Sunday, Valentine's Day

Let's talk about this day and how it fits into the cosmos of our lives.

Want to tune out? Are you one of those (I know a handful!), who has a pshaw attitude toward this holiday? We all get caught up in a scripted life of events and celebrations that, by their very predictability, their load of expectations, make us feel bored, indifferent or even tired and depleted. So perhaps you reject the idea of Valentine's Day because you've allowed yourself to believe that it must follow a pattern, with roses and cards and chocolates and love notes and perfume -- yawn. Not for me, you say.

But can't you write your own script? Can't you step out of the preordained, the conventional, and give yourself the task of designing a day that has meaning on your own terms?

It's hard!

But let's give it a go, shall we?

Let's start from scratch. What's at the essence of Valentine's Day? Well, love of course. Pure, beautiful, uplifting love. Some of you may want to tap my shoulder and say -- romantic love. I wont argue with you, but I do think you are unnecessarily constraining yourself. There are so many components of the love I feel for Ed, why would I limit myself to a day favoring one over the rest? In the same vein, my love for my kids, grandkids, for my good friends is so deep and essential to my everyday -- why should this not be recognized? All those loves give my life direction and meaning. Why would I want to ignore them on a day celebrating love?

Okay, so now you know: I place few limits on what love I want to hold sacred today. But now I sense a different push back: why "hold sacred today?" Celebrating love once a year seems like the worst idea! If love is my driving force (and it is... without it, I would not want to get out of bed in the morning), then why celebrate it at all? Why not just live it? Every day?

Well, because the everyday bit is a tricky thing. We have to wash dishes and clean chicken coops and do laundry and shovel icy walkways and... okay, you get the picture. Your mind churns and moves from one thing to the next and then pfft! Day is done. 

But, on Valentine's Day! Ah, on Valentine's Day! It's different. You and I can pause and dwell on the fundamentals again. We can use symbols -- flowers, sweets, cards, or in some years we can play with the less conventional (because if we do the same thing every single year, and it is scripted, it will get boring! Really it will!). But here's the essential part, I think: if this day is to have any meaning at all, it must lead us to be especially thoughtful and kind to those we love. And playful! 

Being human, I do look for little gifts that validate my belief that I am not in this love bubble alone. They're not hard to find (as I'm sure they're not hard for you to find either). Here's one: Ed came upstairs late after midnight and woke me with the words happy valentine's day and love you. I had to smile, because really, he had to step out of his everyday armor to do this most thoughtful and kind act. (True, he would not have remembered the significance of February 14th, but I'm good at sprinkling hints in the weeks before.)

I let him sleep late. It is such a cold day -- coldest of all, I think -- that I hurried with my morning walk to the barn...

... and hurried back to fuss a little more with breakfast. No oatmeal today!

Because a great chunk of me does ride with the conventional, I have an unreasonably large amount of pink clothing on me today. Well, what can I say -- I like pink! Here we are, mismatched colorwise, but on board with this day. (He would not get up for the photo, so I brought the camera down to his level.)

And then I do something special for the farmette -- I finally take out my plant catalogues and plan the garden. (Normally, we put an end to catalogue delivery by meticulously calling each company and asking them to please stop sending us paper stuff, but with the pandemic, we'd grown lax.) My favorite local perennial retailer has closed its doors and so I have to extend my orbit to more distant places to find favorites. Yes, as you know if you at all look at my summer photos, I do have favorites!

Anything else? Well, Ed did acquire a card for me because he knows I like that. I did not acquire a card for him because I know he is indifferent to it. But I did order a box of chocolates. From Chicago (Vosges), for us to share. Today we ate a truffle with violet petals. Ah, love is in the air! He fixed little things that I had wanted fixed. I fussed more with dinner than I might usually fuss. And I popped open a bottle of prosecco and made him take a sip because this creates an opportunity for him to remind me how much he dislikes wine. An unconventional form of kindness, I think: give him a chance to dislike something I offer! (Gifts do not have to be purchased!)

As for the kids and grandkids -- oh, they heard from me alright! The local ones got some hand delivered foods and treats...

(included: a flourless chocolate cake, recipe: Lebovitz)

The more distant ones got something in the the mail.

 

(home again)

 

 

 

But more importantly, I thought about these guys in the best ways, all day long. Friends too: I thought about the sustaining conversations I have with them, about the trips we've taken together, about how beautiful and incredibly perfect their sweetness is and has been for a long long time. 

So, a wonderful day, a most special day! So much of it focused on the most important emotion within us. Love.

Saturday - 337th

We wake up to more snow. As I shovel our path out the door, I note that the piles are monstrously big -- the kind that you associate with Buffalo in New York, or Sapporo in Japan. The farmette lands have never looked more winter fresh, winter lovely. 

I walk to the barn, no longer surprised by the temperature readings. Bitter cold. Ho hum.

I fix breakfast, Dance comes inside and develops a fascination with the strands of reed in the tulip vase.

Yep, we're all hungry for green stuff!

I have three errands today: a curbside pickup of carrots from our favorite carrot/spinach farmer (who hands out bags of stuff at the winter pandemic-style farmers market).

Next, a curbside pickup of some bakery treats for tomorrow. Because, you know, tomorrow can be extra special, if you're feeling extra warm and fuzzy and expressive.

Finally, a delivery of said bakery items to the young family, so they can have a warm and fuzzy and expressive weekend as well.

And then I drive by a car lot, to look with longing at new cars. Me, who pretty much hates cars, who hasn't had a new car in many decades, who doesn't believe in wasting life's savings on a car -- here I am, looking at a parking lot full of them. Call it the pandemic crazy. 

Meh, they all look dirty, covered with snow, salt and sand, just like mine!

The roads are slippery. One car slides off the highway and rolls down the hill. 

Another veers inadvertently into the median. How did we move from a light snowfall to a blustery blowing snow event? 

 

 

 

Still, by late afternoon, the clouds move on to dump a winter mess elsewhere. Sunshine! Ed and I go skiing. 

There is a bitter wind that takes away any potential comfort from the sun. Eyes glazed, cheeks stiff, blowing snow covering the track. We do just one loop along the trails and call it quits. Brrrr!

The best thing about going out in the bitter cold? Coming into a warm house after, where a pot of soup is waiting to be heated for supper. Since I'd stopped at the bakery, I had a fresh cheese baguette to add to it. 

Heavenly.

Friday - 336th

A hazy February day. A dozy day for Ed (I am counting the number of times Ed dozed off on the couch today and I've had to switch to the other hand to continue my tally). A cold day once again.

 

 

 

We have four more days of Arctic air before us (and four more nights, where the readings fall below what are already ridiculously low temperatures). Everything outside is solidly frozen that it's hard to imagine a melting of the snow cover anytime soon.

Pancake, the new feral cat who hides out under the writer's shed, is showing up every day now for her feeding and since the band of brothers and sisters is choosing to avoid being out in the cold, it's easy for me to slip her a heaping bowl of food while they're not watching. Other than her stealthy black and white presence, everything outside is very still. I have to think any animal would be cowering and covering from the relentless blast of frigid air. Search for food, then hide.

(Our own morning food...)

 

 

 

In the late afternoon, I nudge Ed a little and ask if he wants to go out for a quick ski run with me.

Too sleepy -- is the rather predictable reply. I put on my ski shoes and leave, determined to not give in to the cold and the clouds and the cold and the cold. 

The car will not start. Dead battery.

We can't hook up the cables to Ed's car because Ed hasn't used his car since, oh sometime in 2020. The doors are frozen shut and I doubt the battery is in any better shape than mine. He brings out the extension cord and we hook up a charger to the very dead battery and leave it do its work. 

As he and I walk back to the farmhouse, Ed asks -- should we get you a new battery?

No, I tell him. I'm really truly getting another car.

Big sigh on his part.

Big uncertainty on my part.

Big super deep freeze tonight and tomorrow night and the night after.

Small step count on my Fitbit today. Ah well...

For a cold night you need warm food. I cook up a cauliflower chicken chowder. Like a clam chowder, only with chicken. Puree some of the cauliflower and potatoes and broth and you have a thickened, rib sticking soup.

 

Later, much later we watch a Netflix movie. A war story about a heroic escape of a resistance fighter in Norway during the Second World War. If you're feeling bummed out about our polar vortex, I recommend you give it a try: The Twelfth Man. You will never complain about the polar vortex again.

Thursday - 335th

I like how the weather people report to you that it is currently -0F outside (equivalent to -18C). The negative sign is like an adjective accenting the utter cold out there. And don't forget the windchill! Brrrr!

And yet, one of the cheepers laid an egg. If ever the was a sign of spring around the bend, an egg in the roost surely is that.

We eat breakfast in the kitchen, but it's a jazzed up kitchen table. I decided to bring in just for this one day the orchids that are blooming their heads off in the sun room. These two potted plants have been with us for well over a decade and each February, they produce a nice bounty of flowers, but this year they have positively exploded! So we eat with orchids.

 

This winter has had a lot of waiting to it. For the isolation to subside, for the vaccinations to arrive, for the political turmoil to settle, and now for the bitter cold to do an about face and return to the Arctic where, I hope, it will feel welcomed and loved. So today, as every day, we wait.

I do have a change of pace -- a Zoom call with my Polish friends. Unfortunately, there is more illness to report, more difficult days to describe.

 

On the upside, we have this Zoom time, a Fat Thursday no less, to remind ourselves of all that's good about our lives. (All Poles eat the special Polish donuts today, the Thursday before Lent. Really, they ALL go out of their way to search out the best, their favorite donut. Well, okay, some may choose faworki instead.)

And yes, toward evening Ed and I hit the trails with our skis. We must! It's going to get even worse this weekend. May as well feel merely cold as opposed to impossibly bitterly horribly cold! (Although Ed tells me it's pretty cold right now. Definitely one of our colder runs.)

Evening quiet. Restful winter. Warm foods. Waiting, for spring.

With love.

Wednesday - 334th

Eyes on the thermometer, on the cats, on the microwave. 

When you live in isolation, your day is made up of little acts, facts and foibles. You notice that the polar vortex is still the unwelcome visitor that has way overstayed any possible welcome. And you try to coax and cajole six feral cats away from the writer's shed so that the seventh feral cat can get something to eat. Because it is super cold and you can't stand the idea of the seventh, an outsider, going hungry out there in the wild. 

And you provide encouraging words to Ed who has finally brought in a new, brand new $50 microwave to replace the broken one that has been dangling over our stove for months now. The busted machine comes down, the new one goes up. 

After breakfast of course.

(Ed's morning hair...)

Eyes on the live coverage TV,  on the play room which still needs a lot of straightening and winnowing, on the sky where the clouds move away and reveal lovely sunshine. Still polar vortex cold and a touch windy, so that if you go out, your face stiffens to something resembling cardboard. But we can't resist. We ski, alone, I guess because no one else finds cardboard faces to be attractive.

Eyes on dinner preparation and unfortunately not on Dance who is underfoot and suffers the indignity of being stepped on by me.  I hope she does not hold grudges. 

 

 

 

Dance now routinely spends time in the farmhouse in the evening, though I have to wipe her down before she comes in because she has taken to rolling around the dirt in the barn right after her dinner. My hands look nearly black afterwards. Did someone say cats are exceptionally clean?

 

So no, I did not write much today. Distractions were ever present. Good ones mostly. Seventh cat well fed, microwave installed, and a double loop skied. A day of accomplishment, wouldn't you say?

Tuesday - 333rd

Just in case you live in a northern state and you think that the trauma of the pandemic, of a polar vortex week, of having kids underfoot, of the sameness of each solitary day are all just too much, do take note of this: today, the first bunches of daffodils appeared in our grocery store's flower buckets. And as it was a grocery ordering day, I had an early morning delivery... 

 (sunrise over farmette lands)

 

 

... that included this beautiful face of spring:

(an incongruous pairing: daffodils next to a candle with a lovely scent of a Christmas tree; we are in a period of transition!)

I know that daffodils come late to our gardens here. We have to wait until April for that. But grocery store daffodils (possibly the cheapest flower ever sold) are a fine start of what's to come. Think of it -- below that frozen ground, things are stirring restlessly, waiting for that moment when shoots can break ground and announce the coming of spring!

 

 

 

Just not today.

Breakfast, after I shave Ed's beard. How about a pre-Valentine photo of the two of us?

Okay, so there are daffodils. That's great. But one cannot escape the elephant in the room -- the bitter cold. I see that when the groceries are being dropped off on the chair at the end of the driveway, it's -9F (-23C). And worse -- by Sunday night it will be twice that number below zero. What to do, what to do...

Here's my strategy (after I'm done appreciating the daffodils):

First, I think of the people who live in regions where this reading isn't all that unusual. Imagine those who inhabit northern Finland. Or northern Canada. Their skin must positively crackle from the cold! So I'm grateful. And I turn the thermostat up a little. After all, Ed is sitting with a quilt over him in the middle of the day. That's how cold it is. (It is true that under that quilt, he is wearing shorts.)

Secondly, we go skiing. Because outdoor sports do get you out of your polar-vortex-that's-lasting-way-too-long funk. Really they do. (I see that many do not share this view. Once again, the trail is completely empty.)

Third -- there's the candle. As I mentioned, I have one more Christmas tree (very lightly) scented soy candle and picking up that whiff of a Christmas tree reminds me that we could still be in mid December, waiting for that holiday, instead of in the middle of February, waiting for daylight savings time (March 14th!) to get here.

Finally, I cook up a big pot of chili. I picked out two bags of tomatoes from the big freezer and I set the big yellow pot on our stove for a night (or two or three, depending on our appetites) of gut warming chili. (Yes, it's true: I add chicken sausage to ours. People do all sorts of crazy things to their chili.)

(Primrose, joining me for a FaceTime chat, watching me cook)

Tell a child there's a polar vortex stuck over your town and they'll shrug their shoulders and keep on playing. And so should we. Yep, and so should we.

Monday - 332nd

My thought today? Be careful what you wish for!

For any number of reasons, Ed is making a concerted effort to pick up some household tasks. For example -- this morning I hear him telling me: don't you get up, gorgeous. I'll go feed the animals. And he did! I was in bed until 9!

And after breakfast...

... I see him taking apart the dish rack. I had been wiping it down and now here he is, screwdriver in hand, tearing the thing up, wiping it with vinegar, scraping it with sharp objects. 

Now, you have to understand, cleaning the dish rack is a big deal. We have such hard water that you may as well be pouring calcium pebbles out of our faucet. And no, we're never going to soften the water. We're not wanting to dump salt into farmette lands. So we live with the minerals and everything sooner or later gets a hard coating of white stuff, with an orange hue. And when the urge to get it cleaned strikes you, then you gotta go big. A wipe down will accomplish nothing. So Ed goes big and now dish rack pieces are all over the kitchen counter and I of course feel compelled to help him. We spend a big part of the morning cleaning the damn dish rack. And you know what? You can't even see the effect. It's covered up by dishes that rest in the rack during the day.

And because Ed had been putting in some effort, I force myself to get moving on the huge job of tidying up the kids' playroom. There are a lot of lego pieces and partially decapitated structures floating around that need some organizational magic to get them looking like something other than a mess. And the gate keeping Sparrow out has to come down. The kids were freely walking through it daily. Away it goes. There's still much to organize and give away, but at least I started in on that project.

I should be pleased. We both worked hard to get things in order at the farmhouse. So that's good, right? 

To a point. Too much cleaning and clearing leaves you depleted. As in -- I wasted a day on tidying? How mindlessly boring is that!

On the upside, I had my weekly Zoom call with this girl:

We discussed, among other things, monsters that are, at night, out to get you.

And toward evening, Ed feels strong enough to go skiing with me. We do the big loop in our park and the trail is completely empty. No Super Bowl to thank for that. It was the cold that kept people away. Did I tell you -- we are still in the deep freeze. When the wind kicks in, we are going to really feel like the Arctic is some nice tropical retreat by comparison.

A winter sunset.

Home. With cats, leftovers, Netflix, pop corn, and a clean dish rack.

Sunday - 331st

Super Bowl Sunday is a day of opportunity. You can seize the quiet outside and make it yours. As the entire nation huddles in front of the TV, highways empty out, ski trails have fewer winter nuts plowing through them.  [I'm speaking from the perspective of a person who absolutely does not like football. Sorry, I haven't a cell in my body that would muster up enthusiasm for the game. I have tried. It can't be done.]

But then comes the polar vortex. We wake up to -11F (-24C). The high will be somewhere around 0F (-18C). Would you be happy seizing the moment outside when the numbers are in these ranges? You would not.

There is some sunshine, and that does help...

But mostly, it's just plain cold. I float the idea of skiing early on, but Ed had damaged his knee yesterday when he slipped on the ice and so he is taking it easy for a few days. Convenient excuse!

Breakfast. Warm and cozy.

In the afternoon, I once again raise the idea of doing something, anything outside, and Ed still resists (due to his knee), so I go at it alone: a quick loop on our favorite hilly trail.

It's not great fun. Sure, the park is empty, but the wind has created drifts and there isn't a track to follow and the going is slow and the air feels mean. 

On the upside, it is Sunday -- the day I bake and cook for the young family. I had asked for baking suggestions and was told any cake would do. Fine. I'll bake Heatter's FBI cake -- an old family favorite. Chocolate with whipped cream. And strawberries is you have nice ones. It looks like this:

And very chocolaty on the inside, with a layer of whipped cream and strawberries cutting through it. Ed and I get to keep a wedge, but mostly it's for these guys:

Along with the usual dinner favorites.

On the downside, I got a call from my credit card company asking if I really did order the delivery (presumably for a Super Bowl party) of all those pizzas in D.C. Of course it wasn't me. As I've said, I do not like football! Fraud alert! So, good bye credit card number. You did not last that long. It's a mean world out there.

On the upside, I saw a mouse in the mud room (where we keep incoming groceries) and we asked Dance to please catch it and she did!

Oh, and there was an odd fragment of a rainbow in the sky tonight. Odd, but lovely. 

So here we now are, Sunday evening, staying in, Netflix running, as if Super Bowl Sunday wasn't even happening, as if it were just a fine old weekend night, where the big event is the arrival of the deer (I confess that this photos is from yesterday, but it looks the same, every evening, they are here, digging in my flower beds, hoping for lotus seed pots or dried remains of my plants.)

Saturday - 330th

As the speed of the vaccination roll out accelerates, so does talk of what we would do immediately after being fortified with the protection of a vaccine. Not so much me -- it will be a long time before I do anything beyond spending time with my grandkids, but I hear it in others. Wisps of hope for a return to at least a few of life's special moments. Friends talk about returning to a favorite grocery store, about getting professional haircuts. Maybe starting in on some deferred house remodeling projects. Maybe going on a long hike. Maybe even traveling to go on a long hike, with hair cut professionally, and with a bag of goodies from a favorite grocer, all at the same time.

And Ed talks about sailing. It's the age old discussion: why cant I join him for a bit of it. "Because I don't want to" could be worked over and challenged in the past, but this year, it's so firmly in place that it's pointless to dangle any enticement before me. Believe me, the very last thing that I will do once I am safe to move around more is go out on a boat with Ed and some assortment of his sailing buddies. Particularly when my daughter will be close to delivering her child, and the growing season will be in full swing, and I'm still likely to be liking the security of my isolation bubble, which has such thick walls that I cannot imagine how I will ever climb out of its protective shell. So no, I'm not going sailing with you, Ed, and especially not this year and in the manner you are proposing.

Still, it comes up. So much so that in an effort to shut out the sailing talk, I take my breakfast away from the table...

 

... to the couch. Which is something I never do. Ever. But today, I ate my oatmeal with my eyes glued to the computer screen.

All this after feeding the animals. Or at least the cats. The cheepers, locked in their coop, are not eating much. I've seen this PTSD in them before when one of the flock is mauled by some intruder. Or, maybe it's that they are numbed by the cold. It was blustery and in the negatives today (think -20C and below) and I watched them stand together as if in a marching band, looking dazed and shell shocked. Ed keeps resisting plugging in a heater in the barn. Me, I want to give these guys a better, insulated hen house, with maybe a lamp that will give off some heat, but that idea is up there with getting a new car. Meaning it's not going to happen. We make do.

Did I mention that it is wintry pretty outside? Well it is. Really really cold, but pretty.

Snow brings serenity to the landscape.

I suppose we could push ourselves to go out skiing. I mean, people ski in Canada and I'm sure it's colder there than it is in Wisconsin, even now with the polar vortex forcing Arctic temperatures our way. But somehow the euphoria of being out on a trail is a little tamed in this week of bitter cold. We do go out for a walk, but just along the new blocks in the new development, to spy on the new houses going up quickly, even though I'm so bundled in scarves and jacket hoods that I can hardly see anything beyond the ice underneath my feet. Yes it's very slippery out in the real world of streets and sidewalks.

 

In the evening, I pan-fry a piece of salmon, which reminds me of Scotland, which reminds me of the islands and the highlands there, which reminds me of travel. So, maybe I do have a window creaking a little, wanting to be opened to a future of visiting something other than the barn at the end of a farmette path. But not in the near future. Maybe medium distant future. If all goes well and we don't all ruin our chances of getting out of this crisis quickly and with our skins intact.

Friday - 329th

More possum issues this morning. Now there are two inside the coop, feasting on poor Java. We deal with them as best as we can, grateful that at least we have a place to take them to, understanding that they are probably just going to come right back. We read that possums can travel up to 25 miles to return home. Going forward, we'll keep the cheepers locked up for a while. Maybe this wild group will have moved on in the coming weeks. Another little factoid: a possum does not linger in one place for long (though I don't know why it would move away from a farmette feast of meat, eggs, feed and all.

So that's the dismal stuff. The "we are pretend farmers" stuff. But there is more to the day. For one thing, there is the cold snap. An Arctic blast supreme. Doors to cars frozen shut. It is cold! And it will be even colder, for many days.

I have to admit it  -- I don't especially mind. Sure, at 7 in the morning, I find myself shoveling the driveway -- we're expecting a small delivery and I dont want anyone's car stuck in the drifts of snow -- and I'm thinking 'my but it's cold." But it's also lovely outside!

The cheepers are still locked in the garage, where they are feasting on styrofoam boards. Yes, we have given them food. They ignore it and go for the styrofoam. So much for organic anything this month. Ah well, they're not laying eggs. Too cold, too stressed, too winter-weary.

Our brief car trip takes us through very beautiful countryside. We've gotten spoiled with all the snow this year, but honestly, this never fails to make me smile. 

How can you not love the combination of snow and a February blue sky!

(blowing and drifting)

(along a rural road)

Oh, did I forget breakfast? Maybe it's because it wasn't as peaceful as I would have wanted. Dance came inside again and would not leave me to my meal. Ed claimed she just wanted to be petted. I think she was a little more hungry for the parmesan cheese shreds she'd enjoyed the previous night. NO, Dance, I do not have parmesan cheese shreds for breakfast! Move on!

 

And so long as we are on the subject of meals, I'll jump straight to dinner, enjoyed in the company of Primrose, who is very adept at using chopsticks. A significant skill, as today in her school the kids learned about the Chinese New Year. It isn't yet the lunar New Year Day yet -- that comes on February 12th, but still, one can never have too many celebration. (Primrose's teachers are very adept at creating celebratory hairstyles.)

And then -- quiet. Ed and I are so good at taking in the quiet of a farmette night! Well, except when a cat is invited inside. Or two cats. And they start chasing each other. And Netflix comes on and the pop corn pops.