Saturday - 365th

And so we come full circle: one year ago, Ed and I called it quits on social life, on store visits, on cafes and restaurants. We locked ourselves up in the farmhouse and waited. When I look back on the post from that last day of (relative) free movement, I see words like "do our bit" and "flatten the curve." I remember thinking this would go on for two months. Then -- until summer. Then -- until fall. Then I stopped predicting and focused on making something of these days of self-imposed lock down.

365 days later, we still want to "do our bit." We are both lucky enough to be ancient and therefore vaccinated, but many of the people we care about are not. So we stick with our same old routines: our social life is played out on Zoom, we skip going to the store, or to cafes, or to restaurants. And of course, I'm still not traveling.

But there is a lot that we are doing and at this time of the year (spring!), our basket of goodies is filling rapidly. I could well have started the post with another significant marker for this day: it's when we'll spring forward with daylight savings time! Ed scoffs at it: what's the difference, he'll say, just to be contrary. But for me and perhaps for you, it's huge, especially after a dark fall and a dark winter (where the word "dark" has too many ominous connotations). Imagine: more light in the evening, more warm light, more sunlight, more outdoor time -- it all bundles together into one package of wonderfulness.

 

Let me roll back to the day's beginning: breakfast.

And this time, we waste not a minute. Right after, Ed and I head back to the yard, clearing, clipping, pulling, digging. Initially it's a little cool, but the sun is out and we work hard, so I am down to a sweater. 

We pause in our work when my daughter arrives with the two kids. Since they, too, are staying home all these days, we thought it would spice up the weekend a little if we brought them all over here, to the farmette, just for a change of scene.

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(checking in with the chicks)

(reading, playing...)

There's plenty of sunshine and the kids are happy to spend some time outside, playing in the "magic meadow." This time, Sparrow joins Snowdrop in making "announcements" from the front steps.

We're told we can choose roles to play. I always choose being an "everythinger." You don't know what that is? According to Snowdrop, it's a person who can choose to do any and everything.

(she is explaining to him the beauty of the Christmas tree forest across the road...)

The young family leaves shortly after lunch and Ed and I return to our outdoor work. My Fitbit is going nuts with excitement. So many steps! So much activity!

And here's a reward: it's always exciting when I spot the first farmette bloom. Predictably, it's by the south facing wall. For real, a little blue one. Alpine Squill.

It gives you hope, doesn't it?

With love...

Friday - 364th

With the threat of "wintry mix" by Monday hanging over us, we are super motivated to get out into the yard. We have lots to do.

After breakfast of course.

On the one hand, I tell myself that taking it slowly should be fine. I have five and a half weeks before the local perennial nursery opens with my first order of new flowers. Five and a half weeks to dig up the weeds, to transplant all that I want to move. Five and half weeks to develop a plan for what goes where.

On the other hand, I'm thinking: only five and a half weeks?? Where some days may be full of a wintry mix?? 

Put on the work gloves and get going!

(This is our focus right now: the spaces around the sheep shed, a.k.a. flower field number 10 a, b and c.)

Even though we are not yet in the official growing season, those of us who plant bulbs in the fall are by now rewarded with signs of new growth. No matter what the weather in the next few weeks, we're not going to slow down these guys!

Again we stay out a long time and again we make good progress.

 

And once more, in the afternoon, I pick up the little hedgehog at school and bring her to the farmhouse.

A big snack means revitalized energies. 

("Can we play with the chicks first?")

A rereading of a favorite book and now the creative juices are flowing fast and I lose the little girl to her stories. First in Lego land, then in a special place that she had created on the window sill for a few Polish and Peruvian characters, a Degas figurine, a special stone from Wales and some fake tulips from Holland. A place that she returns to again and again. A place that I find so fascinating that I'm even willing to keep cutting back the geranium plants that inevitably invade her set up.

And soon after, we leave so that I can drive the girl home. No? Not yet? Okay, just a few minutes in the magic meadow. How well I remember from snowy winter days the announcement delivered from the new entrance platform before the play began...

Evening. Fishy supper, a return to a Netflix sort of funny show, and in the last hours -- my thoughts drift back to the flower fields. Weird how that works: I am 3.5 pages away from the end of my writing project, but I do not pick it up, because my brain cells have switched to a focus on spring and the coming of the growing season.

Thursday - 363rd

It's fine and well to tell yourself on day one that you will work cleaning and clearing the flower fields every single day for an hour or more until the end of April, it's another thing altogether to go outside on day two, feel the wind, look up at the clouds, and proceed with your plan.

First, let's eat breakfast. That's a grand excuse to stay indoors.

Then -- let's wait a while. Maybe it will warm up.

But in the end, I stay with my resolve. Those new plants will need homes worthy of their (future) magnificence. The job of clearing space has to be done. Let's get to it!

 

We put in more than "just" one or two hours worth of work! At this rate, we may be done ahead of April's end.

 

 

 

By early afternoon, I have a good excuse to call it quits. Since it is Thursday, I'm off to pick up Snowdrop at school.

I'm so proud to see her coming out with a big grin. The transitions from a fun preschool to no school, to remote school, to this social-distanced-masked-please-dont-talk-to-anyone-and-that's-just-one-of-a-million-COVID-rules school has not been easy. But she comes out smiling every time. I can see it in her eyes.

(energetic at the farmhouse)

(Drawing a post-it note for my fridge while Unie watches...)

(Happy... and color matched with my flowers!)

Evening. Ed has long ago fallen asleep next to me on the couch. The little chicks are doing a quiet little sing song. It's time for me to call it a day. So that I will have the energy to tackle tomorrow's weeds.

Wednesday - 362nd

You know the old saying -- just because you can, doesn't mean you should. I thought of that today. A lot. 

We were to have rain, and so after breakfast...

... I settled in to work on my garden plans. For the moment, I simply sketched out the various flower fields (there are now10, with six "subfields") and listed all the new flowers that I will be planting. Here's how it looks.

I know I know I know! That's so old fashioned! Who even writes in long hand anymore! Well, I did. The Clairefontaine notebook makes me think of Paris every time I open it up.

I took a break to pick up my new glasses. I can see clearly now! The world is not a hazy fuzzy place after all! I can see, for example, that it did not rain and that it's not likely to rain today. The ground is wet, but that is understandable -- it's from the melted snow.  

So maybe it's time to start prepping the new flower beds and cleaning out the old ones?

It's a huge job, but I'm thinking -- if I work just one to two hours each day and every day, I'll have it all ready for the arrival of the new plants at the end of April.

I go outside, put on my gardening gloves and start in on the bed by the farmhouse path. That would be bed number 4, as per sketched plan. Ed comes out to see what all the noise is about. He offers to help. So let's use him for the big stuff: weeding the overgrown mess by the sheep shed that this year will be turned into bed number 10, both (a) and (b).

Ever the efficiency expert, he tells me that we are using too much energy for too little gain. He brings out the tiller. That helps a little, but still, the weeds are intense here. I shovel, he tills, I pull, he rakes. After one or two or was it ten hours, we are spent. This is when it hits me: maybe I've taken on too much? Maybe I can't plant a million seeds and a thousand flowers. And take care of all the flowers that are here already (requiring weeding, splitting, moving, pruning.

Well maybe. Maybe it is too much. Still, I see the first signs of the work I did last autumn in planting bulbs:

It's so satisfying, watching spring plants emerge! So deeply satisfying!

I remind myself that we are in day number 362 of isolation. No one comes here (except for the grandkids now). No one sees the gardens I create. 

And yet, it's so deeply satisfying to walk in a field of lilies and snip their spent heads so that new ones will be so very beautiful to behold. So for now, we clean the beds. One or two hours, every day, until planting time.

Tuesday - 361th

On this second day of spring-like beauty, Ed and I opt for an easy morning of reading and writing. After I look in on the cheeps.

 

 

 

And after breakfast of course. And by the way, for the record, I do not eat my usual oatmeal, but instead, I take the time to prepare the Swedish porridge served to me on my last visit to Chicago. Pearled barley, sunflower seeds, flax seeds. Crushed rye, bulgur. Soaked overnight, cooked in the morning. You're supposed to dab it with butter and jam, but some of my habits are just too ingrained and so I dump the usual kefir, fruit and honey on it instead.

But in the early afternoon, I nudge us to go out. We have a big gardening job that we need to do in the early spring and it seems that a sunny and unusually warm day is just right for it. Out come the clippers, out comes the pole saw. We need to trim the fruit trees in the young orchard.

This is perhaps the most important task in any orchard where you hope to have a successful harvest. Letting the branches grow inside the crown of the tree makes for an unhealthy crop of small fruits. Too little light, too heavy a load for the young branches to bear.

Ed claims we never do it correctly and he is right, to an extent: in the early years especially, we did not trim well and we did not protect the trees well enough from deer. Several trees developed an odd shape. And we weren't smart enough to buy only dwarfs so that a number of the trees are just too tall. Still, we work with what we have.

(The big girls and the rooster keep an eye on us. Garden work sometimes means digging and that means worms. Not today, cheepers, not today.)

Later, Ed and I do take a walk, because pruning trees just doesn't get those leg muscles working for you. My Fitbit would have been disappointed! Note how much of the snow has melted in the last handful of days!

(We are near a field of geese. And birds of an unknown to me species. Too, we hear the cranes in the distance. In other words, it's loud out there this evening!)

 

(Celebrating possibly the last "safe" day on the lake...)

A glorious day. Really, the weather was just fantastic. Tomorrow -- the first solid rain of the year.

Monday - 360th

We have two days of unusually warm weather. More like May stuff, really. On this day, however, my mind is elsewhere. My first task in the morning is to call the car dealer and schedule an appointment for Blue Moon. It has an unfortunate rattle somewhere in the front panel or possibly under the hood. But you know what the nice thing here is? Ed and I don't have to trouble shoot and locate the noise source. I'll leave it to the mechanics!

Breakfast, prepared quickly...

 

... because we need to be ready for the arrival of this awesome twosome.

They are spirited and high energy!

And full of ideas on how to play.

(And what to eat...)

Snowdrop does have to return to Zoom kindergarten in the first half of the week. That proved to be tricky when we were shuttling the girl back and forth between households back in December. But this time the demands seem to be fewer and no materials are needed (that I can figure out). Still, it can be tedious...

And by noon she is done and we return to... kicking around balloons.

A few hours later I drive the kids home. Ed goes out on his first bike ride of the year (it is that warm!) and I give serious consideration to taking a nap. But no. I cannot! It would be criminal not to take a solid walk in such fine weather. (We are near 60F, or 15C.) And so I take a solitary trek in our local park, and I think about the spring season, and how we lost so much of it to the pandemic last year! A day like this makes you believe that this spring will be different. Better for everyone. Really, that is my constant hope.

I cook up an easy supper. Ed and I both could do with something quick and dirty. Cheeper eggs! With local mushrooms, local spinach, and not so local smoked salmon.  I'm betting that we'll both doze off over that bowl of popcorn later tonight!

Sunday - 359th

My day is filled with scores of Latin words. Well, Latin sounding words. I'm not sure if true Botanical names are actually Latin or if we just give them names that have Latin-like endings.

Epimedium alpinum rubrum

It's a pretty day in a subdued sort of way. Chicks: there are the growing chicks...

 

 

 

We have a calm breakfast...

 

Ad then I sit down to the task at hand.

Symphyotrichum oblongifolium "Raydon's Favorite." Now that's a mouthful, followed by that Raydon twist.

Pyncnanthemum verticillatum var. pilosum or -- hairy mountain mint. The minty stuff is the common name -- way easier to pronounce than the Botanical one which in the first word alone has 13 letters, only 4 of which are vowels, even if you rank the Y as a vowel (according to the rules of grammar -- it is indeed a vowel in that particular word).

Of course, there are, too, the daylilies:

Hemerocallis scratch and sniff, Hemerocallis wild one, hemerocallis smoky mountain autumn.

These are all flowers I ordered for spring planting. I'm being systematic this year: I bought a spiffy notebook (a Clairefontaine, squared) and I wrote in today all that we purchased -- names, light requirements, size, bloom time.

It took forever.

In the next days I'll envision a new bed and I'll disperse the rest among existing flower fields.

 

In the afternoon, a guy called asking if he could take a look at my old car (which is currently for sale on Craigslist). "We're about to have a baby, she's in the hospital, and I desperately need to get my hands on a car that's big enough for the kid..."

We wait. He comes. He drives it. He likes it. "I'll give you $100 to hold it until tomorrow. Let me get to an ATM." He leaves. We wait, but only for a few minutes.

He wont be back. -- this from Ed. But he needs it for his new baby!

You believed him? He comes out to buy the car and he doesn't have $100 with him for a deposit? 

Why wouldn't he just leave and say no thanks?

The guy calls back. "My girlfriend is looking at another car. We'll choose between the two." Wait, I thought she was in the hospital having a baby?

Such is Craigslist. We go out for a hike in our local park. And it is slushy, but very pretty in the predusk light.

And on the drive back, we greet the returning Sandhill cranes. We'd heard them already last week, but this is the first sighting: it's a sure and welcome sign of spring. 

 

 

Saturday - 358th

Plentiful sunshine. Those are the words used by the weather bureau to describe this day. Even the sound of it is delicious!

It's Saturday, but it's more like Sunday because our schedules are flipped to accommodate various events. So, Sunday family dinner tonight!

But first, the usual, performed with the bounce that only this kind of weather could provide.

(There are still snow covered areas. But it's all very lovely nonetheless!)

Breakfast is ready!

Ed and I do a midday hike along a segment of the Ice Age trail, one that we don't return to often. And it's a shame, because it's pretty!

Though honestly, tell me what's *not* pretty outdoors today. Oh, I suppose the mud -- there's plenty of it at the farmette, but on the trail, we're mostly dealing with slushy snow.

And blue skies and sunshine.

The young family comes at the usual predinner time, but of course, we're approaching spring and so there is still plenty of light. The kids play, the grownups relax, we munch on roasted beets and cheese and crackers.With wine for those who can and sparkling cider for those who cannot.

There are some things that you never want to change...