissy hissy around the other cats. The maman terrible!

Beautiful day!

A teen age cat greets me on the walk to the sheep shed. Another one comes out and joins us on the walk. And Dance, too. They rub against me and I have to laugh: I'm going to trip over you, guys!

I had expected them all to be inside, but I suppose on a day like this, you want to be out and about. In the shed now, I see that seven cats are clustered around the bowls of food. Little Gray and Dark Pink (the second teenage girl) are missing. No big deal. Cats come and go. This is their way.

Yo-Yo, the other babe, eats like a little piglet. Such a playful little girl! Forever small. And still a little skittish.

(climbing...)





I go out to look for the two missing guys. I don't want to have them skip their feeding. Not in barn. Oh, there you are Dark Pink! By the garage. But why? Oh well, as Ed says -- cats are hard to figure out. I lead her back to the shed, put out some more food and then I quickly get in the car to go for the school photo.

And that's when I see her: Little Gray. On the road, by our driveway. Dead.

She'd been run over by a car.

The irony! For the first time this week I felt that we had ensured their safety. Against weather, predators, illness, the horrors of life on the run.

But not against cars.

I will not dwell on how hard I took this. My sadness matters little. What matters is that she had a life that ended too quickly, abruptly, meanly.

I call out to Ed, who brings out a box. We put her gently inside. She is stiff. Must have happened at night. They all must have gone out on an adventure alright. Across the road that I thought they did not cross anymore (but oh, that forest of firs and pines! All those mice!).




To school now. To a beautiful moment in a little boy's life: the beginning of the greatest adventure of them all -- learning!












Such excitement! His sister is bouncing with pride and pleasure! The young family escorts the little boy in. Best of luck, little Sparrow!






We disperse then. I drive to Finca Cafe, where Ed and I meet for a morning together, away from the farmette, away from the obvious, but not away from thoughts and words and tears for Little Gray -- the most perfect and perfectly friendly little cat on the planet. More like a puppy, really. My best kitty pal.

Ed reminds me -- she (he?) had such a happy life! She had the best mommy, so many loving siblings, humans who cuddled her! So much joy!






He's right, of course. In the scheme of things, our run through life is brief. What matters is that we were here, we were kind, and if luck's with us -- life was kind to us. Little Gray was here, she was kind, and for one brief moment of one beautiful season, life was kind to her.






(Yo-Yo watches our sad burial. Sinatra croons Moonlight Serenade from my phone in my pant pocket. It feels right: Little Gray lost his life by the light of the moon.)






(Repotting some of the annuals: tough decisions. Which should we choose to bring inside? Which have the best chance of surviving indoors?)








In the afternoon I go to pick up Sparrow and Snowdrop.

First, the boy.

By all reports, his day was awesome! (He demonstrates for me one of his favorite activities: washing a pumpkin. It necessitated a change of clothing.)






Then the girl. Bouncing with pride: my brother started school today! He's sixteen months old! He can go to school!

At first she wants to go adventuring with him in the neighborhood. But she is just on the heels of being quite sick. She reconsiders. I'm glad. Farmhouse it is!






Snack time!






Pretend play. She chooses "school." Of course.






He looks at the pillows on the floor and topples onto one with a giggle. She follows suit. They do this for about ten minutes. Topple, giggle. Topple, giggle.






True, there are adjustments for all of us. A long read of a chapter book gets interrupted. The issue of when to keep the gate closed comes up. And my arms get a workout: Sparrow is a heavy little guy.

And, too, I have this weight on my shoulder that I can't shake quite yet.

But I think we all would agree that it is a sweet and gentle afternoon.






Evening. Time with the remaining 8. Then a quiet retreat to the farmhouse. Ed bikes today. I prepare supper. Of fish and corn. Little Gray would have liked the salmon bits.