Sunday - 65th

We're getting a lot of rain today. The kind that leaves behind big puddles in the driveway. Oh, I suppose I'm glad. Everything is getting a good soak. The asparagus will be delighted, the newly planted day lilies will get a boost as well. Still, nobody -- not the cats, not the cheepers, not me nor Ed -- likes being outside in pouring rain. The brief walk to the barn in the morning leaves me soaked. Sneaking food for the two kitties, Cutie and Calico is terribly unpleasant, especially since I then have to stay outside to keep the chickens and teenage cats away from the kittie feeding station under Ed's car.

And yet, despite the fat rain drops and the cool air, I do push myself out the door for gardening reasons. I need to do my annual feeding of the plants in the front bed. They get terribly starved for nutrients after a winter dumping of salty road stuff. The time to sprinkle granules is during a rain so that the cheepers wont come after me pecking at the interesting stuff that they firmly believe must be food for them. So, sprinkle and kick some dirt over them. Up and down the bed. I am beyond wet at the end of it all.

But I do pause nonetheless to admire the crab apple. I mean, this is it! The week of glory for her! You can't let a rain shower dampen the show that she gives ever so briefly, on this one week out of the whole year!






Breakfast in the cozy kitchen. After I've already taken the time to clean the whole farmhouse. Ed is sleeping off yesterday's laborious car repair job.

Ed! Do come down please! I want my coffee!
Okay okay okay....






In the afternoon, I should do my taxes. I should also do my mom's taxes. I do none of it. I heat up water for tea and sit very close to the heating vent until it's time to start in on dinner.

(Looking out the kitchen window...)






The young family is here of course, and it is a shame that we should be eating indoors, but there you have it. May brings rain and there is plenty of it on this day.

Oh, and did you know it's Mother's Day once again? It is!






So, dinner and play, all indoors, listening to the patter of big fat drops on our farmhouse roof. It's a very pleasant sound.

What do we eat? Well, there are 4, maybe 5 menus that I basically recycle for Sunday dinners, with some, but not a whole lot of seasonal variation. I always ask if they want something new, but the response is the same: nope! Everyone eats copiously and Snowdrop is always full of compliments and so why on earth rock that ship! Today it's time for the Rick Bayless shrimp tacos (with a green mole). Oh, and I do roast some slices of sunchokes for a predinner munch. They came in the CSA box and I must put them to good use.






(At the table...)






(Dessert. He's the only one at the table who does not care for cherries.)






Late evening. Subdued. We've taken to do a late watch of 60 Minutes, which is a terrible idea as it always has CoVid stories. Valuable ones, but not great for an end of day kind of moment. And so we do add-ons afterwards: a Brit thriller, followed by an American comedy. It is close to midnight by the time the evening winds down.

One of the 60 Minute stories has me thinking about science once again and the women and men who work round the clock now to get ahead of the pandemic. Frontliners and scientists: such stressful times for them! Howl outside, bang pots, flash lights, clap loudly. With love.

Saturday - 64th

When does play become work and when is work the same as play?

(the two youngest kitties, running away from the big guys...)





Ed has always said that a goal in your search for work should be enjoyment. The best jobs are the ones you love doing. You might say -- well, that's a luxury! Maybe. But he'd retort that too many people pick jobs for the wrong reasons. Big money, higher status, and who knows what else. They don't think about whether they will actually like going to work. We watch a news clip about a garbage collector who really loves his work. Ed nods in agreement: the guy's got it right.

But how about nonwork stuff? You could say that my gardening is all play. I do it for pleasure. Indeed, my gardens are mostly invisible to the outside world (except via Ocean!), since most of them encircle the courtyard  -- all hidden from the road. Why do any of it, if it isn't fun?



It's a gorgeous day once again. Perhaps the skies aren't quite as consistently blue and we don't pass 70F (21C), nevertheless, it really is a most beautiful day. The kind that makes you sing out loud.

I do.

Ed is surprised.






Breakfast on the porch. Long, lovely.






And then I get to work, finishing up the great big spring gardening opus. (From hereon, it will be mostly maintenance.)

(Dance is eyeing the bottle; we use it for watering the tomatoes, silly cat!)






(the earliest of the iris plants...)






It's all grand, especially since one of the loveliest moments in the year starts right about now: it's when the crab apple opens up, with a quick piggy back from the great lilac (both have been part of the farmette landscape for many decades). The crab apple blooms are just starting. The pink and white and delicate green will make take your breath away. Guaranteed. The lilac will follow soon.






As I make my way to the young orchard (to check on the meadow and to see how the beets and carrots are faring), I pause repeatedly to hack away at noxious weeds. The thistle is at the top of my list. It's everywhere. Indeed, in the veggie patch behind the barn, it has so taken hold in the last several years that it would take a heroic and sustained effort to get it out of there. I don't have such grand ambitions, but I do like to keep it out of our way in the area where we are gardening, so I dig away at the prickly nightmare of a plant.

Is this even fun? What I'm doing is so minor (most of the thistle remains stubbornly in place), so harsh on the hands (even though I'm wearing gloves), and so stupid really, that I have to wonder. And yet I continue. Until a blister form on my hand and I call it quits. For now.
 
(Cheepers, tracking down delectable edibles...)






Perhaps every hobby, every love has its thorny sides. It can't all be fun, right?

By afternoon, I sit down to a pb & j sandwich on the porch, look out at the beautiful crab tree before me and think -- eh, it's all fun. Even the unpleasant thistle digging. The work here has merged with pleasure so completely that they are indistinguishable.


Sometime around noon, I do take a break. Primrose calls! She wants to read a book to me and she knows that she has a ready audience here, at the farmette. There's not anything that I wont drop when the little one FaceTimes me.





And yes, she and her mom do read a little, but mostly she plays and I play too. She has a bunny, I have dancing flamingos -- it's all quite wonderful.


Later, much later, Ed and I go out for a quick drive. The poor guy worked all afternoon at removing a rusted front brake disc from my car (I'm not sure that counted as fun) and it was time to test the replacement. Too, we had to pick up a box of produce from our Community Supported Agriculture delivery site. (It's still wintered veggies and spring wild garlic ramps, and green garlic, but I see a bunch of sorrel as well. Maybe a green soup should be on the menu this week?)

The brakes are working, the car is moving, the CSA box contents are in our porch cooler, ready for some imaginative cooking. But not tonight. We opt for the easiest of the easy: scrambled eggs and a mix of our own asparagus, sauteed with some of the ramps and spinach leaves.


Evening. Quiet time. Not play, not work. Quiet time has us shed those constructs. It's now all about unwinding from the day that's behind us, so that we can be fresh for the day ahead.

Friday - 63rd

We all love our kids, our grandkids, our partners, our friends. We love being with them. We love hearing stories about them, we love hugging them. All that is a given. Those are our big loves. Our anchors in life.

Then there are the little loves. Things that consistently make us happy. Content. At peace. Guaranteed. You do them, the smile comes back.

Everyone has a different bucket of small loves. Of course. And it's so interesting that the people you love will likely have only a little overlap with you in their own bucket of small joys. Oh, you may both like music or a beer at the local bar, but inevitably, you will diverge on hobbies or life styles or, well, a whole lot of things. As I often said -- Ed and I merged lives even though we had ostensibly very little in common.  It didn't diminish our love for each other. We just went on to fill our free time in very different ways.

I thought about this as I worked outside today. And what a day it is! 70F (21C), sunny. One of those totally perfect May days.

And I love perfect May days! I'm so hungry for them! The weather, the blossoms, or buds that soon will be blossoms, the freshness of it all!






I love it all completely. A small love, to be sure, but it's always there and it comes back each year as I am reminded of how much beauty returns to the landscape that we almost give up on in the dead of winter.

Breakfast, on the porch. We both love this morning interlude outside.






And then I work. I mow the path through the new orchard. I weed the front bed. I plant nasturtium. It takes up the whole morning and indeed, creeps into the afternoon, but it's time well spent. Working outside on a perfect May day stirs all those good endorphins within your brain, forcing a feeling of peace and yes, hope. You can't help but smile. A handful of small loves, all coinciding on this day to bring you a much needed break from worry.

(The crab apple is one day short of blooming!)






In the afternoon, Snowdrop is at the famhouse. But first come those moments of outside play.






I have these two garden fairies and I ask her to hide them in secret places. They'll keep an eye on the garden for us all season long.






And then she is off chasing a cabbage butterfly.






A field of dandelions brings out the puffs.






And my hurried attempt to produce a crown. I do this every year and she puts up with it every year.






But she is in a hurry to go inside. Those cherries! I show her the colander-ful. She says -- an infinity of cherries!  Ed challenges her: what's infinity? She comes up with a very credible answer.

And again a grandma thing: making earrings of the double stemmed cherries!






The rest of our time is a predictable mix of reading, building and longest of all -- story telling.





And then I take her home.


Evening. A May supper.  Just as on Mondays we want something snappy, so too on Fridays I never aim high. Today's foods? Chicken brats! With Blue Valley Farms spinach on the side.

Followed by pop corn. And cheese puffs.

You know what those are, don't you? -- Ed asks pointing an accusing finger at the bag of puffs. Ground up cornmeal with tumeric and who knows what else.
Hey, some people say tumeric is good for you.
Let's read the ingredients.
Let's not.

He does.

We laugh.

It's a good ending to a beautiful day. For all the impossibly tough times that we muddle through, there are days like this one. Yes really. Buckets of tiny loves and looming joys. Around the corner, waiting for us.

(Cat, on the porch, liking it as much as we do.)

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...