Thursday - 83rd

Hot, summer weather is with us still. I'm up early. Peonies: it's all about the emerging peonies out there...






And irises. Don't forget about the irises.






Lots to fix, organize, get ready. Primrose will be spending the day at the farmette. It's a perfect time for it, though I could do without the emerging summer bugs. Buzz, zap! I move many of the day's planned activities onto the porch. The cats are very unhappy about having their access blocked for the day. Sorry guys, make do!






Snip irises, start fixing breakfast, oh! She's here!






She has eaten already, but she joins Ed and me for the morning meal.





And then we plunge into play.

Like all the kids who pass this way, Primrose is drawn to the toy foods -- cakes, veggies, fruits, pastas, pizzas -- over the years they've all been added to the stash.






And like all the little ones, she is so very happy when I offer her the wading pool.






Each child plays differently in water. She is into the mechanics of transport. And food delivery.





As she plays, she, like Snowdrop, hears the amplified sound of birds. And like Snowdrop, she asks -- what's that?
It's the birds, talking to each other: want some food? want some food? Yes please, yes please! Yummy yum yum! Chiiiiiirp!
And like Sparrow, she is concerned when a loud construction truck rumbles by. Sometimes I think we who live here stop listening to the sounds all around us. But when you're weeding, snipping spent flowers, or sitting in a wading pool, you hear it all.

And from here, it's a short stroll to the sandbox!






(Hold on, I need to get you a sun bonnet!)


 



Oh, but it's hot! It feels like a beach day, where you've slobbered on the sun screen and now you're all sandy and it's all sticking to you. Well, we have the tools for sand removal. No kid objects to being showered off with a hose.

Inside again, cooled off, ready for more play all the way until lunchtime. Her mom comes down from her sequestered work space (a bed in the lemon guest room) and I whip up a frittata.






Primrose loves veggies: you tell her there's spinach inside and she positively sparkles!







Naps, books, more play... Hey, is someone climbing on my back??


 



(picking peonies for the dinner table...)






And then the older family comes here for a farmhouse dinner.






(Dessert: yogurt bars and watermelon. Which would you eat first?)











The kids have less space to cavort in the farmhouse, but they manage. Oh, but who can doubt that these three are best friends!






They leave soon after dinner. The bedtimes are always late during these visits and the kids are tired. But a wonderful, beautiful tired after a day well spent. The kind of day each and every one of us deserves to have. No fuss, no clamor or great to-do. Just sharing a day, a meal, with the people you love.

(Evening peonies)

Wednesday - 82nd

The storms came at night, the winds howled, the rain lashed out at everything in sight and still, we wake up to another hot day. Summer hot.

Up early. Lots to do. Fussy animals, little biting bugs in the air, wet greenery. But it's all so beautiful anyway!











Do laundry, order groceries. Family visit was moved to this earlier date and so I am catching up at preparedness!

Breakfast on the porch. (He's bending down to give Dance a rub.)






And then I'm off to my older girl's home where three grandkids are having a field day exploring the possibilities of cousin play, even as the parents desperately seek to log in some work hours.






Okay, I have this hidden take charge drive that clicks in at times of stress. Run the bath water, hustle two kids into the tub, then out we go before it becomes too hot for us to enjoy outdoor play!











Indoor time follows. The cousins are significantly into each other and so there's no need to forge paths to a considerate and good-natured play. And of course, for Primrose, this visit offers all forms of new adventures, all the more exciting after a long period of lockdown at home with just her parents.






Eventually, there are the lunches, the naps, the quiet times and then we pick up where we left off.











I stay for a pizza dinner. Inside, because it is still so hot.


 


Then I must rush home. Groceries for family dinners are being delivered at 8 and they include ice cream and it's still beastly hot even though the sun has yet to set. And I manage to squeeze in a quick mow of the paths, just in case a child wants to romp outside in the next day or two or three. Ed is out biking and so I heave the big tractor mower out of the barn and get to it.


Back in the house now. Our air conditioning clicks on. Groceries came, I washed, put away, washed some more.

It's very late by the time Ed is home and we settle down for an evening of pop corn.

Summer arrived with a bang, even if the calendar tells me it's only the third day of June. (Peonies are the stars in the first week of this month!)





I track it all -- the garden, the blooms, the bugs, even as right now I'm one foot in the world of news and the other -- solidly entrenched in my orbit of kids and grandkids. We are all healthy, all here and unharmed. We are among the lucky. We know it. We feel deeply for those who are anything but lucky right now.

Good night, with love.

Tuesday - 81st

The days are going to be full. For Ocean, I predict fewer words, more editing oversights, and perhaps less focused writing. Judging just by this day, there wont be the time for more thoughtful blogging. But hey, short texts have their virtues! Instead of reading many paragraphs, you look at the photos and take in the entirety. Never mind detail. Focus on the mood instead.


(Irises by the driveway...)






So, take this second day of June. It's hot. A high of 90F (32C). Is it a sign of what lies ahead for us this summer? The morning is also chaotic. Animals are hard to herd. One kittie is missing, Chickens spend a good part of the day underneath Ed's car. One cat finds joy in playing with a dead squirrel, another deposits a mouse on our pathway.

Ed and I eat breakfast on the porch...






I'm waiting for a grocery delivery. It's late because some of the city's streets are closed off by protests. Understandable, but I am supposed to be at my daughter's for morning childcare. When the food does come, I do the fastest possible cleaning job before heading out to her place.

Kids. First just the two of them.






(I spend a lot of time trying to keep neat what they so artfully take apart.)











And then I return to the farmhouse, finish the grocery scrub, take a deep breath and drive back to the young family's home. And now the younger family has arrived from Chicago. I enter a scene of utter excitement and joy.






Finally, not on FaceTime anymore.






The younger couple that I've missed so so much!






This morning, there were two (kids). Now they are three.






We eat dinner there (my son-in-law cranks up his pasta machine) ...


 


(summer weather popsicle)






... as this will be home base for both families. It's not vacation time yet and so I'll be busy keeping kids out of parental spaces in the next few days. But, for now, on this evening, work is far from anyone's mind. Swing high, feet up... I leave them like this.






I drive home, to my bursting gardens...


 



... and to the farmhouse, where Ed waits with popcorn in the popper. I tell him about the evening. He listens. Eyes half closed, I finish my post.

With love.

Monday - 80th

Dates, counts, degrees -- I see before me a sea of figures.

It is June 1st. Did you know that much of the world celebrates children on this day? I had a Zoom call with my Polish friends this afternoon. Two of the ten were late -- they had a grandchild, or two, or three to celebrate.

It's not a holiday I incorporated into my family life and my own grandkids have no idea that the first day of June should be anything more than the first day of June.

Well, good enough. It's June. But what a tough beginning to a beautiful month! Ed and I are in our 80th day of total isolation (except for our cocooning with the young family and one inconsequential visit to the dentist). 100 days of this is around the corner. Will it be then 100 more?

A few days ago, I wrote about parallel tracks -- that was when the virus was running its crazy unpredictable course and the season ran its separate rebirth-of-all-growing-things course and one was horrific and the other beautiful. Well now we have a third going and not surprisingly it is a violent one and people are hurting and it is hard to imagine a month starting on more anguished and challenging footing.

But, there is June. For Ed, for me, the routines remain the same: we stay home, see no one outside of family. We tend to the garden. We watch it grow. We cannot change course, we will not change course.

The first of the month is blowing in some pretty mild temperatures. I had hoped for a rain during the night, or even day (all those planted seeds!), but none came. Just winds and a climbing thermometer.

(Columbine: the mid spring belle or is it bell of the garden...)






(Clematis, starting its climb up the trellis... or chicken wire if you don't have a trellis.)






(The first peony!)






(a shaded iris, moving with the wind...)





Breakfast.





The kids arrive early and it is lovely to see them walking up the path.





Their Monday energy levels are always high. No less today.

We have a perfect balance (which is rare): he and I read while she plays, then she and I read while he plays. If things were this easy every day in every family, we'd be an overpopulated globe indeed. True, I am hoarse from reading, but it is a pleasant hoarseness!

Immediately after the kids leave, I go into my Zoom call.






It really brought home to me the stark differences between there and here. Between their plight and my own. Poland never experienced an out of control surge in infections. Rather, it has had a consistently steady daily rate. It is certainly modest as compared to that in western Europe. No one knows why, though speculations abound. Not surprisingly, many of my friends wonder if a continued loosening of restrictions could bring life closer to a prepandemic normal. Among the nine Poles, all who have kids and grandkids living in Poland have had visits with the kids. Some have been occasionally going into an office for work reasons. Some still continue to sanitize groceries, but about half do not and a growing number are loosening their sanitizing methods. Some have gone away for the weekend. Others have gone to coffee shops, though they tell me they sipped coffee through a straw and sat with social distancing measures in place. Everyone here and there functions under a cloud of uncertainty, but it's more tempting to take risks if your country of some 38 million has had fewer infections than, say the whole state of Colorado, whose population is less than 6 million.

(Here I am on the Zoom call. Iris and stalks of overgrown asparagus are from the garden.)






As the call ends, I return to the great outdoors. Just for a little while. To take in that first day of June. That sometimes fickle, but always generous in its natural beauty month of June.






Dinner? June or no June, it's leftover day today! With home grown asparagus. It's having a wild ride this year!

Somewhere in the course of the late afternoon hours, several things happened: Calico, the littlest kittie once again gets stuck high in a tree. I coax her down halfway, but she would not budge after that. I give up. I'm hoping that by tomorrow she'll finally figure out that going down backwards works for cats.

Then, Ed and I get on his motorbike and scoot over to the tennis courts. We hadn't played for two years! Today was to be our return to high spirited ball chasing!

It is not to be. Another couple was using one of the two court. We didn't want to share. We went home.

Finally, I heard from my younger girl in Chicago, where she has been isolating with her husband and daughter since all hell broke loose. She and her family were to spend next week with us northerners here, in Madison, but they decided to move up their trip a bit. They're coming tomorrow. We spent a good part of the evening figuring out logistics for the next days.

Eventually, Ed and I do bring out the popcorn, but my mind is on the details of the next weeks. In the distance, I can hear the buzz of the robot vacuum machine. Ed had the good sense to turn it on for a spin around the rooms downstairs.

The next days will definitely have a high energy buzz to them. And I'm not thinking of the buzz of the robot that's picking up forgotten dust off the living room floor. It's been a long time since we've had the Chicago bunch around. A way too long time.

Sunday - 79th

Wait, I thought the bulk of gardening was behind us for the season. Why these days of long, hard work?

Why indeed... in normal times,  Ed and I never really get to many of our farmette projects. At some point, we forget about them and stay with the usual garden maintenance, which for me involves mostly weeding, watering and snipping. But of course, this year, everything is different. It's not that I have more time -- household stuff eats up many more minutes, what with all that food washing, and with no breaks for take-out food or easy peasy meals. But I do have more will to spend as much time outside as possible and given that hiking no longer lures me in the way it did before (too many people and, very soon, there will be too many bugs), getting to those projects and, too, being more careful with my gardening, is suddenly very appealing. Especially on these beautiful, sunny days.

Up early, with breakfast on the porch. We're a little distracted by a radio story on growing corn that gets most of its nutrients from air. (Fascinating! On NPR, in case you missed it!) So we take the little smart phone with us for the morning meal.






And then we work. The two mega projects for us today are the meadow and the lilac. Ed finishes edging the path in the new orchard with good soil and I sow more wildflower seeds. The goal is to eventually transform lawns (meaning the grassy areas that have required mowing in the past) into meadows with paths. We've firmed up our ideas on how to do this and we've made great progress this year.

The second project is to cut back and saw down about a third of the huge lilac by the farmhouse. We attack that today. Maybe I got carried away. Looks to me like I took away a tad more than a third. But it looks fine! Next year, we'll saw off another set of thick old branches.

(Branches, loaded onto the wagon... We'll haul them to the wood pile tomorrow...)






The rest of the day? Well, trimming, staking, planting, weeding. And feeding animals, though Dance, the matriarch and once-feral cat, has still been bringing home the field mice which may explain why the big cats aren't super hungry these days. The little kitties, as usual, are trying to avoid the big cats. I do worry about them, because each night I am awakened to a chorus of coyotes outside and Ed has reported that one study found that one fifth of a coyote diet is made of cats, but so far, everyone has stayed in their own orbit of safe spaces.


In the evening, the young family comes for dinner. (A predinner romp is de rigeur on a day like this!)





















Dinner is out on the porch. Of course it is! There aren't many days as perfect as this one for a meal outside.

Do we talk about the tough topics of the day? Yes, to an extent. But we are more American than we are French in our dinner habits, in that the kids are not quiet little listeners at the table, but vocal participants in most of our conversations and so serious stuff fizzles and we relax in the way that kid antics force you to relax.






What's for dinner? Oh, one of the usuals -- shrimp tacos. With onions and peppers, smothered in a green mole, with some raw veggies and cheeses for those who like to pile it on.


(After, he shows them how ice cream bars are made...)






Late evening. Ed wants to work outside some more, but I'm spent. Popcorn time and a return to the usual viewing pleasures. He and I have talked a lot about what's happening in this country right now. In the late day, I need the distraction, the calm. We wish we could offer that same calm and hope, too, to those who need it badly right now.

With love.

Saturday - 78th

Life is very intense right now. It's as if your emotions follow two tracks, parallel but running in opposite directions. On the one hand, there is the constant sense of loss, exacerbated by tumultuous events coming at you from every corner, but then, equally strong is the perception of total beauty in the world of nature and of course in the goodness of very many people, giving so much of themselves every single day. It's all incredibly potent!

No wonder then that your own feelings  are running at levels you don't normally expect in yourself. An example: last night, Ed and I watched the next episode of the British crime drama we're currently hooked on (DCI Banks). I'd binge watch it into the night, but Ed insists we limit it to one per day! As I think I mentioned, quite unexpectedly, there arose a love interest in the series, and last night it came to a sort of fruition. I was so happy for them! Happy for these two fictional characters who were written to acknowledge deep feelings for each other. Like a kid, I was clapping my hands and bouncing with joy. For something that is so unabashedly fabricated to keep you watching. I mean, really! What am I, a teenager?

Intense, I tell you.

Because of the beautiful weather, Ed and I spent most of the day working hard outside. We chipped the edge of the front flower field, we created planting spaces along the path for more wildflowers, I transplanted, he weeded and hauled. When you work this long and this hard, at the end of the day you feel a lot younger than you really are. You're seemingly limber. You're willowy and spry. And you get a lot done!

We did take pauses. Animal feeding of course. Throughout the day.













Breakfast for us as well.






And we took a drive down to the Flower Factory (it's such a pretty drive!)...

 


... for a curbside pickup of two more day lilies (don't ask) and two big lavender bushes. And of course, there was another pickup -- of our CSA veggie box. Good stuff: asparagus (we're swimming in it and it is heavenly!), spinach, arugula, baby bok choy, radishes, sautee greens, baby turnips, green garlic and something called Egyptian walking onions which honestly look like regular ol' green onions. And no, they don't walk.


With all those greens, it's time to do a stir fry. Witch chicken this time and a head of cauliflower, all cut up,


Finally, here's a special photo from today's garden: the first blooming day lily!


 


It is for me, for Ed too, the undisputed reminder that life can be insanely complicated, but so very beautiful, all at the same time.