expected rain

It was slated to be a rainy day and for the most part, it delivered. What would you do on a wet Saturday? Fine, read a book! The ubiquitous answer to everything. But besides that?

Here's my Saturday. Yes, it does have a book in it, but there's more.

Breakfast, no surprise, in the kitchen. Ed is barely awake. Rainy days bring out the sleepiness in him.

 

Then I celebrate the arrival of my tea pot. Stimulus check (well, part of it) put to good use! I've waited a long time to buy one and I am tickled that it is finally part of my kitchen pack of essentials. (I don't go overboard: I don't, for instance, give it a name. Though I am tempted!)

And the tea pot leads me to spend not a small amount of time thinking about where I will travel when I finally do resume traveling. I know it will feel weirder than weird. And that I will have some trepidation about going off on a solo adventure, because I've had so much time without the company of others this last year! In the past, I never minded sitting over a dinner in a restaurant alone. So much to observe and take in! But somehow these days I think I'd mind just a tiny bit. 

So I thought about all this. Where would I go? Hill climbing in a familiar place? Try something altogether new? I don't have a clear idea about any of it!

As is our new Saturday habit, in the late morning, my daughter comes with the two kids for a visit. 

A few snapshots tell the story of how kids take in a rainy day:

And in the afternoon, the steady sound of rain patter ceases, and Ed and I look at each other, and he notes that weeds are easy to pull out of wet soil, and I mumble that there sure are plenty of them out there after the rain, and so yes, we do go out, right into the mud.

Dedicated gardeners, aren't we? Pulling mustard garlic out of wet, muddy soil, roots and all, every last one of them. And then the next rainy day will come, and new weeds will sprout and we'll have to go at it all over again.

Evening quiet. All is still. Except for the chicks, who cat nap (forgive the pun) all day long, then chirp and peck their way late into the night hours.

 

March days

There are days when you get impatient with March. You step outside and mutter -- I don't want to work out here today. Your grandkid says -- let's go outside, you say -- let's not. You want the return of the warmer days where the jacket stayed on the hook in the farmhouse. You want progress in the flowering department. 

This is the moment where you have to remind yourself of all that you've gained already. Of the greening of the landscape. Of the fattening of the daffodil heads. Of the plumping of the cherry buds.

Of cheepers laying again. Sometimes in the strangest places!

Too, I think about northern countries that I love -- Scotland comes to mind. Days like this one (cloudy, quite cool, jacket definitely in demand) are commonplace there. People pay them no heed. You don't talk or even think about the weather when it changes on you, usually for the worse, many times in the space of a day.

We have many warm months here, in south central Wisconsin. March just doesn't happen to be one of them.

 

In the meantime, the three chicks are growing. We can't let them spend time outside yet -- that wont happen for at least another month. Still, they do get their adventuring time in the sun room.

And they clamor for it. You can tell that they are bored in their coop. But, it's an unfriendly world that awaits them. We wont let them out until they're ready for the challenge.

Breakfast, with spring flowers inside.

Periods of rain always make the weeds grow faster and sure enough, our weeded flower fields have sprouted stuff that needs to come out. I can't say that I enthusiastically attacked the new invasives, but I do go out with a shovel for at least a little while.

And then I break for a Zoom visit with my Polish friends.

Poland, like many countries in Europe, is experiencing a virus surge. It's the all too familiar pattern: rates go down, you relax too much, rates go way up. My friends are mostly in the age category where vaccines are now becoming available to them and so at least they have some security in the near future. Still, Wisconsin had those astronomical, highest in the land numbers back in the Fall. I know how worrisome it is to live through that.

I have to stop the call to run out and pick up Snowdrop at school. Her teacher insists that the girl clip her outgrowing bangs back. Possibly it's to keep her from constantly touching her face with her hands. She complies, but takes the clips right off the minute she gets in the car.

Now here's a girl who is truly looking forward to even more outdoor time! Starting yesterday!

Inside, she wants to write love notes. She writes some, I write some. I try to be creative, but still, I think we both agree that hers are that much sweeter...

Evening. Primrose calls and I find out all about her school birthday celebration! How good it is to have school kids around you! Last year we were at the beginning of the pandemic and the little girl had only her parents. This year, as she turns three, she will have had others to share in the grand event.

 

 

 

And so ends Friday. This weekday always feels different, even if you no longer work: it's a marker of a week gone by. A good week for us: kids are well, parents are well. And spring -- it's here, in its own blustery way it has made its presence known and we are grateful for it.

planning

 Since my gardening work this year is on the ambitious side (so many new plantings to put in!), I decided that I simply cannot do it in my typical fashion of deciding what goes where once the plants arrive at the farmhouse. I have to plan ahead.

I'm not used to doing this. Sketching flower beds seems really weird. (And walking around the farmette with these sketches later, when the plants get here, will seem even weirder.) Still, given the volume of planting, it has to be done and what better day for filling out those flower field maps than a day that is cool, gray and unhurried.

(I take my work to the breakfast table, letting Ed sleep in. He'd been up way too late for a morning meal with me. Still, he hears me clang dishes and before the leisurely cup of coffee is finished, he is with me, groggy, but good company nonetheless.)

I do throw a look at the flower beds outside and I notice the first signs of trouble: emerging tulips, chomped down by -- oh, who can even tell! Deer? groundhogs? Rabbits? We've got them all. There's not much you can do about it except hope that there soon will be enough stuff growing elsewhere, so that these plant eaters will leave my flowers alone.

I put down my planning maps and notes by early afternoon. I'm not nearly done, though it strikes me how much pleasanter it is to actually work outside than to draw up the plans for working outside. Ed has always accused me of being excessively meticulous in my planning. When I travel, I know exactly where I will be sleeping each night. But it's not the process of planning that is attractive to me. I just don't want to leave the worry of deciding for later. So, too, in my gardens now, I don't want to feel the stress of making choices down the road. If you do it in advance, then the trip, whether in travel or in the garden, begins with a clear head and an open heart.

In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop at school. As always, I come super early, so that I can take my place toward the front of the very long line. She doesn't have to wait too long to run to my car.

 

A new school, with all new kids for her, in these new and unusual times. Everyone wonders when our lives will return to some semblance of prepandemic normal. Me, I keep wondering when this little girl will be able to play with a friend, at home or at school, in the way that she once did. 

For now, I try to find crazy special things to do here at the farmette, even as she most likes to revert to her old faves. 

This includes -- cold weather notwithstanding -- time outside.

Kids are resilient. She is resilient. I am grateful for that.

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.