May Sandpiper

It was a morning that called for setting the alarm. Not that I ever need it, but just in case. I have to be at the young family home by 7.

(From Dance: hey, morning cat feeder-person, you're up early!)

(walk to barn: the peonies are coming into their special moment!)

Okay, I'm here! (Or rather there!) I'm to make sure the kids are ready for the day and that Snowdrop has all she needs for school. Yep, all set.

I drive the girl over. On time performance! Sparrow comes along for the ride. Can't leave him home -- no one's there to look after him. As we pull up to the school, she asks -- did you remember my mask?? I did not. I hand her a spare I keep in the car for myself, adjusting the bands a little. It's still big, but it will do until I go back and get her her regular one.

On all the back and forths, Sparrow points to random buildings and tells me -- that's my school over there. The super big one. Because I'm a big boy. Someone is missing going to school!

(he is getting tall...)

Later in the morning, his baby sitter arrives and I drive back to the farmette. Oh, the colors of a late May garden!!

(A very late breakfast with Ed...)

Back to work in the garden: I put in the last of the perennials and I weed. Always the weeding! 

I look around me. Here's a rose that is as faithful as that Yellowstone geyser. I don't really grow roses for many many reasons, but a while back I was tempted. I put in this one bush and it just keeps coming back. It has survived beetle attacks, droughts, high humidity, terrible winters and still, right about now it throws out lovely yellow and apricot flowers. All flowers should be this resilient!

But of course, the emerging stars are these guys!

Garden work done for now. I go to pick up Snowdrop at school. And I dare text my older girl who happens to be in the hospital. Any news??

Nothing to report yet. I drive again to the kids' home, mildly nervous about leaving Ed to his own devices today. He intends to rig up a rented trailer to his ancient truck and drive a hefty distance to pick up a used tractor mower. The weather is iffy, his truck is iffy, him handling a tractor mower and a trailer is iffy. Still, even if I were by his side, I'd be of little help. I reconcile myself to waiting. For updates from all sides.

(kids at play)

("we're ice skating!)

And finally in the early evening the call comes: Sandpiper was born at around 5 p.m., weighing in at 9 pounds. A May child, arriving without fuss, as if already content to be associated with  this most incredible time of the year..

Oh, Sandpiper! We can't come and see you today, there are COVID restrictions. Still, you were born at a safer time, though you sure had us worried early on. But you hung in there, little Wisconsin bird that you are, you held on and now here you're with us, with a crew of family to love you and friends to coo over you. Not today though. Today you get your private moment with mommy and daddy who will love you totally, always and then some.

 

(at home: p.j. time)

 

 

With love...

its leaves rustle o'er me

Snowdrop likes her music class at school. I don't know what they do in it, because as far as class time goes, the girl keeps descriptions short, but I've heard snippets about some group time and screen time and instrument time and it all seems to please her. When I was her age, or slightly older, I, too liked music class. Sometimes. We had a music teacher -- Mrs. Kaufmann -- who did not like me and I returned that favor. I have to admit, both of us had good reasons. She was awfully boring and stiff and I was a wild troublemaker (in her class). So much so that my parents got called to school for my misbehavior -- the one and only time where that happened in my school years.

But predictably, many decades later, I appreciate bits and pieces of that class and especially of Mrs. Kaufmann's choice of music material. When we were not clapping out rhythms and learning about scales, we sang. And among the many international songs (I went to an international school), she often returned to one that was my enduring favorite -- a traditional Welsh song -- the Ash Grove.

This morning I had the radio on even before breakfast, before animals, before all of it. And the first selection on the morning music program on NPR was the Ash Grove as performed by Cai Thomas.

Listen to it here:

Oh, the memories! And the way those beautiful notes came back to me on spring evenings when the "leaves rustled o'er me," or in Wales, where the song stayed with me, in the same way that Speed Bonny Boat -- another song learned in school -- was just the right thing to sing when I was on the Isle of Skye. 

Of course, it is fitting to have a song about a grove of trees stay in your head all morning on a day when tree planting still takes up a chunk of our time. (After breakfast of course.)

I admit to singing loudly rather than humming quietly. The chickens took it in stride. The cats were a little freaked out. They're very sensitive to unusual sounds.

In the afternoon I went shopping for wine. This is the first real shopping trip for me. I figured it would be brief and therefore I wouldn't feel too strange being inside a store. It was fantastic to look at real labels and to pick wines that again reminded me of places: one from Burgundy, one from the Lake Garda region of Italy and one from my beloved Catalan hills of southern France. Everything is so evocative right now!

And look what's blooming right now: this very tiny flower -- an original English bluebell! ("... around us for gladness the bluebells were ringing") I planted it last fall and had no hope for it at all and yet it flowered, bringing memories of a conversation about bluebells that I had with a whiskey craftsman on the Isle of Islay in Scotland. My own bluebell is growing in front of a lavender bush. Yes, that does remind me of France's lavender fields. How could it not!

Am I longing to set out somewhere? Nah... I'm just a little stuck in memories of past trips ("... each step wakes a memory as freely I roam"), the grand ones with lots of good walks and good food and good wine. Or whiskey, because when in Rome...

But to reiterate, I feel no tug to travel yet. Right now I am rooted at home, in our new forest and new and old flower beds at the farmette. And most of all, I am rooted to the people here, with whom my encounters were so precarious, tenuous, sometimes even impossible in this past year. ("... a host of kind faces is gazing on me")

Here's one such person! At the farmette, after school, in her pajamas, because it was pj day in her class.

She has little interest in staying outside, possibly because it feels sticky hot out there and cool and shady indoors.

And in the evening, we throw open the windows to the cooling air and I get ready for the interesting set of days ahead!

a break and a brake

You can set hefty goals for yourself and you can work hard to achieve them, all in a timely fashion, but the fact is, you'll never have total control over the outcome. Stuff happens.

I thought about this today as Ed and I rushed to be done with morning chores so that we could go out and plant more trees. It was drizzling lightly and everything was lush and green and wonderful, but also wet and soggy and muddy. 

Breakfast on the porch. Leisurely, because of the drizzle. And then, unexpectedly, the drizzle stops.

Leisurely breakfast comes to a fast end. I grab a half dozen hickories and a couple of maples to plant and settle into a morning of filling holes with dirt and breaking up chunks of clay. This is when I hear Ed calling from across the field. He needs help. The tractor-mower is not spinning its rear wheel so we have to half push half drive the machine out of a ditch and up to the courtyard. I do the steering, Ed does the pushing. He is a strong guy, but that is one heavy piece of equipment. He's fiercely panting as we maneuver it up the incline.

He does a quick inspection and concludes it cannot be fixed. Not easily and cheaply. And we cannot continue with the tree planting without its help. So off he goes to search Craigslist for another tractor mower -- one that works, while I continue to put trees in holes, and to clear beds and do all that stuff that is still part of my game plan for this growing season.

Ed has found a used machine that will be here tomorrow. Me, I'm about to grab something resembling lunch when my eyes fall on the rhubarb growing at the side of the walkway. The people who used to farm here planted it and though I myself would not have put it so close to the front door, it's there and it produces a hefty amount of stalks right about now. In other words -- I realize that I really need to do something with that rhubarb! 

I break for a pep talk with my friends. Sometimes what you need is a bit of distance from whatever it is that's filling your day. 

 

And then I get to it. No more planting. I'm in the kitchen baking rhubarb cake and sauteing crunchy chicken for the young family's Sunday dinner at the farmhouse. I mean, could a meal be more homey than that?

The family's here! The kids spend a few mins outside. Stuff to explore, asparagus to pick.

(Dinner)

And so the day disappears behind May clouds. And honestly, we did get a lot done. Not exactly according to plan and perhaps not in the way that we intended, but still, it's been a lovely day, full of interesting twists and sweet moments. And the birds sang and more flowers joined the parade of blooms.

I can only wonder what the week before us will bring!

in the heat of the day

 It's not a race. Except, it sort of is. I am planting in weather that surely belongs to July. Flowers and trees -- they need to be in the ground. Now, this week. And so we work quickly. Despite the blast. Oh, did I mention it? It's hot! Reaching a toasty 82F (28C). I'm reminded of those scenes from movies that want to create a mood of relentless summer heat: a fly buzzes  persistently, a breeze rustles a few leaves then dies down. The air sizzles. Straight out of the Godfather in Sicily, no?

(chicks and cats, restless...)

 

 

 

We eat breakfast on the porch, seeking out the places at the table that remain in the shade.

(what's blooming? at the beginning and at the end of the season, much of the color is in the tubs...)

And then immediately after the morning meal, we go back to the new forest of trees. I put in the last walnut and the last hazelnut and more importantly, we find spaces for the hickories and we add one more row to the very northern edge of farmette lands where we can slip in a few more maples.

The planted trees are doing well, except, well, one cage was trampled down overnight, obviously by a deer. It's not that she was searching for the twig inside, it's that she likely did not see the cage. They are practically invisible. Ed will be weaving bright orange strips through all of them going forward. As a warning. Watch where you're going! We're hoping it's enough to keep the deer away.

I pause in the early afternoon. I have some repair work to do in the flower beds. Irises to move. And of course, the last handful of lilies to put in. I can't really get to all that right away because I  promised my daughter I'd help out with an outside play date that Snowdrop has orchestrated for this afternoon. 

Two new school friends. Snowdrop is so very excited! Sure, there are still the precautions that we have to follow: outside, try for distance, try for masks, at least when not eating. Still, the little girl has been wanting this so very much that she just cannot wait!

(Sparrow truly believes that his school friends will come as well. Never mind that he hasn't been in school for well over a year and what friends he had back when he was a toddler wouldn't remember him any more than he remembers them.)

(pregnant mommy)

Did I mention that it's hot? When her friends arrive, the sprinkler goes on!

Sparrow joins in for a bit after his nap.

It is truly grand to be so close to an almost normal day!

Evening. Where to put the small shreds of remaining energy? The trees? The flowers? Both! A few more maples, a day lily here, and the rest? Well, there's always tomorrow. And the next day. I want to be (basically) done by Tuesday! Can we do it? We will see.

to be impressed

People don't often plant white gardens (or moonlight gardens as some would call them). White flowers are rare and their impact is subtle. Maybe it's what the first owners of White Flower Farm (a nursery that has been supplying me with flowers for nearly thirty-five years) were going for when they chose that name for their flower growing business -- finding the unusual among the common. In any case, I'm no different than the vast majority of gardeners: I have a few white flowers, but not very many.

Given my preference for the pink-blue-lemon yellow spring range...

(like this false blue indigo...)

 

 

 

(... or the pink flowers emerging on this weigela bush)

it is always a bit of a surprise to face one of the flower beds right around now (the one closest to where we park the cars, so it rarely gets photographed in its entirety, because cars are are not an attractive background). It is effectively all green and white: clematis at one end, a large patch of white bearded iris at the other, and the dainty (and ever spreading!) white anemone at the front. 

 

 

And it is the biggest bloomer right now. All white! Well, not entirely. Hiding behind a lilium stem is this pinky girl:

 

But you can't really see her because the lilium popped up right in front of her this year. So -- all white!

 

It's cloudy today. We hoped for a good morning of tree planting and indeed, right after breakfast...

... we took out all the equipment and got to work, aiming to fill the far flung corners with some hickories and the last of the hazelnuts and walnuts, but the rain came and even though initially we shrugged it off, it got to be too unpleasant and so after putting in just two trees, we retreated indoors.

As of this day, we have planted 39 trees. We're happy to see that some of them are budding, so they must be fairly content in their new home. (The real test, of course, comes this first winter...)  Because Ed left a handful of old trees standing in the new forest, there is less space for the new ones than we had originally thought. No matter! We have ideas on where to plant the newbies elsewhere on the property. But we have to hurry: the longer they stay in the fridge, the lass chance they have of a successful adaptation to their new environment. So guess what we're going to be doing in the next few days? Yep -- we're going to keep on planting.

In the afternoon, the rains stop (for a bit), but I am now with Snowdrop so the tree project is put on hold. 

The girl does spend a wee bit of time outside...

 

 

... but it is the end of the week and she needs her more restful moments on the couch.

But toward evening, as we walk to the car for the return trip home, she bolts on me. We haven't checked in on the chicks. She has to check in on the chicks. It's raining. She sprints to the barn.

No chicks.

 

Let's go back and look together.

There they are!

She herds them back in.  

 

And she manages to successfully flock all three back to the coop. Happy follows. But the older girls resist. Ah well. at least everyone is in the barn and out of the rain.

But the continuing shower means that Ed and I never make it back to the tree project. And maybe that's a good thing. Evening plantings mean late dinners, and late dinners mean late nights and tired mornings. Instead, I cook up some fish, steam some spinach and sautee a few potatoes. After dinner, we watch Dance chase a mouse. And I go to sleep before midnight (this is aspirational: I'm not there yet).  And tomorrow, we'll plant an impressive number of trees! Maybe.

 

work all day 'til the night time comes...

In years past, the end of May brought with it a reprieve from heavy outdoor work. Once the tomatoes went in, we breathed a big sigh of relief and settled down to a good balance of maintenance work and getting on with our lives. But this year is different. In so many ways it is so very different!

The flower planting, typically finished by now, is still trickling in, with one more package of lilies (they were on a super sale!) coming in this weekend (the last one, I promise!). Oh, there's plenty of room for them. Establishing new beds means that bare spots are numerous. So yes, I've put in some 225 new plants this year and if you sent me ten more, I could easily find places for them. (But please don't send me ten more! I want to be done with planting!)

Then came the rains and the weeds. So many weeds! Enough on that.

But by far, the tree project dominates our lives right now and zaps our energies. Ed has the heaviest of the heavy jobs: clearing that bit of farmette land was huge. And he's still not done with it. Too, he does the digging. And the soil is awful and the chunks of clay are heavy and stubbornly clumpy. I know, because I have to break them up. That hope of planting ten trees each day? Forget it. There is so much prep work for each one that we're struggling to meet half that goal. (Though today, to our credit, we put in six: five English walnuts and one pecan!)

So of course, today -- a warm day, a mostly cloudy day (we like that when we're working out in the fields!) -- was spent on all the above. Flowers, weeds, trees. Outside, working with few pauses. Sparrow typically spends some chunk of time here on Thursdays, but today the parents had scheduling issues that kept the lad home. This simply meant that after my morning walk...

(clematis)

(iris)

... and after breakfast...

we get right down to work.

But here's a pleasant change of pace: in the afternoon, we hop on Ed's motorcycle and go to our local farmer's market -- this is a first for me! I missed the entire season last year, so yes, it's been two years since I've had a face-to-face with, say, Farmer John.

Too, we signed up for a new for us CSA. (Remember? A CSA is Community Supported Agriculture, where you pay a farmer for a season's worth of produce -- whatever he or she puts in the box every week.) It's called Tipi Produce and I'm quite excited by it because I think it's a good match with our eating habits. Today's box had everything wonderful in it: overwintered potatoes (great for a frittata addition!), asparagus (we're swimming in it right now and I could not be happier!), spinach (there's never too much of it!), green leaf lettuce (Ed and I eat at least a head a day), arugula (we consume a huge amount of this as well and the locally grown one is always hugely better), amara kale (I tend to stick a bunch in my veggie soup), small radishes (into the salad they go!), and green garlic (a spring delicacy!). 

Tipi's also has a wonderful blog with beautiful photos from their farm. Today's post was just perfect. If you didn't click on it, let me tell you that (in addition to cool recipes and notes on how to work with their produce) it has a lovely sentence about finding joy in a beautiful sky. So true. So much grandness from just tilting your head up a little.

Evening: I need to use up last year's tomatoes, so it's chili time at the farmette. Ever had chili with a side of asparagus? We did!

after the rain

It's a wet landscape out there. A wet and weedy landscape.  On my morning walk I can't help but notice the hundreds, nay thousands of new weed heads. I no longer dig out roots, I snip off anything above the ground, trying to take out as much as I can. Of course, I dont even make a dent. In these new flower beds, the baby plants take up no space at all and so the weeds have plenty of opportunity to come back and taunt me. But I cannot give in. I've worked too hard to establish these beds. I have to persevere. Bend down and pluck, a million times each day.

Most flowers look refreshed after the rain. And some bend their blooming heads under the weight of the added moisture. It's especially beautiful to watch the lilac curve its flower heads. A final flush of purple color, a final whiff of a heavenly fragrance.

 

(Speaking of purple...)

Breakfast, now routinely outside. It's definitely warm enough.

And afterwards we take stock. We have trees to plant, sure, but I'm the landscape planner here (Ed prefers it that way) and I do not see many sunny spaces left for the trees we have left. Walnuts, for example, love sunshine. We walk the new forest lands and look at the box elders that have created so much shade.

I suppose I can take those four trees down... This from Ed.

I know it seems odd -- take down mature trees in order to plant babies which may or may not take hold, but box elders are like cotton candy: they spin out of control quickly and their life span is short. They fall down at inconvenient times and in inconvenient places. We have dozens of them and apart from the fact that they do give some shade and protection from the winds that blow across the upper midwest, they really are as big a nuisance as creeping charlie. Like noxious weeds, they crowd out everything. I am glad, therefore, that Ed has agreed to take down a box elder grove that's growing right in the middle of our baby forest, but it does mean that we'll have to slow down our planting. We put the remaining trees in the refrigerator and turn to other catch-up chores: Ed needs to lay chips on top of the fabric that surround the new saplings. And I offer to finish planting the tomatoes.

I work in the field taking in that wonderful aroma of tomato plants, digging and planting, digging and planting one after the next until the last thirty-two are in the ground. Will they produce this year? Last year the deer ate 95% of our crop. They may have shared a little with the groundhog -- we're not sure about that, but by season's end we had nothing left. This year we're trying our magic pepper concoction that seemed to work well at fending off the groundhogs and bunny rabbits from my perennials. We'll see how effective it is on tomato plants!

 

 

 

In the afternoon we haul some furniture that Ed put together to my mom's place. We'll still have to help her with wall hangings, but at least in terms of moving stuff in -- we're done. 

The day's not over! I have my very last flower order to pick up from the Flower Factory. They're getting rid of all their day lilies and so they're selling off some pretty nice, mature plants. Yes, there is always room in the flower fields for more lilies!

Lunch? Close to 5 p.m. I know -- why not just call it dinner? (Because it's almond butter on toast, with jam. Definitely not dinner food.)

And still we're not done! Ed takes out his power saw... 

 

 

 

... and I take some walnut twigs for planting. We work until our enthusiasm for being outdoors sags and the idea of dinner sounds so good! But it's late and we are both tired. Want to see if we can get pizza delivered? That's Ed's idea. Remarkable in that the two of us have never to my recollection had a pizza delivered. Nor is there a pizza place nearby. We do live in the country!

But we call an Italian Restaurant and of course these days everyone does take out and yes, they deliver if you're within five miles, and sure enough, if you take the shortest set of roads, we fit!

I think about all that we are planting this year -- all those flowers, the tomatoes, the trees. What a grand leap of faith! A belief that we can do this, despite hiccups, despite the labor, despite all that can still go wrong. We never think in those terms. Think of all that can go right! -- that's what pushes us forward.

(All together now...)

People who grow things are, without a doubt, the world's greatest optimists.