Thursday - 62nd

The day lends itself perfectly to the cliche -- when it rains... well, it rains a lot.

For one thing, there is the wetness. A solid drizzle. Plants are happy so I'm happy. A little gray outside, but the warmth now is palpable. Skip the jacket. Don't need it. Not even a sweater.






(I was pleased to learn that the May freeze was not awful for apple growers. They may have lost a few buds and blooms, but a diminished load may actually be a good thing for the life of a fruit tree.)

(Old orchard bloomers: pears, apples, quince.)






Early in the day, I begin work on my supplemental grocery list. Typically the weekend is round two for me: I check to see if the items that were missing on the big list are now available. And this time, I am really gunning for cherries. The small bag I got on Tuesday was gone the next day. Pfft! Just like that. Snowdrop really loves cherries. At this time of the year they are erratic and so if you want them, you have to keep checking.

And bingo! They are in stock! So I place the supplemental weekend order now. And I get the answer telling me that a morning delivery is available. Today. Okay. I'll take it. Even though the kids are on their way to the farmhouse. It's a small order. I can manage.

Breakfast first.






Kids are here!






(He so tries to imitate all that she does...)






(Appreciative hug...)






And now all hell breaks loose. The phone rings. A mega mix-up with my mom's forthcoming doctor's appointment. It has to be solved immediately. It requires many calls to many people. At the same time that the groceries arrive. Only two items need a wash and a refrigerator, but still, it is drizzling outside. Bags need to come in.

Ed!

He's on it. Groceries are in. I'm washing the perishables. The phone keeps ringing. Snowdrop and Sparrow turn to him for amusement and conversation.






Snowdrop is especially happy to have Ed listen to her Barbie dilemmas and developments (she brought a handful of them to the farmhouse today).
Did you play with Barbies when you were little, ahah?
No...
What dolls did you play with?
I guess my stuffed teddy bears...

Who knew.






They bake cookies...






Lots of chocolate chip cookies.

And eventually the calls slow down, calm is restored and the kids settle in for an hour of drawing.



In the afternoon, the flurry of farmhouse activity subsides. The kids are back in their home. I step outside to take stock of what still needs to be done.

It's not sunny, but the warm air overtakes the senses. You have the feeling of incredible beauty all around you.






I scatter a few seeds, I pull a few weeds. I'm nearing the tail end of spring work. A few more days of planting and I'll be switching to a maintenance program.

And I have to say, so far so good! Even the wildflower seeds are starting to sprout and ones that I sowed in the autumn are pushing out the first handfuls of lovely flowers. I pick a few forget-me-nots and a few stalks of the invasive but nonetheless pretty lily-of-the-valley (I let it grow in a few shady areas of the farmette and it never fails to enchant me. The fragrance is everything you want in a small flower -- a delicate sweetness.)






Evening. I've defrosted fish from the Community Supported Alaskan Fisheries. This is the day to bring out Matt's asparagus. Steam it, sprinkle a bit of parmesan on it and dig in!

And nab some cherries for dessert! The first bag that I purchased on Monday was tiny and so this time I ordered three. Well now, Snowdrop will be pleased!





An evening of quiet. Of gratitude to all those who worked hard these last months to understand how best to keep people safe.

Wednesday - 61st

The first day after a cold spell often has no coherence to it. You know you have a pile of stuff waiting for you outside. You touch this, you touch that. You finish nothing. It's always like that.

But hey, it's a beautiful day! As promised, the temps are climbing, the sun is doing an in and out dance, the breeze is warm.

We did have a cool night and therefore a cold morning, but it's now warm enough for the annuals and so immediately after feeding the animals and saying good morning to the fantastic May day, I bring the remaining pots and baskets outside. There they will stay until the first frost in the Fall. My, but that seems a long way away!

(toward the farmhouse, from the Big Bed)






(morning light)






Breakfast is still inside though. I'm mindful of the fact that when Ed wakes up, things feel cool to him outside, especially if we take our time over the bowls of fruits or oatmeal.





My first task is a terrifically pleasant one: Ed and I take the pretty drive along rural roads to Natalie's Greenhouse for a curbside pickup of some replacement annuals. It's not just the polar blast that did some minor damage to a few plants, it's the animals: the chickens chomp on the alyssum. Someone has been chomping on the gaura, and phlox, and not a few number of tulips. The usual exasperations of a gardener.


(planting, on a bigger scale! Across the road from Natalie's)






And then I get to work. Fix the annual pots. Pull some weeds. Put in a perennial. Or two. Scold the chickens. Round and round this circle I go. Let's just say I make progress!






(one of my favorite spots at the farmette in mid-May: by the quince trees in the old orchard. It's all blooms and violets!)


 



Lunch? Oh, it's wonderful! On the porch. A nut spread with blood orange and hibiscus marmalade (a mother's day gift).






And immediately after, Snowdrop comes over.

Yes, cherries! All about cherries! "They make smiles in my tummy!"











(it cannot be said that she rushed through her art work today...)






In the evening, Ed is out riding his bike and I'm fixing a frittata. Still with spinach (Matt, the asparagus farmer, had some winter spinach left and we were happy to nab some) and with mushrooms. And lots of cheese. Always delicious!






I take a small walk outside afterwards. For the light. For the beauty of a May evening. I'm thinking -- this month offers all the good stuff: the lushness, freshness, the color, the eternal hope of a better tomorrow. And it doesn't have the mosquitoes, the heatwaves, the constant thunderstorms of summer. It's a month that forces you to take a pause. To look around, to smell deeply, to feel connected to the natural world.






(first iris!)






If you haven't already, open the window and let that breeze into your home. Close your eyes, exhale...

Tuesday - 60th

And now, let's resume spring! (That was some cold spell... The garden survived, though the toll is still unknown. Some little guys are struggling. Always the little guys! The weaker plants, the little kitties, the vulnerables.)

The signs are good: plenty of sunshine and a gradual upswing in the temperatures.






Sure, breakfast is still indoors.






But the temptation to go outside is strong. At the very least, I spend some time moving most but not all of the big pots to their regular posts. (Some tender flowers would not like the lows that will still be with us tonight and so they'll stay inside a little longer.)

(The last tulips of the season...)






And then I run (well, drive) to join up with the grand kids at their home. It's our springtime Tuesday routine.











It's a funny playtime. Snowdrop is totally absorbed in a story that she is spinning with her Barbies (yes, she loves those Barbies and at her house it's where most of her storytelling takes places).






Sparrow, not to be outdone, appropriates one of the Disney Barbies and has her act out a wake up from deep sleep routine (with me providing a voice-over) again and again and again.






Eventually, they settle to do art.






And soon after lunch, I head home. I want to sow the rest of the seeds  -- both flowers and the root vegetables (carrots and beets).

It is not easy to plant seeds when you have free ranging chickens at your heels.






We finish up with the veggies and I do many but not all of the flowers. More to do tomorrow. I have to pause with planting because the weekly groceries have arrived. I go on to spend a very soapy set of hours scrubbing stuff. Oh, but the rewards! Snowdrop will be very happy tomorrow when she sees the arrival of these!






Evening. Shrimp with veggies. It's a toss up! Go with the asparagus Matt the asparagus farmer delivered today...






... or use up the big bundle of broccoli from our grocery order?

Aren't we lucky to have such dilemmas...






Here's a treat: at least part of my dinner is with Primrose! I chomp down on broccoli, which happens to be one of her all time favorites, while she finishes off a dessert of berries. (And then washes herself up in the kitchen sink.)






(Goodnight, Primrose... Good night, grandma...)






And who am I thinking about tonight? Who gets my attention? The kids. Not only my kids, but all kids. The ones who wistfully say (as Snowdrop did today) - I wish this Coronavirus would be over. Kids who miss their friends. Their cousins. Their routines. Their days that did not include such words as social distancing. Their trips, their adventures!


Today, too, is International Nurses Day. Even if I recited all that nurses do in a pandemic, I would understate their importance and the toughness of their lives right now. So, just a brief but heartfelt thank you. Really, thank you.

Monday - 59th

Am I still in self-quarantine if I break the isolation for one entry into the real world? It depends on what the real world is and what I do after, don't you think? In my view, I very much am still in isolation. Along with Ed and along with the Madison young family. None of us have gone shopping (except for the rare curbside grocery or medication pickup). None of us have had any person to person contacts or visits, not even of the six-feet-apart kind. Well, until this morning. But it was no ordinary contact. I'll explain.

I've been musing about what to do with a troublesome tooth -- one that has a history of intermittent problems. I remember last year fretting about it in Como, Italy. I asked my bed and breakfast hosts for some salt, just so I could do that old world trick of keeping things at bay with a saline solution. But by the time I got back to the US, it was fine and the endodontist told me to come back when it's acting up again.

Of course, it chose to act up the day Ed and I started our quarantine. It's as if it was in cahoots with the evil forces of nature! In consultation with my dental docs (all of them sequestered at home except for super duper emergencies), I held off, waiting for better times.

Last week, we decided these are good enough times. Not many people are rushing to the dentist right now and the clinics have had time to rethink how best to deliver care. The worry is of course that sick patients will infect the dental crew, not the other way around.

Since I am of that demographic (old people), I was given a pre-opening Monday morning appointment. Meaning early! So early that I wondered if I should set the alarm, but then I remembered my sleep patterns of late and relied, as usual, on my morning wakefulness.

I was prepared: glove for the door handles. Mask to show my solidarity with those around me. Credit card and car keys in my back pant pocket. Pen, my own, for all those releases they ask you to sign which, these days, include something about CoVid -- probably that they do not accept responsibility for your death should some determined evil droplet fall your way.

I've been to dental places hundreds of times in my life, but this visit was unique. Everything has changed in the last weeks. Dividers, separators, screens, plastic curtains, spacing -- all of it is new and different. It felt like entering a construction zone where there had been a hazardous chemical spill. Well, maybe not that bad. Missing were danger signs with skulls and cross bones.

Of course, I'm totally in admiration of the endodontist. He has worked in many distant places (he likes to do what he calls "dental vacations" where he goes to remote corners of the world to provide dental care to underserved populations), but I am sure none posed as big a risk to him as this one: plunging into germ and virus packed mouths of patients, most of them scared, many of them in pain.

The odd thing is that I was not in pain. Like last year, the acute problem (and it was acute) responded well to suggested treatments and things were rather settled. Still, it was important to have it checked out. And, I got my first taste of what medical care will look like for the next year or two: quite safe, if a bit frightening on the visuals! (You've already probably guessed that Ed and I are rather extreme in our quarantine, possibly because it is not hard for us not to go out to places we would rarely go to anyway. Following this extremism, I came home, threw clothes into the washing machine and took a hot shower. Lots of suds. Perhaps for no other reason but to feel good about having this step out into the new real world behind me.)

Breakfast, with a sleepy Ed.






It's cold today. We missed having a frost last night by about half a degree and tonight will be another roll of the dice, but we are sure that this is the tail end of the polar blast. Some things do resolve quickly! And of course, it's still pretty outside. May is always a very very pretty month.

















The kids are here this morning and it's a nice distraction from just about everything!






Monday visits are always special for them: they've not had a time of free play here for all of two days! We haven't read together, munched on the couch together, they haven't touched and examined their favorite books and toys! Everything seems fresh.
















(Lunch)





When they're gone, I sit down to work on my weekly grocery list. Ed says I'll probably stay with this shopping method even when the pandemic is over. I totally doubt it. On line, I can't see the quality of the produce! I can't pick out the best and the freshest looking anything. And items pop off my list before delivery is made, so that I never really know going into this what I'll get at the end of the day.

And of course, I will never ever miss the grocery disinfecting process. Most of our purchases are of produce. It always comes in plastic bags. Many plastic bags, knotted tight. Put together with the often ungloved hands of the "shopper." Needing refrigeration soon. In the olden days, it took me 45 minutes to put away a week's worth of groceries. Now it takes me two or three times that number. This will be tomorrow's project.


And in the evening? What's for dinner? If it's Monday it must be leftover time! With a salad. And a few more veggies from the CSA box.






Stir fried, because on Mondays, I am without cooking imagination. A heavenly easy meal!


Later, much later, I think about how this day was supposed to have played out differently. Plans were made for it way back, when we actually made plans and dreamed ambitiously. I was to get on a flight to Europe tonight. We were to have a family get together in Paris -- kids, grandkids, all of us. A long, beautiful trip. Rooms were booked, flights were purchased.  Later in the week, I would be taking Primrose to Giverny by train. She would have been old enough to ride a pony in the Luxembourg Gardens. Sparrow would have sat with his sister on the merry-go-round in the Tuileries Gardens. The three cousins would picnic together and chase each other and pester parents and grandma for a pastry or an extra croissant in the morning. Snowdrop just couldn't wait for the adventure of it all!

And here we all are, isolating. Well, minus a dental visit.

On the other hand, we are in our homes, in the Midwest, healthy and employed (or retired!). And it is May and the lilac and crab apple are about to bloom. Grateful doesn't describe the depth of my emotion.

My thanks today have to extend to the health care workers once more. I came in contact with some today. Such dedicated people. To the core. Such important and hard work! I'm in awe.

With love.