Tuesday - 326th

I swore to myself that I would not even mention Groundhog Day. I mean, it's one conspiracy theory, isn't it? "I heard somewhere that if a groundhog sees its shadow..." Poor Punxsutawney Phil. His state of Pennsylvania has seen enough spread of disinformation. Now he has to be ripped from his lair to spread another rumor based on nothing, this time about spring. Bleh.

Still, you can't help but think -- this sunshine is something else! We don't start the day with it...

...but it's there soon enough and it is splendid. In all, it's a day to take note of, if only because it is so much finer than what's coming. You don't want to know how cold it will be this weekend. You just don't want to know.  (Hint: if we even get up to 0F, which is about -18C, I'll consider that to be a good thing!)

Breakfast. With him.

And after? I am now fully committed to finishing my writing project, so any outdoor time is pushed to the late afternoon. Why the rush to finish? Oh, I want my freedom back! Writing the book has been like rebuilding a house that has been destroyed by a storm. Everything is wrecked, messed up and in need of repair and you keep hammering away at this corner, then that, but it never gets done because the storm was just too big and your hammer too small. It's time to really patch it up, make it habitable, and move on.

But in the late late afternoon, Ed and I finally do go out -- to our favorite corner of our local park, where the trails aren't groomed, but the space is enormous and beautiful and fun to navigate.

(Ed stops, I stop, we lean on our poles and admire the evening light...)

Later, as I cook up a veggie and bean soup for supper, I have a chance to talk to this little girl:

She always likes to take a peek into my refrigerator ,which regrettably, is never very interesting, except maybe to an almost three year old who thinks a half a mango is just the bees knees. Ah, Primrose...

Night time at the farmhouse. Some cats come in, then go out. Dance watches me munch on cheese puffs, knowing darn well that she'll get her share. The cat loves cheese puffs. Ed and I talk about setting up some heating system to protect the cheepers in the coming Arctic blast. Old quilts, possibly a heater too, one that cant tip over and burn down the barn. 

 

It's quiet here at night. February quiet.

Monday - 325th

The East Coast gets hit by a storm while we are bathed in sunshine. Where is the fairness in life! 

 

(Although we did pay our dues. That was one loooong snowfall.)

Not to overuse the world beautiful, but what else can you say about a snow cover that sparkles like cold fire! (I don't think a photo can adequately show off sparkles. Or can it? Maybe a little, with a closeup...)

Breakfast. A little chaotic. Ed is in the middle of solving a work problem. Still, pretty and warm.

We run the Roomba Robot Vacuum and I try to coax our still a tiny-bit-feral-but-not-really Dance to take a ride on it, but her instinct is to regard it with suspicion, from afar. I will not be one of those who can post a cute video of a cat riding a Roomba.

(Want to know who is even more concerned about odd moving things? Tuxie. Sweet, but very concerned.)

Two things of note for the afternoon. First, I have my weekly gossip session with Snowdrop. She'd just come in from playing outside and a plomp on the couch was very much in order. In answer to my question about what she did outside she tells me "I walked into drifts of snow. It was my destiny to go into them." 

It's the first time that I have her full attention since her Friday in-person school day and I grill her a little on who's who and what's what. She still claims recess is the best, but lunch comes in as a close runner-up.

 

 

"I had a choice of milk! I chose chocolate! And guess what, they showed us a Bernstein Bears video while we ate lunch!" This to discourage conversation while masks were off, but still, they're real kindergarten experiences and she is loving them.

(Our Zoom time gives me chance to also catch a few words with her mommy)

 

 

My second notable event? Oh, skiing of course. The sunshine is still radiant, the snow is still sparkling. We take a chance and go out on the real trails of the park (groomed for skiing)  and we are lucky. No close encounters with the others who are out today.

(Hey, is that Bernie Sanders??)

Evening. The sun sets at 5:11 and isn't that just so much better than the 4:25 we had to make do with on Solstice! Sparkling day. Positively sparkling!

Sunday - 324th

Two words -- that is all you need to get an idea of how this day looked here, on the farmette, in south central Wisconsin: it snowed.

When you pile on another half a foot, or maybe it's a whole foot of snow onto an already present layer, you get a remarkably similar landscape:

It's not unlike looking out on the ocean: ten feet deep? One thousand feet deep? It all looks the same from where you are. So you have to take my word for it -- the snow came down and it is deep and heavy.

(Dance, inspecting my shoveling)

And yes, beautiful. Because, as you may recall, Ed and I do love snow.

I'm out early, shoveling the path to the farmhouse and, too, digging out my car. (Ed joins later with the snowblower to blow out the driveway and the path to the barn.) And then we huddle inside, because that's what you do when it snows. And snows. You stay in, eat a solid breakfast...

... and then you bake. Baking aromas and snow outside go well together. [The young family requested brownies for Sunday dessert. Nothing could be easier than brownies. The trick is to find a recipe you love. We'll see if this one, from Alton Brown, based on cocoa rather than chocolate, and with plenty of brown sugar and almost no flour delivers. P.S. -- there is no good way to photograph brownies in a pan. In the same way that a deep layer of snow just looks white, these guys just look uniformly brown.]

(Wait, maybe it's better to cut them up for the photo...)

In the afternoon, we have our breakout moment: we ski. It's still lightly snowing, but we go out anyway, because, well, there's all that snow and there have been years when there hasn't been much at all, and so we are grateful.

Toward evening, I take the brownies and the main dinner items and some fruits and some carrots from our CSA to the home of the young family. Masked bandits on the loose!

At least until it's time to close the door and say good bye...

It's still snowing as I drive home. Go slow, listen to some folk music, stay grateful. 

And I am. We both are.

Saturday - 323rd

You know how the air feels just before a snowstorm: a little prickly, eerily still. Well that's our morning for you! The snow wont start until late afternoon, but it feels like it may want to deceive us and get here earlier. We're not the boss here, we merely watch and wait.

Winter colors are very much driven by the snow on the ground and the sun in the sky. If both are present, you get a range of beautiful tones that change as the day progresses. Shadows are a deep blue, the snow is lustrous, the yellow of the farmhouse and the red of the sheep shed stand out. But on a pre-storm day, the snow blends into the murky background of somber tones.

The animals all stay in their favorite protected shelters. For Dance, this seems to be our farmhouse. Just a visit! (But it's not a short visit.)

A friend who lives in California, described for me what's blooming there now. I think about what is blooming here now. It's all on a sunny window sill, or on the kitchen table, or in my head.

I spend many hours searching for books for the grandkids. It's a tricky project because I'm not there, eyeballing their bookshelves. And sending emails "do you have this, do you have that" kind of takes away any element of surprise. You want to give them a pick-me-up on a dark winter's day, not a promise of something someday in the future. Still, I search.

It's a day of quiet. We push ourselves out to ski, but it's an effort. (No regrets, once we're out!)

On the weekend, we search out parking lots with fewest cars and pick up the trails there. Today, that put us in the 9-Springs wetlands. Not necessarily our favorite place, but we do avoid people!

(Sometimes it's hard to believe that a successful day is measured by how good we were at avoiding all people!)

The skies turn even grayer and the snow begins to fall. And it will continue to fall tonight, and tomorrow. Ah, January in Wisconsin! Embrace winter. Learn to love a cold nose and a warm supper!

And popcorn, with Netflix.

Friday - 322nd

I am sure you have guessed that Ed and I are 100% behind the right to not infect others and to ourselves be not infected.  We are masked bandits! Whenever a person appears to be coming within spittin distance of where we walk or ski, we make sure our masks are on tight. Were we to go inside again (say for a second shot at the pharmacy), we'd probably up the ante and wear either several masks or a really good mask, like one of the Korean ones you can still get on the internet (saving American made for health care workers) with at least some assurance that it isn't a porous nothing. 

Right now, our masks are mostly the home-sewn type. Oh, we have two or three superbly made ones, but mostly, the stack dates back to the days when I could only find cloth masks on Etsy. So they vary in just about everything but especially in design and materials used. Ed has taken to wearing one that has pictures of sushi all over it. I think it's not an especially good one, but  it is wide and honestly, this is just for outdoor distanced passing so I let it go. For now.

Careful as we are for ourselves and protective as we feel toward the community, we do think that mask wearing should not be extended to animals. 

Try telling Dance that.

Maybe it's the sushi pictures, maybe it's that she likes my laundry detergent (I wash these guys daily), but this cat just loves Ed's mask. Considers it now hers.

Dance is spending quite a bit of time indoors with us, though she is and will remain an outdoor cat. No litter box, no overnighting here. Just visits. It is a happy for me compromise. Dance's personality is such that she demands just a little affection. Not a lot, not on your lap, not with claws. Just spread out on the couch next to me, smiling broadly if I give her a gentle cheek rub. Nothing more. (Well, except when I get up to fix something for myself in the kitchen. She always follows. No dummy, she has long figured out that this is from where all good smells originate.)

The day is cold and we don't have the sunshine to throw us some toasty brilliance and so much of the day is spent indoors.

I am exceptionally anxious to hear about Snowdrop's first day in school (which starts today). Her week will have only two full days of inclass instruction, but when you've had none of it for ten months, two days with other kids feels mighty fine. I hope, of course, that they all stay safe. The class list seems awfully big to me and social distancing wont be easy. Twelve boys, six girls. I wish I had a camera into the room! 

I'm told Sparrow sobbed the whole car ride to her school and back. At home, he curled up on the floor and muttered "I miss Snowdrop" for the better part of the day. I'm sure he remembers nothing of his own school. He is two and a half. Give a few more months and you can say that he will have spent half his life in isolation. The crucial half. Because the opening of school has been such an iffy proposition (and remains iffy going forward), the sitter is still in place and so sending the little guy to preschool makes no sense unless you're the type who enjoys throwing money at every source that appears before you.

In the afternoon, Ed and I go skiing. The snow cover is significant by now and I read that this weekend it's going to get even more significant. We love it all. White stuff, piled high -- fantastic! 

Out on the lake again...

Back on land...

I get an update from my daughter about Snowdrop's first day back in school. Teacher was serious (was it the mask?), kids were all well behaved, you're not allowed to talk when masks are off for lunch and the playground is awesome! Best part? Recess!

Spoken like a normal child. Phew! She survived the lockdown. And Sparrow? Overjoyed tonight at having his sister back home again.

Thursday - 321st

Have you thought much about spring yet? No? Me neither. No movement on the garden plans, no thoughts on ever doing anything normal. There are, in my mind, too many question marks still (I'm sure you know them all) to think much about anything except today and the next day. Maybe at a stretch -- the day after that.

Ed, on the other hand, is, for once, more forward looking. Spring ideas are hatching, as if this were 2019 instead of 2021, which so far looks pretty much like 2020, except for what's going on in D.C. But otherwise, we isolate, we wear masks and frown at those who do not, we walk or ski, we wash groceries. Or at least I do. Because "small chance" may not be so small in the weeks ahead so we may as well continue to be vigilant. So I listen to Ed and his ideas for what's next and I marvel how two people can be so close and yet so different. Because we are different, but I guess you already know that.

Morning walk -- as predicted, even colder!

 

 

Morning breakfast -- groceries came yesterday with three delicate stalks of delphinium. Exquisite. Perhaps a little out of place in January, but these days, you have to break out of old ideas to keep yourself sane.

I do try to return to my writing, but I am at a point where I am fed up with my inability to ever finish the damn thing. Everything always needs an improvement. And the longer I dally and fuss with it, the more I evolve (or maybe regress, who knows) in my writing and thus the more I become dissatisfied with what's there. I'm sure this is true for most anyone who takes fifty years to complete a writing project, but still, if I had a mirror before me, I'd look at myself right now and say -- you need to be done with this already, or else.

No mirror, therefore no admonition. 

In the afternoon, Ed and I go skiing. I almost do not want to (inside, looking out feels cold!) but in the end, we go and as always, it's beautiful.

The evening gem: FaceTiming with Primrose!

The evening un-gem: two Netflix movies -- one bad enough to ditch early on, the other just good enough to keep on watching, but with deep regrets throughout.

And tomorrow -- what's in store for tomorrow? Well, for one thing, Snowdrop is returning to school. First time since last March. She is... excited!

Wednesday - 320th

It's colder than cold and tonight it will be even colder than this cold. Not quite a polar vortex, but it definitely feels like we're in for a period of typical Wisconsin winter days. But is that a bad thing? For people who like deep winter over dreary drippy November, or the excessive heat in late August, a little bit of cold feels mighty fine, especially when accompanied by sunshine. And we do wake up to brilliant sunshine.

 

Our days have a rhythm to them and it is both gentle and sweet. We wait, of course, to rejoin the world some day, but right now there's not much of a world to rejoin, so waiting feels almost communal. Who right now isn't waiting for a better world out there? (Actually, I'm not sure Ed is waiting. Zoom was invented with him in mind.)

In the summer, I love the feel of the sun on my face, but I also love the winter cold on my cheeks. The bite of the wind? So long as the rest of me is warm, I think it's so exhilarating to be slapped around by a winter wind. It's like a spa treatment, no? You emerge feeling strong and powerful! And very pink in the face.

I heard from my kids, but not my grandkids today. But Ed got a call. From Snowdrop. She wanted to discuss climate change with him. I think they are on the same page about it.

Dance visits. She is learning to write.

 

 

Ed and I go skiing and it is nothing short of fabulous. The snow, the sun, the shadows it casts in the forest -- that's real beauty for you.

We ski out onto Lake Waubesa. I will never feel 100% safe out on a frozen lake, but honestly -- if not today, then when? It's so cold outside! Of course it's frozen!

A shadow selfie, on the lake.

The full moon comes up tomorrow, but I swear, the face of today's moon is good enough!

We end with a frittata. A supper that I so much associate with winter. Except when it's summer. 

 

 

I hope the moon's bright face shines down on you tonight, tomorrow, and many days thereafter.

With love.