nostalgie

In this last year, I've let myself go back to some favorite destinations, to wander in my mind's eye along familiar paths, to sit on a terrace cafe maybe with a croissant on my plate and a steaming grand creme to sip slowly, just so it can last. And I imagined a ride to the beach, or to a seaside village, with the radio set to the station called, appropriately, Nostalgie, as it plays les plus grandes chansons -- classic pop music, mostly from France but not only. I wondered if I would feel content doing such a trip now, or if that kind of a return to something familiar and loved is like rereading a favorite novel -- it's good, but not as good as it was the first time.

I had a whiff of this kind of nostalgic return today, though certainly not as adventurous as a trip to the other side of the ocean. Still, it was a return to a familiar space and I have to say, it felt even better than the other times from other years.

It happened on another hot and sunny day. The rains had totally passed us by and I know I'll have to take up watering again, rotating with a hose over to the front bed, which right now looks like a neglected space right out of a movie where everything has gone to seed and the owners or caretakers have abandoned ship and moved to far off lands, and only the occasional blooming flower will recall a past splendor that definitely is no more.

But the watering will have to wait until later in the day. This morning, after a run through the usual farmette chores...

And a breakfast in the cool, emphasize very pleasantly cool kitchen...

I go over to Madison's city pool. It opened just yesterday and on a whim, I bought a season's pass.

I don't really intend to go there for lap swim (though if this weather continues, I might be tempted), but I noticed that they've introduced a weekend morning swim for young kids (under age 10) and their parents and caregivers, to keep things calm for them. I liked that idea. Older kids are loud and they cannonball into the water and they splash each other and therefore you because you're always in their path, and I fully believe they should have their fun, but this set up for just young kids is so much kinder and gentler for those who love a tamer water experience.

I was told that Snowdrop and Sparrow were enjoying their neighborhood pool tremendously and I wondered if they'd like to go back to the city pool on one of these weekend mornings. The answer was a resounding yes and so today, the first day of this "quiet" pool time, we met up for a family morning in the pool.

I know this pool very well. It's just a couple of blocks from Snowdrop's old school and she and I had spent many, many afternoons going over to it right after a summer school day. Not last year. Covid kept us all away from public spaces last year (was it even open?), but we went the year before and one before that as well.

The remarkable thing about this pool is that it has an unusually large shallow area. It's really ideal for young kids -- they can cavort easily, without crashing into each other or reaching the deep end right away.

It turns out that Sparrow is a little shy about pools. No surprise. Covid hit at such a young age for him that he remembers nothing from pre-Covid times. We'd brought him to this pool as a baby, but not since then.

But, what's there not to love! The air is so warm and the pool is so refreshing and it's not at all crowded!

At one point, Snowdrop engaged me in some pretend play with some characters we'd brought with us and she got really sentimental about the sheer pleasure of lying in that shallow water, and I thought this was not unlike the cafe moment with that lingering cafe creme: we're going back to how it once was, only today, after tumultuous times, it is all so much better, because you know how easy it was to lose it all, and yet we were lucky, and we made it, and the family's grown and still, here we are, in that pool, lingering, like over a meal on that terrace, feeling content at just being there.

Perhaps wanting herself to prolong the feeling of nostalgie, Snowdrop asked to come home with me to the farmhouse. Sure! Lunch, lots of books, snippets of conversation about how the summer is going. And then I take her home. Yes, in a sweater. Yes, it's hot. Long story.

In the late afternoon, I do return to the front flower bed, hose in hand. I notice I'm wearing a dress Ed bought for me on one of our train trips to Perpignan (in the south of France; these were Sorede days for those who remember Sorede). And this is the important annotation to any such memories of lingering moments over a cafe creme or a splash in a shallow pool -- it's not the perfection of the place (though that cafe terrace, or that extended shallow pool on a hot morning are awfully nice) that has you going back to it with nostalgie, but it's the memory of a shared experience, where all were made happy by it. 

still hot, still dry

If I keep on watering, maybe it will rain. Last time I lugged many cans of water to the meadow we had an unexpected shower. Perhaps if I do the same for the back beds (where the hose wont reach), maybe we'll get lucky with rain tonight. There is that tantalizing possibility! 

And so early on, before the heat sets in, I water and Ed plants potatoes. A funny thing about those potatoes: I had about a half dozen leftover from my autumnal CSA: in the end they'd started to sprout (I really do not use potatoes much in my cooking) and so I tossed them into the compost. Within a couple of months, we had beautiful potato plants growing. They needed a better home than our compost pile and so today Ed transferred them to our tomato patch. And by the way, let me give you an update on those tomatoes. Here they are:

A fabulous year for them thus far. Spraying them with habanero peppers seems to have kept the deer and groundhogs away. Might we finally have a bumper crop? It's been several years since we beat the pests, animals and weather demons.

So long as we're touting potential success stories, I noticed that our cherry tree is producing as well!

Peaches, too, are heavy on the peach tree limb. So it's not all bad out there in the hot gardens of the farmette!

 

 

 

But breakfast is definitely inside. Too hot and too loud on the porch. The trucks are leveling the land to the east of us, preparing it for community gardens (we think). We retreat to the quiet of our farmhouse.

(During my garden work, I always have the company of the animals.)

 

(Cherry, the youngest girl)

(Peach, the oldest girl)

 

I do take a pause with watering and weeding in the afternoon to go over to my daughter's house, just to check in with any child that is available for a quick hello and, too for a chat with their mom. It's too easy to stick with the minutia of daily life and forget about more leisurely exchanges.

(A few moments with the kids...)

(Mommy sings, Sandpiper sings...)

(Well, it was a good first effort...)

 

I leave them all in this new configuration...

In the evening I suggest to Ed that we do take-out for dinner. It's been many weeks since we had one. And so we are back to tossing around ideas as to what constitutes a take-out worth driving for. Oh, I remember those times from before the pandemic! Should we go out? Should we pick something up and bring it home? I haven't missed those ridiculously indulgent discussions. When you just stick with daily cooking, you plan your menu, buy your foods and you cook. No discussion, no dilemmas. Tonight, we toss around many unsatisfactory ideas and in the end, I make a frittata. Returning to normal habits is proving to be quite hard!

hot, continued

I am on the mailing lists of three farming families. They send newsy updates every week or so and last night I heard from them all. Their stories were uniformly grim: the wild weather this spring has really messed with the growing season. One weekend, a farmer sprayed water to keep his crops from freezing during that unexpected late coming of night frost and the next weekend he was spraying again, this time to help his crop weather the unusually high temperatures. And it's been in the 80sF and 90sF (upwards of 30C) ever since. With no rain. I read reports of crop failures and of necessary purchases of miles of drip hose. And there's no end in sight. The skies are clear, the air is hot. And so it shall continue.

On the upside, some plants do like (or at least tolerate) heat, and drip lines aren't prohibitively expensive (though putting them in properly is time consuming, which is why I don't use them). All is not lost. But it is a challenging spring.

Morning walk? Hot! This is what summer phlox looks like!

(The first sweat pea...)

Morning breakfast -- on the porch, but we're chasing the shade and we have the fan going.

 

 

 

Immediately after, the two older kids come over for a morning here. They're a little spooked by my message to them this weekend. I'd said "watch out for the deer flies." This is a necessary warning during the intense deer fly season because if you inadvertently allow a fly to follow you into the car, it can be a miserable ride for all. Luckily, our deer fly population seems to have gone down substantially (theirs is a short season), but still, every time something buzzed nearby, Snowdrop would ask in alarm -- is that a black fly? Sparrow seemed to take it in stride. Bug bites aren't firmly implanted in his three year old sensibilities.

Flies, or the threat of flies and the real hot air chase the kids inside. Oh, the safe cool haven of the farmhouse during a heat wave!

Toward lunchtime we pile into the car for the trip home. As I back out of the driveway, I hardly notice that the radio is on. It always comes on when I crank the engine. Who knows why. Anyway, there's some very lovely chamber music playing and I'm tempted to leave it on, but I hear protest from the back seat.

I don't like classical music. (This from Snowdrop.)

Why?

It's too sad.

Oh yes. It's so easy to be overwhelmed by something astonishingly beautiful, but of course, this is just a small chamber piece!  I wonder if she will change her mind once she begins seriously taking up a musical instrument.

Sparrow lightens the moment by chiming in with something silly and funny and we switch to discussing where we get our ideas for names.

In the afternoon, I have a visitor. A friend whom I have not seen for a while. Someone longtime Ocean reader might have known from the early years of blogging. We were a group of six bloggers and we would routinely get together over a meal, with lots of carefully prepared food, wonderfully paired wine and six laptops turned on to our common interest. We not only blogged, ate and drank together, some of us went so far as to travel together. I said -- come to Poland and they did.

He and his wife recently moved nearby and we discovered that we share a CSA now and so here we are, meeting up again, though without the computers or wines or even foods. Just stories. From all those years of navigating life as presidents came and went, grandchildren came and stayed, and a pandemic raged.

In the late afternoon, I turn on the hose. I have to. Up to now, I've only watered the new plants. This time, I include old ones as well. It has come to that. My pause from garden work was very short indeed.  

I don't care what the calendar says. Summer has surely arrived.

(Today, in our CSA veggie box)

inside

Would you believe that I spent 98% of the day indoors? Am I running from the heat? From the deer flies? Am I taking a gardening break since, you know, I'm caught up?

None of that. I have cooking and baking on my agenda for today. And both, last I checked, are inside activities.

So, a brief walk to check on the animals...

(Clematis, climbing the sheep shed...)

 

(the very last peony blooms...)

And a steamy breakfast on the porch...

And then I get to work. Why the added kitchen time? It's Sparrow's third birthday today and the young family is with us this evening to continue with his celebrations.

As I work in the kitchen, I think about being a second child. I'm one as well, though there was no third in my family. You could say that my upbringing has nothing in common with Sparrow's. I didn't even live in this country and on my third birthday, home for me was in the village with my grandparents (rather than in the city with my parents). Nonetheless, I know what it's like to be the "next in line." To have an older sister in school when you yourself are not yet there. To have her art outpace my scribbles.

Sparrow has a powerful sense of humor and he will not take the back seat during a meal time conversation, even though his stories can't stand up in content to those offered by everyone who is older at the table. But he doesn't give up. He just keeps on going and there is always a chuckle in him, which of course means that we all chuckle too.

So I think about this three year old as I first make the caramel sauce, then the cake layers and then the ganache for his birthday cake...

 

 

 

... and it strikes me that cakes in bakeries are way under priced because the labor involved is always so huge! Here I am, baking all day and it's just one cake and it's not even especially complicated, though I am once more trying a new recipe because with chocolate cakes you can never just settle for the one you did in the past, you always have to try someone's idea of THE best chocolate cake ever (this one comes from Tartine, though the sprinkles are a nod to a the boy who loves sprinkles).

The young family comes...

 

 

 

 

 

... and the heat drives us inside and now here we are, celebrating this little guy who happens to be both a younger brother and an older brother all at the same time and how remarkable is that!

And we linger and chat with the Chicago family... 

 

 

 

... and eat dinner and open presents... 

 

 

 

 

"Happy Birthday to you..."

 

 

"Happy Birthday to you..."

 

 

 

... and here's another thought I have on the subject of this day and birthdays in general: June celebrations are wonderful. 

 

 

 

Typically we are not in a drought with crazy hot temperatures, but even as we are riding this heat wave, I have to say, the nights do calm down a little and the grasses are still green and there is that promise of a garden about to bloom. And perhaps most importantly -- the days are so long! So that when the young family has left and the dishes are put away and even at this late hour, I have time to go out for a little ride on my scooter to review the day in my head with the breezes blowing and the animals sharing my space and the pungent aromas of a lush landscape hitting me from every side and yes, it feels so good!

 

 

 

(the last climb uphill back to the farmette)

Happy days, happy birthdays, happy moments. They don't just show up on your doorstep. You have to look for them and make space for them and it's like baking a cake -- it takes time and it's not easy, but oh so worth it. And the more you do it, the more adept you become.  Good cakes, happy birthdays, content moments. To be shared. With those you love.

flipped

My daughter sends a morning text: can we switch Snowdrop's farmette visit to this morning so that she can go swimming in the afternoon? Me, I'm full of weather information! I quickly respond: she is going to be disappointed! There will be storms all afternoon. 90% chance. She may as well come here then.

And once again Ed and I get to work early. I have some garden adjusting to do: transplant some flowers that will do better elsewhere. Weed, snip, take stock.

And pause for a late breakfast.

 

 

Immediately after, I return to work. To beat the rain. And it is hot. And the clouds move on. And I'm thinking -- if it's going to rain, then it will have to come from sapphire blue skies. There's not a cloud up there!

And so Snowdrop does go swimming and I continue to work until Ed says (three times) -- Nina, you have to come in from the sun occasionally. You'll get heat stroke!

Ed never urges me to do anything that's safer than what I'm doing and he rarely calls me Nina, so I know he is serious. But I can't come in! I want to put in this lily and divide that one and there are so many weeds in this bed and why don't I move that lavender plant...

And what June flowers are blooming now? Well, there's the ever lovely penstemon (you may know it by its common name -- beardtongue), this one called "Mission Bells."

Here's a cheat, because it's not really a June flower: Hemerocallis Primal Scream. Out of the 232 new perennials I planted this year, 80 were day lilies (aka Hemerocallis). It is an exercise in patience since the day lily hugely under-performs the first year in the ground. So often it will put out one or two early blooms and then call it a season. That's what's happening with this one:

 

Keeping me company: the two little pullets. Here's Cherry:

... now joined by Unie:

And by early evening, I catch up! With just about everything! Planting, dividing, deadheading, chipping, weeding. I do not have a to do list anymore. Weird to be looking at a blank slate!

Oh, I could walk the fields and always find another handful of weeds. Too, I'm sure I'll need to water later in the week. We had sunshine all day long. Not a drop of the predicted rain. But in the end, it's the deer flies that cause me to stop for the day. They aren't the worst we've ever had (so far!), but they are pretty annoying and I have many itchy bites to show for it. Hateful things. Luckily, their season is typically short. I'm hoping in a couple of weeks we'll see the end of them.

To celebrate the incredibly productive day, I take an evening scooter ride again. That cool breeze that comes with trotting along at 35 mph is heavenly and when you're scooting, there are no biting flies. Nothing but the views, the chat with animals encountered along the way, and good thoughts about the incredibly good fortune of being alive.