Sunday - 142nd

It's a quiet day. I keep telling Ed that it's going to rain and storm, but the day is passing without a sign of either. Whatever storms we'll have will be of our own making. And we surely are a stormy lot, us humans, no?

Ed and I were hugely productive today. He's cutting down some dead branches, I'm snipping lilies. We're both pulling weeds. He's mowing. I'm finding more weeds.

The flower fields are moving to that phase where you can't just expect to have beauty thrust upon you everywhere you look. It's not overwhelming. Rather, it's carefully presented. Oh, there still is that sense of abundance, but each day, something from the tableau is removed and the replacements are fewer and less dense.



















Of course, abundance is not necessarily the goal of every stage of gardening. There's something pleasant, for example, about walking down the path I'd put into the Big Bed this past spring. In July, it was overgrown with lily leaves. Now I can cut through the Bed with ease once more.

A few more flower photos for you:
























Breakfast. On the very late side.






We had another project for this day: find some of the cheeper eggs! Only Henny lays in the coop. Pepper lays on a hay bale. The rest? Who knows.

To help us in the search, Ed purchased these cheap trackers. The goal is to tie one around a hen's neck and to use a smart phone to locate her when she disappears sometime in the course of the day. I didn't quite believe it would work. I mean, how do you tie a chip around a chicken?

Ed does not give up. We corner Tomato. He ties the chip. We find the eggs! Seven of them, neatly laid out in a very thick clump of monarda flowers.

(Here's Java with her chip, tied with a string, hidden in the feathers of her neck. Unfortunately, the battery died. Ed is hopeful that with new batteries, we'll track the remaining offenders.)






Evening. We should have leftovers from last night's birthday meal, but I'm feeling the pressure to dig into the CSA box of veggies. We are swimming in corn and broccoli! So, leftovers are leftover for tomorrow and today I make a frittata.

Wishing quiet days would always be this way -- by choice, not by necessity. And of course, I'm thinking very good thoughts about the scientists who will bring us back into the world of inconsequential, impulsive, spirited movement, where doing something as simple as getting together with friends in a coffee shop harms no one at all.

For now, we are happy to do our part by staying put. Tending our garden, tying chips around cheeper necks, cutting through our meadow path in the old orchard, admiring the peaches that are ripening on our peach tree.
















Farmette summer days and nights are memorable even in their quietness. Oh, the sweet pleasure of living in the thick of nature! Even if you do exactly the same thing as the day before, take the same steps, walk the same paths, you wont be stuck in the same sensual orbit. Something will surprise you. Every single time you step outside, something will knock your socks off!

Saturday - 141st

Probably close to half of you have had a birthday since the pandemic became a threatening reality in the United States.  And it's likely that it felt a little weird, a lot different and perhaps more subdued than in years past. For me, the toughest family birthdays are those of isolated children.  Well, their parents too. And grandparents. Oh, hell-kite, it's tough for everyone!

Still, a lot of us have had good, if more quiet celebrations with at least some family members present and that's been wonderful. To this group I'd add my older daughter who turns almost but not quite 40 today. She is lucky: she has her kids, her husband, and she has us. And as we form a pod of isolation, we can gather.

And so the day is really mostly about getting ready for a family dinner at the farmhouse. Oh sure, there is the morning of garden work.













And Ed and I sit down to a relaxed breakfast on the porch...






But after that, I stay in the kitchen. To bake her favorite cake (orange and almond, nicknamed by me the Six Hour cake because that's how long it takes to make it)...






To prepare her best comfort food meal of crunchy chicken (and corn from the farm).

To tidy up and get ready for the arrival of the sweet Madison clan...






It's grand to do this for her. Like all working parents, my girl has had more than her share of stresses these last months. Still, even on this uniquely special day, you never forget about your other child and her family. You so want to set the table not for six, but for nine! That's my magic number now. Nine, there should be nine of us here for dinner tonight!

Oh, but you can't be greedy.

We pop a cork and drink to her health, our collective health and it is, in fact a joyous evening. August 1st. Her day.











My how she has changed since, well, those earlier years! Nearly three years old here...






With her own clan now...






Happy birthday, dearest one... happy happy birthday!

Friday - 140th

The day reminds me of scrambled eggs: shells cracked, thrown quickly together, whipped up to a sizzle, then finally plated and savored, at a calm pace.

It was an early day for both of us. We're running into problems feeding all the animals, given that one set of cats wants what the other gets and the chickens want basically what is in anyone else's dish over and above what's in their own. So now we both have to feed the animals together, moving swiftly between feeding stations.

And since we're both up, wouldn't this be a fine time to go get our corn from the corn farmers? Yes it would!

We take the motorbike up the road and it is such a pretty and refreshing ride! The wind is just cool enough to make me think of putting on a summer sweater and the sun is still gentle and soothing. As we make the turn into the driveway of the neatly tended farmstead, Ed comments on how good it is to be living so close to so much of what we love. I have to smile at that. It takes a while to form an attachment to a community, a neighborhood, or a set of rural roads, but once you do, that loyalty only grows stronger. My friends in Warsaw have a significant attachment to the neighborhoods of their childhood. In fact, some have moved right back to those set of blocks that were home early on. For Ed and me, a home base hasn't been as solid or stable. I told him today that he has a lot of New York still within him. Mannerisms and habits that stand out as being very un-Wisconsin. He did not disagree. Maybe that's why I'm hanging out with a fellow New Yorker, he laughed. Neither of us especially like that city and I have long given up on calling Warsaw home, but now, here, on the farmette, we're finding something likable about keeping to our "neighborhood" of farmers, vendors, parks, and in better times, coffee shops and eateries. If there is a place that's within a short drive, we'll always pick that over something even just a little farther.

So now we've fed the animals, picked up freshly harvested corn, but the lilies are untouched and I'm distracted by messages from my daughter about some snafus they have encountered in their scheduling decisions and so I am both snipping and texting and cutting up fruits for breakfast and giving Ed a tour of the old orchard where I wish he'd clear some dead tress and out of control brush and bramblers.

Not many garden photos emerge. There were too many eggs sizzling in the pan already. Still, these two are indicative: the colors are strong, the lilies are ending their best month with a strong finish.












Porch breakfast. Scrambled morning ends on a calm note.






The kids come then and once again we begin with some outdoor time. Ed has charged them with a chore: every time they are outside, they must go to the back of the barn and scare away any deer they may find there. Our exploding tomato crop is being destroyed by very un-shy deer who nibble, trample and retreat, several times each day. The kids love the idea of being guards of the tomato patch and although we find no deer the two times we venture out back, the chore is one they're happy to return to again and again!

In addition to deer, we're getting quite the surge in butterflies and humming birds. Snowdrop is enraptured. Even a common cabbage butterfly is nothing short of magical to her.






(the humming bird: it does sometimes take a pause.)











(the kids: outside.)

























(Sparrow is photographed far less frequently outside, because he is always asking to hold my hand. Well, it beats carrying the little load!)

In the afternoon, once the kids are gone, both Ed and I zonk out on the two couches in the farmhouse. We are that tired.

Evening. Animal chores. Snip the flowers I never snipped in the morning.


 


A check on the tomatoes. Oh dear...





Shoooo! (As if that will help!)


Dinner is leftovers. And fresh corn. A stellar combination!

Thursday - 139th

I did it again and I'm not proud! Last night, just after midnight, after a somewhat protracted search, I found a one acre lot for sale. It had promise: open space, but at least in the photos, it had every appearance of being very private (trees and shrubs lining the border). Close to town. I sent Ed the link to it and went to sleep. Not for long...

Several hours later, he comes up. Ed often has a choppy sleep and coming to bed at 3 or 4 is not unusual for him.
I mumble in a half wakeful manner -- did you see the link?
He's looking at it right now. And he points to possible fatal flaws (for example, proximity to a pond). And then he shuts the door tight on the prospect of building our own place: If I have ten years of life left, he tells me, do I want to spend one of them building a house? I do not.

I can't blame him. I'm looking for a distraction for the fall (no baby sitting, too much quiet time). He is not. And we've never met anyone who actually enjoyed building their own home. Frustration, delay, pricing issues, snafus -- it's all part of it. We've watched hundreds of Grand Design shows and in every one, the verdict was the same: building your "dream house," even if you are not the one pounding the hammer, is draining and no fun.

So of course, having woken up to talk about house construction, I have now lost out on a good night's sleep. Ed does feel a bit sorry for me, as I have a really full day today and so he offers to be the animal feeder in the morning. It buys me an extra half hour in bed.

But, I'm up snipping lilies plenty early. I need to finish garden work before the kids come.

(see the froggie in the lily?)






(many buds remain...)






(these grow by the driveway...)






(did I tell you how much I also love phlox?)






In the meantime, Ed has gone back to sleep and I haven't the heart to wake him. It's one of those rare times when I eat breakfast alone.






Well, sort of alone.






It's once again a pretty day, a mostly sunny day and since we had the mosquito pros push back the bugs with another spraying of their "natural" barrier stuff, the bugs are at a minimum.

 



(hey, are you following me?)












When the kids arrive, I'm not surprised that both decide to linger outside for a bit. Snowdrop is my biggest flower fan. Everyone else has grown so used to the robust flower beds that they hardly notice them anymore. It's wallpaper to them. But Snowdrop notices and always has plenty of sweet comments to offer.

Sparrow just wants to check on the cheepers in the barn, even if most of the cheepers are nowhere near the barn. Ah well, it's a nice tiny adventure for him.


(pretending to be chickens)






I nudge them to the young orchard meadow afterwards. Right now, it's one of my favorite spots and watching the flowers emerge is special. The mowed paths make a walk, or perhaps a run here delightful!






(little boy blue...)






(embedded...)





At home with the kids -- it's the usual mix. In her creative play, Snowdrop does go back to her dolls...






And Sparrow looks on, trying to figure out if he can replicate whatever it is that she is doing.







In the afternoon, I drop them off at home. But not for long: we've moved last Sunday's dinner to this night!

Shrimp tacos in green mole on the porch.











How many summer nights will we still have this year that are this beautiful? How many more flowers will fill the yard before the tide begins to turn and the tired plants will begin their annual withering and yellowing in preparation for the deep winter sleep? The end of July is that last moment of unfolding beauty. Of a thousand shades of green. Of early morning light and late sunsets. Of lingering outside late into the evening because you just don't want to close the door on all the sights and smells of a rich and colorful season.