Saturday - 351st

If you looked here yesterday, you'll know I'm in Chicago, with my younger daughter and her family. Having had a long stretch of time without such visits makes this one precious and extra sweet. But too, it means that I write less about it, because I don't want to give minutes to something like writing, which is inherently lonely. This is not a weekend for hiding behind closed doors!

I'll include a sprinkling of images from our day. From when Primrose wakes up...

What would you like to wear today, little one? 

This, grandma.

 

With breakfast treats from Masa Madre...

And of course, our usual time released selfie...

To a long walk with the young family to Lincoln Park...

And more playtime at home (she is recording a birthday song for a friend)...

A game of chickens...

A dance, or two, or three...

With lots of splendid hanging out.

All this until evening, when we eat another family dinner, one that I did not plan, prepare, serve and clean up after. Take out from a pizza place they say has been their lifeline to good food during the pandemic (Bungalow by Middle Brow).

Best way to describe the day: one with lots of time to just be with this young family whom I miss in the best of times and have missed excruciatingly in not the best of times.

A weekend to appreciate and love with my heart and soul.

I do hope the full moon shines brightly over all good people everywhere tonight.

Friday - 350th

The most important thing to remember about this day is that I reenter the world of my Chicago grandchild, Primrose.

Of course, it's the vaccination that makes this possible, though there isn't much guidance as to how best to reunite safely with your kids and grandkids after getting your shots and so the cautious approach is probably a smart idea. Meaning, you don't just jump into everyone's space at once. You assess their vulnerabilities, you count the days, you discuss with your kids who goes first and what amount of time should be wedged between the two visits and then you proceed.

I haven't had an indoor unmasked meetup with Primrose since July. The family is endlessly, tirelessly isolating, but the little girl goes to school and so our only get togethers have been in a park, with masks. Today all this changes.

But first, there are the morning farmette routines, the animals, the walk to the barn -- all in beautiful sunshine.

And of course, I spend time with the new farmhouse residents. You're always a tad anxious when you come down to their boxy home after the first night: did the temp stay at the requisite 95F (35C)? Did they stay warm enough? Did they survive??

It did. Plenty warm. They survived.

Breakfast, near them in the sun room.

We do have a double agenda: getting them used to us of course (the last three chicks we raised were plenty used to us in the farmhouse, but once released to the flock, it became all about their own pecking order and we were pretty much ignored), but also getting the cats used to the chicks.

Our cats are hunters. We're never going to be able to put up cute videos where they cuddle with baby chicks. They hunt mice, chipmunks and every once in a while, they'll go after a bird. Or a bug. It doesn't happen often, but we've certainly seen them bring in small feathered friends. The chicks will surely tempt them. At the very least they'll be chased and tortured by the cats, especially the Unfriendlies, who think themselves to be in charge of patrolling the farmette's boundaries. And so until they are nice and hefty and ready to join the flock, we have to keep them safe.

Dance is the most frequent farmhouse visitor and she is definitely intrigued by the big box. We've let her peek inside, hoping that some form of acceptance will occur, but we're not betting on it. The box is covered from all sides. No cat can get in.

But shortly after noon, I leave all this behind, pack up the rusty but still trusty silver Mazda and head for Chicago.

 

 

It is so strange to be coming up the steps to their unit once again! So strange not to use precautions! So wonderful, too.

(picking Primrose up at school)

 

(Home, the young family's home. Playing with Primrose once again...)

(And yes, it was grand to see my daughter and son-in-law once again. To talk late into the evening, to visit!)

It's like riding a bike: face to face visits -- something that we haven't done for soooooo long! -- are as easy to return to, as if you never had to leave them behind. And yes, you want to forget that you did have to leave them behind. Thanksgiving, Christmas, all that happened only via video calls. And they were great and they brought us closer together, but you never want to do them again. At least not as any new normal. May the new normal -- face to face, hug to hug. -- may that happen soon for all of us. This is my most fervent wish for you, for me.

With love.

Thursday - 349th

The good news is that the sun is just pouring into the windows from all sides. Well, mostly from the south side, but it seems wonderfully bright every which way I look.

(farmette animals at play)

Breakfast, now routinely in the front room. We are, after all, creatures of habit.

During the morning hours I work diligently on my writing. But by noon we get distracted. First of all, there are car issues to mull over, but that's not going to be my topic du jour. Save it for the day when I stop mulling and take decisive steps! More importantly, Ed and I lose ourselves in the last details of the chicken project.

You remember perhaps that this year we lost two cheepers to possums. All in one day. It was awful and heartbreaking, as one of the losses was our docile, sweet old Java. The question arose: should we get replacements?

On the one hand -- no. We have three girls and a happy Happy -- the docile rooster. In the growing season,  they scratch up my garden, especially in the spring when the baby greens are just emerging. I positively hate having free range chickens then. I want to offload the whole batch to the first person I see. And the worry that goes along with predators! Hawks, possum, coyotes -- they're a constant threat and when they attack, it is awful. 

So no. 

On the other hand, Ed is convinced (and I sort of kind of am too) that the cheepers have decimated the tick population here at the farmette. We work outside all the time and we have not brought in ticks. The kids have had no tick issues either. That's nothing short of amazing, considering the prevalence of this menace in Wisconsin. Too, Peach is getting old and we should be forward looking. Introducing young chicks is best in this early spring season. You raise them in your house and then you let them out just as the weather warms up. So now is perfect.

Finally, they are so cute!! (That is, before they get to be bigger than a fist, at which point they're noisy, dusty and hard to control indoors. But I'm not thinking about that.)

On balance, we decided to go for it! Three new ones, purchased on the first day of the arrival of the spring chicks at the store! It's a plan!

Until it unravels. The chicks come in to the Farm and Fleet stores at noon -- a day earlier than expected. By 2pm, when I call to see if more have arrived, I learn that the first batch is already sold out. In this COVID year, Madison families are longing for fun projects. Backyard chickens are the thing! As a result, we lose our bid for the breeds we favored.

The afternoon is a chaos of phone calls to Farm and Fleet stores near and far. In the end, we decide to head out in hot pursuit the minute the store's agriculture clerks leave for the post office to pick up the next batch of chicks. We are there when the boxed chicks are brought in for unloading. 

We don't quite have the choice we expected, but never mind. We pick two Cinnamon Queens and a Light Brahma. Then we change our minds and return one Queen for an Easter Egger. Then we change our minds again and return the Light Brahma for another Cinnamon Queen. The  sales clerks think we are possibly nuts or are grossly deficient in decision making capabilities.

We do this quickly and with double masks of our highest quality and with gloves on. We're not ready to reenter the world of stores or the world of people. This dip into the retail world was tough enough!

Why the heightened caution? Well, it's because of the kids. We want to see them again and we do not want to bring a virus into their safe worlds. More on that at another time. For now, we are home, listening to the gentle peeps of the day old chicks. I tell Ed -- this is the funnest week of chicken raising: the first one!

He agrees.

Wednesday - 348th

Let's not dwell on the unfortunate small details of the day. Why make yourself feel bad for being a distracted driveway backer outer yet again? Why not focus on the pretty sunshine early in the morning...

... and skip over my hurried exit down that driveway, because that exit resulted in me grazing the snowbank yet again and so there I was, stuck in icy snow, wheels spinning, clock ticking.

Ed! I'm so so sorry to wake you but...

Although we are adhering to strict protocols of isolation still, I have resumed the regular medical screenings and checkups that have been postponed for years now, first because, well, for no reason actually, but then postponed for a good reason -- COVID.  Time to get back on track, starting with this morning and this is when I back out into a terribly unpleasant snow pile.

Ed cannot push me out in time for my appointment and so I hop into his car (so happy we dug that one out yesterday!) and drive off, as he continues to rock the rusty baby back and forth, back and forth. By the time I return, the car is in its proper parking spot and all is quiet with the world.

Breakfast. Quietly, sweetly, gratefully.

I had just bragged to my doc, that saintly person who has been putting in double duty in the hospitals all COVID season long, that Ed and I have been walking/skiing every day, every single day and now the morning turns to afternoon and the afternoon turns to late afternoon and we're not walking. We are having March weather: the temps are just a hiccup above freezing (finally!), which is nice, very very nice, but this means that the piles of snow are slowly melting, leaving behind ice and slush. If you're lucky you'll avoid both but then you have to contend with mud. It's not the best time to be out on hiking trails! So we revolt and stay on our couches, except that the guilt is too strong, way too strong.  I go outside. Alone. Ed thinks an occasional do nothing day is just fine. And I'm not too ambitious either: I do a quick loop around the new development. And the late late afternoon sunshine just feels so good on your face...

 (looking toward the farmette from the new development...)

 

 

Lots of good spring days are ahead of us. For sure.

Tuesday - 347th

Well, if you didn't float spring thoughts in your head today, then you were not looking out the window, perhaps a cracked open window, at a golden day in south central Wisconsin. One that makes you smile!

(She looks like she is rubbing her paws to keep warm!)

The animals are all over the place and predictably, some of the chickens know the route between barn and garage well, while others, the older girls, well, just one girl now -- Peach, gets stuck in the snow and I have to rescue her.

 

 

Still, there is movement in the air!

There is, however, little movement in terms of Ed's car. Even though we are above freezing for the second day in a row, the wheels of it are in an iced groove. We spend not a small amount of time rocking the thing back and forth. Finally! It's released from its icy prison.

We are all liberated!

(Breakfast, still in the front room...)

And an afternoon walk down the lake shore road that hugs Lake Waubesa.

 

Oh, the feeling of spring! It's effervescent!

And toward evening, we drive over to pick up my partially fixed car. It's clear that I'm pouring millions in keeping the thing going. The cash guzzler is sucking up all my spare cash. Is it time to call it quits and move on to a newer model? The mechanic hints at this. And still, I push back. Purchasing a car is one of the most uninteresting ways to spend money. What does it matter if you're in a rusted vehicle or one with a newer body and a rust free engine? You're not made happier by it. It's just a seat that carries you from one place to the next. Still, at some point, if you live on the farmette, you're going to need a working car that will have loads of reliable life left in it.

 

Fritata time again. With mushrooms and onions, brussel sprouts and potatoes. And cheese. Always load on lots and lots of grated gruyere and parmesan. Car problems recede, the evenings turns mellow, so beautifully mellow.

Monday - 346th

Every day has interesting elements to it, many of them, in fact, even for those of us who are still isolating. For me, three things stand out on this last Monday of February:

First of all, we jumped over a huge hurdle: we climbed into above freezing territory! (We've been round the clock below freezing for well over a month now.) Of course, there is so much snow that it will take many moon cycles to pass into the bare ground season of early spring. In fact, our snow squall yesterday dumped several more inches and Ed had to take out the snow machine one more time (could it be the last time?) to deal with the pile up in the driveway. Still, when we cross over to above freezing readings, your heart swells with the feeling that spring truly is just around the bend.

Second unusual and quite pleasant event: I signed us up for another year of weekly Community Supported Agriculture produce boxes. Last March I quickly realized that there would be no safe farmers market to go to in our 2020 growing season and so I returned to the CSA concept of getting our veggies once a week from Harmony Valley farmers. They were great and I have zero complaints, but the itch to try another group of farmers is always strong for me and so this year, I found one that is smaller and delivers locally and has a slightly different combo of produce. 

Now, you could say that going with the CSA concept yet again is an admission of pandemic resignation. Meaning I am thinking that the farmers market is not going to be fully up and running by this summer. Our robust downtown one is so crowded that you can't imagine it would be business as usual before everyone had access to a vaccine. But in signing up for the CSA, I was actually taking a kinder gentler look at the whole business of buying foods: there are very many ways of getting food from the farm field to your table and the market is one of them and working directly with family farms is another. My newly discovered CSA farmers call themselves Tipi Produce and they look really interesting and awesome. Why not get to know them this year?

Okay, there's a third element to this day: after a morning of snow clearing...

(it's pretty outside, isn't it?)

And after breakfast...

And after searching around for a new CSA, Ed and I ate solid lunches and set out to walk from the far East corner of Madison to our far southern tip of Fitchburg. That would be some 8 - 9 miles.

We had no choice. If I'm going to hang on to this increasingly ancient car, I want it to be inspected by a mechanic we trust. That mechanic has a shop just at the eastern edge of Madison. We dropped off my car at his place and then, well, we had to get back home. Typically, we'd take Ed's car for that, but his car is frozen solid in a snow cave that sort of enveloped it this winter and we cannot get it out until it all melts. There is no other way to get back from the garage to the farmhouse, so we walked. 

Past industrial blocks, and busy roads with no crossing options, past big box stores and taco shops, cemeteries, gas stations, clinics. Across bridges that spanned rivers and one that spanned the highway. Hello, Walmart, hello Madison sewage plant. Sometimes we had to stick to the road, sometimes there were sidewalks and sometimes these sidewalks had melted slush that wet the shoes and the socks in them. As we finally left the cities, first Madison, then Monona, and we made our way into the quiet of where we live, following a path we know, and then the bike path toward the farmette, we exhaled. The wind was crisp and strong, the sun set behind pink clouds and some three hours after we left the car, we were finally home.

(farmette at last! see the roof of the barn??)

Here's a wee small hope: that Ed's car will unfreeze itself when the time comes to pick up my car from the mechanic. Three hours in reverse would be a bit much.

Sunday - 345th

Who would have thought that a snowstorm in Texas would have us cracking a hole into the wall of the farmhouse! Yet that is exactly what we are now planning to do. All that talk of people running their gas ovens to keep warm lead us to further investigate the link between gas stoves and particles and gas emissions and boom! After a night of studying the literature, Ed decided that indeed, we should vent our gas stove. Through a soon to be knocked out hole in the farmhouse wall. [A suggestion to those of you who have a gas stove with a vent over it: use it when you're cooking a bunch. Or at least open the window. Unvented stoves wont kill you (unless you're leaking carbon monoxide, but that's a rarer event), but the air quality in your home will be, well, on the poor side for the duration of your cooking efforts.] You'd think that our construction team would have insisted on putting in a vent when we rebuilt the kitchen a few years back, but in fact, venting a stove is not required in Wisconsin (it is in California) and most people have no idea that nitrogen oxides are seeping into their work space when they turn on their gas stove. Funny how even at 67, I'm still learning really basic stuff about, well, everything.

We wake up to a gray day that will eventually bring with it yet another snow event. So, time to get cheerful and have a color filled breakfast in the front room!

Throughout the morning, we talk about how to proceed with the hole punching and vent installation. Ed, of course, wants to do it himself. Me, I'd hand it over to a construction team. Let's see if you can guess who will win this discussion!

And speaking of stoves and ovens, this really is a good day for baking. I am forever searching out recipes for desserts that appeal to both adults and kids, desserts that are not one big sugar high. Chocolate is often involved! Today, I go for cupcakes made with strawberry puree and topped with chocolate frosting. I'm thinking the puree will add a freshness, color and a fine taste...

 

... but of course, winter berries, imported from California or Florida, can be on the bland side. If it weren't for the pink-ish color, would we even know that two cups of berries went into the batter? Ah well. Yummy stuff nonetheless.

When I set out with dinner for the young family, it's snowing. A freezing icy wet kind of snow. And in backing out down the long driveway, the car skids right into a snowbank. I suppose it portends of the drive ahead of me. 

Ed spends a good chunk of time pushing me out of trouble  and I continue. The roads are awful. Slippery, and growing more slippery by the minute. I crawl to the young family's house thinking -- why are end of season snow events the worst? 

Happy moments!

And then the drive back. Slow, very very slow. But hey, I stay on the highway, even though it isn't always obvious where the highway lanes are.

Home again. Relieved, hungry, tired.  I glance at my Fitbit step tracker. Ed and I did not walk anywhere today yet I feel like I've run a marathon. Perhaps I have run a marathon of sorts. We all have. And we all can't wait to get to the finish line.

Saturday - 344th

The pandemic isolation, or hibernation, or let's call it sheltering has created new normals and I'm finding that leaving them behind is not easy. Many of my pandemic habits were formed early on, when we knew very little about the virus spread. When they work for you, you stick with them, even though the science behind them has moved on. I suppose we tell ourselves that there are still many unknowns and evolving variants and who knows what else. So we stay with the rules we developed now close to a year ago. 

One rule that we set for ourselves (thinking that the pandemic surely wont last) was to eat only home cooked meals. This isn't exactly tortuous, since I like to cook, but we did, in the past, have take-out once a week, or maybe two weeks. Picked up Asian foods, Mexican foods -- they gave me a break from the constancy of menu planning, shopping, preparing, cleaning up. That ended last March and, well, I've just stuck with cooking it all myself. When my daughter asked me today what I would like to eat now that such boundaries to dinner foods can surely be lifted, I recoiled: have I really prepared 344 dinners in a row? Oh my. I am looking forward to a break!

Other routines have taken hold as well: since I haven't spent time with the grandkids, I've found time to be rather regular with the walking/skiing habit. Ed and I are out doing one or the other every day. We haven't looked for grand adventures. Instead, most of the time we stick with out local county park, just a couple of miles up the road from us. The point is to enjoy the fresh air, the forest quiet, the changing landscape. We don't really mind the repetition of the trails. 

Still, sometimes there is that itch to branch out. And today, the itch took hold and you know how itches go: once they're there, you have to scratch.

I think I am correct in predicting that this will have been the last of the super cold mornings, where the reading is in the negatives (F), meaning far far below freezing. Still, the sun is out: it looks promising out there. 

We have started to let out the cheepers again -- all four of them. The possum raid spooked us and so during the cold snap, we kept them in the coop round the clock. A heating unit close to their coop kept them fairly warm. There was no need for them to be released to the frozen tundra out there. Still, they were restless. Time to relax and let go.

(four chickens and a cat)

Our breakfast? In the front room. A new habit!

And then comes the couch time -- the garden planning on my part, the discussion about how our spring will unfold. And eventually we rouse ourselves and head out. Not to the county park! Anywhere but the county park!

We drive to the Brooklyn Wildlife Area. The Ice Age trail cuts through it and we like several loops we can do there. And unlike the county parks, this combination of forest and prairie is rarely visited (except in the height of the hunting season). But wait! Things have changed. the pandemic has moved others to explore hiking, snow shoeing, trekking through the woods. The parking lot by the trail head is full! A dozen cars! Our little corner of quiet has been discovered!

The good thing about having devoted so many days to working on the Ice Age Trail is that you know all the nearby segments. And so we do an about face and pick up a secret fragment that no one knows of. 

 

 

 

Well, almost no one. We do pass three people. We can deal with bumping into just three!

In the evening, we talk about the microwave again! We've replaced it FOUR times in the past two years and we are about to do it again. I blame it on the schools. Here's why:

I was reading about the tragic loss of power in Texas after the storms and this one sentence caught my eye: many people who turned on their gas stoves to heat their homes were poisoned by the gases released through keeping the burners going full blast. 

Gases? What gases?

I turn to Ed for help. He explains all about gas, combustion, carbon monoxide, this, that, more names of gases. Really? Merely lighting your gas stove poisons the air you breathe? Well, he tells me, not if you vent it out. 

So I read up on this subject and indeed, I learn that we gas stove users do exactly that: we let toxins fill our kitchens, our lungs, our homes. What's the solution? Vent the damn stove out or replace it with an electric model. Bottom line, if I want to un-polute the farmhouse, we should cut a hole in the kitchen wall and vent the stove out. (Which would require getting rid of the microwave that's over our stove right now.)

I feel a little bit like the moment when, as a young adult, I learned that you really can't dry your hair and take a bath at the same time. Death might result. I mean, I should have put two and two together, but I had skipped grades in school, including the year my class had Physics 101, though honestly, I dont think the ancient male teacher talked about hair dryers then and he certainly skipped over any toxins released by gas stoves -- of that I'm sure. And this is my point: the school curriculum should cover stuff like that: things you should not do to inadvertantly kill yourself. How else do you learn this stuff?

Evening quiet. I glance at the (online) paper and read about the oldest recipient of the COVID vaccine -- a woman who is 111 years old. People that old are always asked about what they do to live so long. This woman answered -- it's all about wine, beer and good food. I'm not surprised. Delighting in things that fill your everyday and keeping that dryer out of the bathtub will do it every time.

To longevity. And love.

Friday - 343rd

Is there a day in the calendar year that celebrates friendship? No? Well that's a shame! Why would you not give an appreciative nod to this most important category of people? Maybe send flowers, maybe write a card, with a caveat -- your friend doesn't have to send a thank you note in return! Just enjoy the message, feel grateful and maybe even happy. Wouldn't that be nice!

I'd like to believe that I do not take my friends for granted. That I honor them, love them, thank them for their sweetness, care, and their singularly unique and interesting approach to each day. We humor ourselves by thinking we're good friends in return. That we make an effort. But is it enough? I'm thinking that in reality, we tend to obsessively fret about getting through each day without breaking bones, or burning the night's meal. We've evolved from being warriors to worriers. We agonize about every detail of our day. And yeah, we probably neglect our friends.

So I'm compensating! I'm setting aside this day for thinking grand thoughts about friends. It's the perfect time for it -- I have two Zoom chats, one with my Polish friend and one with my two southern pals. And in between, I think about how lucky I am to have these people (and others -- friendship is not exclusive!) in my life. Good people, who live elsewhere, but whose minds run along channels not so distant from my own.

But I admit it -- these grand thoughts are saved for moments when I'm not doing the usual: animal care in the morning...

 

Breakfasting with Ed...

and eventually taking a city park walk with him...

 

(the park with the great city view)

With the usual evening set of tasks, none of them unpleasant: cooking dinner, putting away the accumulated bits of another week of farmhouse isolation. But at the end, I come back to friends. What a great institution, don't you think? Thank you for being there, you guys. Really, thank you.

With love.