the kettle

Each time I travel to England, I come face to face with the electric tea kettle. Even the simplest Bed and Breakfast will have that kettle, with some packaged biscuits and tea bags, all on a neat tray in your room. British travelers who go abroad and fail to find a kettle in their hotel room are outraged. How uncivilized!

If you make use of something in your travels, sooner or later you'll be tempted to bring it home. And I've been tempted! You flick the switch and the kettle reaches a boil quickly and then shuts itself off. Water is ready, perfect for your tea. (And I do drink tea daily.)

Still, I have this old stove top kettle and I've had it for decades and I have a little of Ed in me: why replace it? It works.

This morning the clouds stay, the sprinkles come and go, the wind picks up.  The overnight rains have brought out even more new growth. Lilies, daffodils, tulips, as if in a race.

 

 

 

No matter. I have a very early morning appointment -- one more to check off my list of delinquents from the year of hibernation. I quickly feed the chicks, play with them for only one minute and head out, yawning deeply. Way too early to be up.

 When I return, Ed is stirring. I finish my morning chores and we sit down to breakfast. 

We review things we could do outside, if only the sprinkles would let up. Realistically we will do none of those things. It's the kind of day where you will only work outdoors if you really have to. We don't really have to. Instead, I fall asleep with a book on the couch.

An hour or two later, Ed fixes himself lunch and in puttering in the kitchen, he finds my charred tea kettle, sitting on a burner, no water in it of course, just hissy noises of a scorched pot, long gone dry. I must have flicked the spout open so that no noise alerted me to a boil and then of course, I fell asleep.

Ed tries to scrape off the blackened grime, but I tell him to put it aside. I have this inner bubble of joy: I can finally purchase an electric tea kettle. Guilt free! To be delivered Monday!

Was it a coincidence that last night I looked back on Ocean posts from the Lake District of England? And that I wondered if I would again trek across those mountains that rise over the sinewy lakes? The kettle episode tells me that I am not ready to give up on the UK. My travels have stalled of course and who knows when they will unstall. But when they do, I wouldn't be surprised if I returned to places with long trails crossing fields of bluebells. With a tea kettle and biscuits waiting in my room upon my return.

(Just  to complete the coincidence cycle, I have a Zoom chat with these two, my fellow travelers to England a way long time ago!)

earthy

To me, each season has its smell. Of dry earth and brittle leaves in the fall, of snappy icy air in winter, of rich soil in spring. I thought of that as I went out to feed the animals this morning. Wet earth and emerging grasses. Composting old leaves and the tips of edible chives. A heavenly, earthy smell!

Breakfast, where the smell most definitely is of hyacinths.

And then I do something that the pandemic had postponed for me: I visit the dentist to have an implant screwed in (they do it with a little wrench, I swear!). If you've ever had an implant put in, you'll know it's a long process with many steps to it: pull the offending chomper out, make all sorts of impressions, put in a post, then finally screw in the implant. I had done it all, the whole lead-up, in the months before the pandemic. But just as I was scheduled to have that fake new guy put in, the country locked down and so the implant vegged out at the dentist's office. I would get reminders every few months that it's still there, resting and waiting. Still, I refused to make an appointment. Coffee shop, restaurant, grocery store. Hair salon, post office, medical clinic. Drugstore, gardening store, dentist. All used to be part of my regular rotation and the pandemic wiped them completely out of my orbit. Only this month (post vaccinations), have I stepped into a doc's office and today -- into a dentist's office.

And it's so strange! Like returning to Paris! Such familiar territory! Well, sort of familiar. In the year I've been away, my doctor's office moved to another part of town. My eye doctor's clinic now faces a brand new hotel. Just like that! Cropped up in the former parking lot. And my dentist's office is looking out on a huge, brand new retirement complex. Pandemic or not, the world did not completely freeze in March 2020. 

I chatted to the dentist a bit. Because I have terribly needy postwar Poland teeth, I know the guy well. We've spent many hours staring at each other's faces. He told me about his wife (a middle school teacher) who spread out all her teaching tools on the dining room table, worked long hours to meet the demands of remote learning and often cried herself to sleep at night. About his first trip to see the grandkids in Chicago this month. About friends who left town (Madison had a huge surge in infections this Fall). About the year that was, and the hope for one that's a hell of a lot better ahead of us.

 

Back at the farmette, it starts to rain. Not a big rain at first, but a spring shower. The kind you normally see in April. The earth will have an even more pungent smell to it. Heavenly stuff! 

And then the rain intensifies. This is a gardener's gift! Permission to not work. To stretch out with your toys, if you're a cat.

 

 

To put your feet up and finish the mystery you've been reading if you're me. To even take a nap! My Fitbit count is lower than low and what are you going to do... it's raining! Blissful, spring rain, coming down to bathe the winter earth and freshen it up for what's ahead.

outside

We're starved for a bunch of things right now and near the head of the list surely is our connection to the natural world. Winter keeps us indoors and even when we are outside, the frozen landscape seems out of reach. Even when Ed and I ski the trails that run through the forest, it's hard to remember how much life there is all around you. In the winter months, it's well hidden.

Of course, we've had some fine early spring days this year, but clearly,it's not been enough, because today, the kids (and especially one kid, the older one, whose choices typically determine the play sequences for the both of them) kept asking for outdoor time.

 

I am up super early. Before dawn maybe, though the clouds contribute to the feeling of being up at an ungodly hour. Typically I have 90 minutes worth of chores to do before breakfast. Today is no exception. I fly through them ans still, they take 90 minutes.

Ed, breakfast!

 

And immediately after, the kids arrive. And it's like a whirligig of activity: read, play, remote school, go outside, go inside, play, lunch, remote school, outside again, inside again, outside again. Note the recurring theme: again and again, the great outdoors beckons. 

This then is our day. For some reason, my camera was as active as the rest of us. Consequently -- fewer words, more pictures!

On arrival, she reaches for one of her all time favorite chapter books. We've read this and the others from the series maybe 100 times.

Speaking of all time favorites, Sparrow will never tire of his rubber puzzles...

... and Snowdrop will never tire of making up stories with her dolls here.

Oops! School time! It starts with writing class. She likes that.

School's done for now. A visit with the chicks...

Let's go outside! Boots on, door open before I have a chance to react...

We find Peach's eggs in the garage...

School again! Math this time. Sparrow pulls up a chair and brings something he can count. She tries to concentrate...

I hear it again: let's go outside! They join Ed in branch removal...

The heavier the better...

We go to the fields behind the mighty pines. He collects pine cones...

She tells us this is what meditation-relaxation should look like.

Plenty relaxed!

We needed this time outside. Life is stirring. Everywhere. It's palpable.

garden work, the next stage

It would have been nice to stay in bed late. You don't want to rush the day when you don't have to (a luxury of retirement is that you rarely have to). But, grocery deliveries are getting to be tricky again and all I could nab was a 7 a.m. Sunday spot, so I took it and poof! The sleep-in opportunity is gone.

On the upside, an early day gives me more time to play with the chicks. And you should play with them: they get bored staring at the walls of the box all day. When I remove the slotted "roof," they strain to have me lift them out. Today I give them a long stretch of roosting. Call it exploration with the eyes -- they're still not confident enough to fly away from home base. Give them a few more days!

Our morning meal, on the other hand, is very unhurried. Call it the last moment of rest before the work begins.

And there is work to do outside, especially on this very pretty day, with an exceptionally pleasant high of about 62F (16C). Those are May temperatures! Coming in March, they make you feel like you've landed a prize of enormous proportions.

We are in the secondary flower field prep phase. The garden could get by with what I've done so far (in phase one), but I can tweak it some more by working at the boundaries of the beds and fine tuning what's been done thus far.  The third phase will come once the perennials have grown more. This is when you dig out aggressive monardas and rudbeckias. And the fourth phase? There isn't a fourth phase! After that it's time to plant!

One quick peek at what's blooming at the farmette: first, one must take note of the fact that yesterday's snowdrop buds are today's open faced blossoms.

But of course, the stars have to be the crocuses! Swaying in the wind...

Okay, time to focus on meal prep for our Sunday family dinner. I start with the beets (for a predinner snack). There are six here for dinner and out of the pack, four (one child and three adults) insanely love roasted beets. These hefty chunks will disappear within two minutes of their arrival.

And then I check off the remaining foods -- standard gogs fare. No one ever wants to change the menu, which rotates between seafood pasta and crunchy chicken, seafood pasta and crunchy chicken, again and again. Honestly, I'll do either in my sleep with one hand in my pocket.

Here they come!

After the meal, there is some noise about outdoor play. I can't say no to that. It's cooler in the evening and neither they nor I have our jackets, but they do not appear to notice any of this.

And I'm glad. It pleases me no end to watch them take their games outside. 

This is the season for it. Spring, in earnest here, in south central Wisconsin.

welcome, spring!

Oh, vernal equinox! You mark the arrival of spring, truly the happiest season of them all! (And yes, I'd say that even if it were hailing outside.) Us northerners are spring lovers, drawn to her cheerful, upbeat manner, her determination to push those flowers through against all odds, her resilience, her countless pretty surprises.

Welcome, spring!

Since we are to have a stunning day today, Ed asked if I would like to go and do some volunteer work with him out on the Ice Age Trail. They'll be cutting down invasives that withstood the controlled burning of the prairie. I almost said yes, because we do use the trails and helping maintain them is important to us, but really, I have a plateful of stuff to do at the farmette and I don't want to give away a day of good weather. Trail fixing and clearing for me fits well into the Fall season, when I absolutely do not feel like working in a dry and tired garden. In spring my work stays in the farmette flower fields. And so after breakfast...

... Ed goes off to clear away honeysuckle and I begin the task of digging and dividing those flowers that needed to be dug out and divided (as the cheepers enjoy their moment in the sunshine at the base of their favorite hydrangea bushes).

Anything blooming yet, besides the snowdrops, you ask? Not really, though stuff is stirring. The daffodils planted in the west facing bed benefit from the warm afternoon sun and so they always pop up first. And indeed, I can just see those flowers forming!

Somewhat sheepishly, I pause in my work to drive over for a car wash. Our snow last week brought out the salt trucks and it pains me to see those salty spots on Blue Moon. And because it's just a basic car wash, I'm not satisfied with how things look afterwards, so I spend a handful of minutes polishing up the old girl with a rag, thinking all the while -- it has come to this! I am actually buffing up my car on a weekend day, just like a car loving dude or dudess out there. (Ed chuckles mightily when I admitted this to him later.)

 

And then I return to the garden -- back to my early spring work.

the last day of winter

The cold season is bidding us a beautiful good bye. It's as if we need that reminder: winter has its very lovely elements. This year, our winter included heaps of snow for skiing, and, too, a bright and sunny transition to spring.

We wake up early. Though maybe I should rephrase that: we go to sleep late, just as some person responds to our ad on Craigslist, where we're selling (separately from the car) 4 wheels with winter tires (they came with the car when I bought it from a guy some 7 years ago). He would like to drive over and take a look. It is 11:30pm. He could be here in a little over an hour (he lives all the way in Beloit). So Ed loads the wheels in a cart, puts it at the end of the driveway and instructs the dude to leave the money under a stone.

Now about our wake up: first, there's the 2:30 wake up for me, where I ask Ed -- did he come for the tires? Ed goes outside, sees the tires still there on the driveway, comes back inside. Nope. It's a no show. I'll put them away tomorrow morning.

A few minutes later, I wake up again, this time to the sound of a car in the driveway. Someone is there, chatting to a bud. A few minutes later they drive away. We do a proverbial shake of the head ("oh that Craigslist!") and go back to sleep.

And a few minutes later, we hear the noise of a car again. We can't really tell what's going on but there is a conversation, and there are flashlights. And then a car pulls away and there is silence.

At dawn, Ed asks the usual bothersome question that you ask when you want someone to be up -- are you awake yet? 

And so I am up, rather early, taking my time with the chicks, with the cats, with the cheepers. But of course, eventually I do go out to check on the tires. And guess what -- they're gone. And the right amount of cash is left under a stone.

Thank you, honest buyer from Beloit! The tires are in good shape and the price was low. May he get good use out of them.

Breakfast, as a sort of "before" shot. Ed decided he needs a haircut and a beard trim. Before I get to the task of taking out his thick hair, I set up a breakfast selfie. (Is it still a selfie if there are two of us and it's timed release?)

And now let's get off the topic of tires and wheels and cars (for a little bit) and face what's really important: today, I come across the very first flower that is blossoming as a result of my planting efforts. Right by the walkway to the farmhouse:

Yes, a Snowdrop. Actually two of them.

Here's a picture of Dance and the two tiny Snowdrops.  

You could say then that this last day of winter belongs to the Snowdrop. The flower and the girl. Because I do get the girl, with all her after-school joy.

The evening? It belongs to Primrose -- not the flower that heralds the next season, but the girl who was born nearly three years ago in the first days of spring. We video chat over supper. Her smile is for the little chicks who come out to greet her with their chirps.

I had put in some solid hours of yard clearing earlier in the day and so I have the deep satisfaction of knowing that we are taking steps toward a season of growth. I can't remember any year of gardening (and I have been at it for a long time, growing perennials all the way back in the 1980s, when I first had a yard where I could plant them), when I've been this excited about the coming of spring and the awakening of a garden. I have to think I'm not the only one who just wants to experience once again the joy of watching a garden explode with life.

Night: guess what? The car finally sells. A guy drives over all the way from Illinois, checks it out, buys it for his girlfriend. Now that's love for you!

And tomorrow? Spring!

wind

While we are on the subject of Ireland, I'm remembering well a hike Ed and I took up Irish hills, oh, nearly 11 years ago. The wind was fierce. I didn't really think it could blow me off the mountain and it certainly would have known better than to mess with puffing Ed off, but it sure felt like I was a mere nothing against its mighty gusts.

Today's winds are blustery as well, but they're small puffs compared to those Irish gales. Besides, we don't live on a high hill, so we wouldn't feel their force here, on the farmette. Still, they made you zip up your jacket extra tight. And they kept me inside. After a morning of errands, postponed from many moons ago, I settle in and refuse Ed's prompt to pick up our work outside.

(Breakfast was in the play room once more, just because...)

In the afternoon I do go out because it's a Snowdrop pick up day. I'm always early at her school -- some twenty minutes early, because the line of pick up cars gets to be very long and I know the little girl is ready and waiting! Today, I got scolded by some teacher person for exiting my car to greet her. The new rule is that she (and all kids called out for the pick up) wait until we pull up past the "white line," which I can only do once the four or five cars before me have moved on. As I wait, watching her and a handful of other kids pace the sidewalk, I think about how hard it is for the teachers to ensure total safety for these kids. And we expect that of them. Inside the school, and now outside as well, with all the threats that come with letting kids merely go off on their own. Safety. But at a price.

 

(At the farmette: sooo windy!)

 

Inside: lots of energy...

 

 

 

spring hyacinths...

and spring chicks.

Snowdrop does ask for some outdoor time -- in the farmette Magic Meadow...

And I'm happy to see her delight in something so small and dirty as stirring up the waters of a muddy puddle!

Evening:  you wont be surprised to hear that I choose to make a hot veggie soup for dinner. On a windy day, in Ireland or in Italy or in Wisconsin, nothing tastes better than a bisque, thick with veggies and cannellini beans, all sprinkled with grated Parmesan.

can I borrow St. Patrick's Day from someone Irish?

Right about now I would like a nice pint of something pubbish, with maybe a little music playing in the background just loudly enough to make me tap along, and perhaps a few very friendly people asking me how the wee lasses and lads in my life are gettin' by.  In other words, some spirited Irish áthas maireachtála (that would be joy of living, in case you're not up on your Irish Gaelic).

Instead, the day is threatening to be a rerun of yesterday. More car issues, this time only with fixing and selling the old one, and more mundane errands (like picking up a new car battery at Walmart), and more drippy cool weather (so no chance of yard work, or a walk in our county park). 

Except it's not really like yesterday because we are that much closer to fine spring weather and we're not threatened by the storms that are ravaging the south, and people are taking precautions so our county COVID hospitalization rates remain a small fraction (like, one seventh) of what they were back in the nightmare fall of last year. 

And, too, breakfast in the play room was lovely...

And our errand run was delightful (made even more so by the incredibly quiet ride of Blue Moon), and though we did not walk, we paused at the side of the road to admire the sole sandhill...

... and the herd of deer almost hidden against the dark backdrop of a still naked forest. (I may as well love them now, because I'll be less enthusiastic about their visits once my spring garden gets going.)

Now, it is true that the grass is greener in Ireland right now. It's always green there. Year round. But, Irish pubs are closed and they will remain closed for the next two months, so the cold pint and the singing is confined to the Irish home. Still, there is every reason to embrace the Irish áthas maireachtála now, even if you're stuck at home. Think about spring. Think about how fine it will feel when we've helped our communities and indeed, communities worldwide to beat back the beastly menace. I'll save my cold pint for that day. (In the meantime -- well, there's always popcorn. And a glass of chilled white Burgundy.)