cars, cars...

The cars are messin' with us. Word must have trickled down that we are not really car people. We have stirred up the wrath and ire of the automobile gods.

Up early. I have an appointment for Blue Moon to get an inspection for the rattle that I'm hearing somewhere up front. First task: clear the car of ice and snow. Gently, because, you know, it's new and I still treat it as if it were a delicate little thing. Too, I clear the old car of ice and snow. Someone is coming to check it out for a possible purchase.

There's just enough snow to make all this a chore, but not enough to, say, go skiing. And the cheepers aren't happy. 

 

 

 

Peach gets stuck in a drift once again and I have to carry her to shelter.

Breakfast. Somewhat hurried because we have all these car appointments.

As I drive Blue Moon up to the dealer's service center, I turn off the radio so that I can hear that annoying rattle again. Except that I don't hear it! What the heck! For two weeks it rattled away and now, on the way to the car doc it stops? Well, maybe it will reproduce itself for the mechanic. I hand over the car, play for him the recording we made of the rattly noise, and drive away in a loaner.

At the farmette, I want to move the old car to the head of the driveway so that the buyer has an easier time checking it out. Except that the battery appears to be dead. So now we have to call the prospective buyer to tell her that the car she is about to purchase wont start. Ed and I want to do this right. He suggests that we replace the battery. We're ready to set out to Walmart automotive center, and then the car starts and all is well and Ed is under the hood again trying to determine what caused it to be not fine twenty minutes ago.  Definitely not the battery. Best guess -- corrosion on the battery terminal. He cleans it up. We wait for the buyer to come. She is late. Very late. She texts: leaving now! And again: be there in twelve minutes! 

She never shows up.

Another call from another person: hello. I hear you're looking to buy a Mazda 2007? No, not buy. Sell. Oh, okay. Click.

 

Late afternoon. The service department, where Blue Moon is being cared for calls me: we drove it for miles. Could not detect rattle anywhere. Sorry!

Is that more than you ever wanted to know about our cars? Well me too! I want to get in one, have it move me, the kids, possibly Ed, or maybe at some future date -- groceries, from point A to point B. Then I want to step out and not give another thought to cars until the next time that I need to move things around. A whole morning spent on attending to cars? Too much!

 

The thermometer climbs to above freezing levels, but not enough to melt the snow. (Tulip, submerged.)

 

 

 

It's not hiking weather, it's not gardening weather. It's stay home and plan your garden and forget about cars weather.

expecting: snow

We all knew the snow would come. We'd been told to expect the worst -- mixed with rain, with ice, wet and heavy. Several inches of the winter horror.

When? -- Ed asks me, as I'm the weather tracker around here.

It'll start in the morning. I'm a tad anxious as I'll have the kids here and I don't want to drive them home in the afternoon in a freezing crazy weather event.

We eat breakfast in the kitchen. It seems cozier.

The kids come. No snow yet.

When did you say it would start?

Any minute now.

Snowdrop and Sparrow continue to be delighted by the chicks. That's a good thing, because the chick cuteness is not going to last long. The first three weeks they're precious and adorable. Then follows the adolescence period as they try to secure their freedom and are hard to catch. By the second month, you begin to have deep regrets about having turned your home into a hen house. But for now -- all cuteness all the time.

(So long as we are at the art table...)

It's a remote learning school day, which means that Snowdrop has to check in with her class several times...

Afterwards, she plays vigorously. 

 

 

 

Oops! I hear a thud. The little girl trips and tumbles right into the coffee table. She's understandably upset.

Nasty coffee table! -- I say the usual "grandma is on your side" stuff.

It wasn't the coffee table's fault. I tripped on the strap of a handbag. She points to my purse on the floor.

Nasty handbag!

No, it's not the handbag's fault! It was just being a handbag. Someone put it there. It's the fault of whoever put it there.  

She snuggles forgivingly. I take out the pizza for lunch.

 

We look outside. Nothing yet.

Lunch ends, school ends, we play some more and now it is time to take them home. I have their snow pants, their warmest jackets. Still -- there's no snow. No rain, no ice storm.

I am so grateful.

The first flakes fall as we leave the farmette. And by the time I am returning home, the farmette lands are blanketed in snow.

Evening. It's still snowing. Or sleeting. Or something. Still, it's just a March thing. It happens. And here's a bit of color for you careening through my evening:

Not bad for a day that portended weather troubles. Not bad at all!

Sunday - year two, day one

I gave a number to this day as well -- day one of the second year of social/commercial/travel etc etc isolation, but that's the last you'll hear of the numbers. I don't have any great insights as to where we'll be in terms of the pandemic two days or two months from now, but I suspect that we'll bounce around a bit for a while longer, even as the hope is that we'll reach a safe harbor sooner rather than later. But numbering those days of waiting seems tedious and dull and downright unnecessary, so I'm moving on to give other labels to days that lie ahead. For example, tomorrow, expect something like: "too much snow!" in the title line.

Today the wind picked up and the clouds rolled in, but we stayed well above freezing and so once again Ed and I want to return to outdoor work.

After breakfast, of course.

There was a bit of worry because I could not find Peach, the oldest of the remaining four free ranging cheepers. What with owls hooting at night, and coyotes prowling around, and the ever present possum, I felt sure we had another casualty. So the big surprise was to see the old girl emerge from the dark cavernous corner of the garage. Poking around revealed a rather pretty nest with several eggs in it. Clearly Peach has decided to set up egg shop on her own here. 

 

Okay, chickens accounted for. To work! We've made tremendous progress. I can't move around or divide perennials just yet, but we have cleared most of the beds -- new and old. Honestly, I think we've done the greatest chunk of it. I feel so pleased with our rush to get it done that I get ambitious and propose to Ed that we create yet another flower field all the way by the barn. It's not a crazy idea. Really it's not. True, no one and I mean no one ever goes there (except for us and occasionally the kids), but we have pulled a lot of weeds out of that sunny spot and if I dont plant flowers there, then we'll have to keep hacking away at the weeds because by midsummer, they really take over any bit of land that is not otherwise occupied. So, another little field to add to my master plan for the farmette lands.

 

Today is, of course, family dinner night and it's cold enough for me to be glad that I have to put the shovel down. And for once, I try not to lose it. (Putting down gardening tools in forgotten places is a constant problem. I have yet to locate the clippers I momentarily put aside yesterday...)

 

Dinner is in daylight! I've been reading all the complaints about our move to daylight savings time, but I just cannot jump on that bandwagon. I love the added hour of evening brightness!

The kids want to paint. Well why not...

Eventually I do get dinner on the table. 

But not right away. I've grown out of the habit of rushing. One slow step at a time. 

With love...

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.

h

(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.