Wednesday

Morning cold.

Breakfast warmth.

Afternoon? Bitter cold still. Nevertheless, I have a plan. Ed doubts the wisdom of it. We're at the warmest point -- a whopping 6F (-9C) and the wind is downright cruel. Arctic level horrors out there. Or at least what you'd expect in the northern most settlements of Canada, where people never shed their puffy parkas. Still, the day had me taking care of business on the computer and now, as the sun is rapidly getting closer to the horizon, I need movement. So I suggest we ski.

But your knee! Don't you need to rest it? 

Ed never gives me advice on what I need or should do, so I know he is coming up with irrelevant excuses. 

The one thing my knee loves is skiing, I tell him. This is true. Gliding on snow only loosens it up and I can use the poles to help bring the weight off that bothersome left leg. Let's go.

 

Does it surprise anyone that both the left and the right parking lots of our local park are just about empty? (There is a car, but it's one of those where a guy sits with the engine running to keep warm as he "chills." The parking lots here often have one or two of those. Either they're chilling or they're waiting for an illegal drop-off, which we probably interrupt with our presence.)

At least I have a scarf. Ed takes the opposite position on scarves to that held by French men (they always wear them, he never does). 

We take on the right-of-the-road segment. A path, really. Not groomed, but trampled down enough to create gliding potential.

And of course, after a few minutes, the bitter cold becomes just a normal winter cold and the rhythmic schussing down that path is so good, so energizing, that there is no question about the rightness of our being there.

We are mountain animals! We are snowbirds! We are alive!

Satisfied, we drive home. The longer way, where at dusk, deer saunter and move freely.

Beautiful. All of it: the snow, the light, the deer. Stunningly beautiful.

I have to rub it in: aren't you glad we went out?

Yes gorgeous.

 

With love...

Tuesday

How many times have you heard this warning in recent weeks -- you may be done with Covid, but Covid isn't done with you yet? Yeah, me too. And I had another twist to this when I learned that Sparrow's class has again shut down for a week to ten days because of Covid exposure in the class. So even though Sparrow has had Covid, he can't go to school because of Covid exposure. If that makes sense to you then you are a smarter person than I am. I called the school. They will revisit their policy.

Outside, the day is sparkling! I mean, just stunning!

The kind that has "crisp" and "brilliant" written all over its lovely face!

It's bitter cold, of course. My walk to the barn was in readings well below 0F (-18C). But, that's why we have bulky parkas that make us look plump and keep us toasty warm. It's exhilarating to be outside, truly it is.

It's also perfect weather for baking something. I have a ton of frozen rhubarb so a rhubarb coffee cake sounds so very perfect.

For breakfast (and for an afternoon visitor -- my granddaughter -- who just loves coffee rhubarb cake).

I have a bunch of emails to catch up on and I do that, thinking all the while about the graveyard of forgotten aspirations. That's what I call my Inbox, where messages lay dormant because I once intended to pursue them -- maybe read a suggested article or do a clever activity (like practice my French) -- but over time, they moved down, well beyond my eyesight and I forgot about them completely. I could clean it all out, trash that reminder to do X, or read Y, or buy Z, but somehow I cannot. Perhaps one day I will scroll through the emails of my life during the pandemic and take note of all that seemed doable but somehow never got done. Add that to the list of why the pandemic sucks: it pummeled our aspirations and build a wall of excuses for us. Because if I can't go to France, then why bother repeating conjugations of irregular verbs. And if I can't leave the house, then why read about places I could only theoretically explore. Fighting pandemic numbness takes energy. I concentrate on the kids, on Ed, on farmette work. On the occasional ski run or quick skate. After that, I have little left to fight the urge to just chill and watch a mini series with Ed where people shoot and kill each other but there is always that last episode in sight, where everything will resolve itself and the characters will have moved on. Just like someday, we will have moved on beyond the pandemic. Just not yet. Because, you know, it's not done with us yet.

In the afternoon, however, we return to a schedule long forgotten -- where I pick up Snowdrop from school and bring her to the farmhouse. I refuse to go skating today. It's cold and I find it hard to lace up four skate boots with ungloved hands. My fingers freeze right about midway up the second boot. And, too, I'll admit it -- I have to give my knee a rest. The ribs, after being bumped around some, are willing to return to some state of calm, but the knee -- it needs time, so today I give it time.

Snowdrop doesn't mind. It's been a while since she's had an afternoon at the farmhouse.

(It's still in single digits F (so below -12C), but she is certain she does not need a jacket to walk from car to house!)

(Ah, back to our old normal.)

 

 

 

Food, books, games. A tease with Ed.

And in the evening I drive her home, with a special treat: a drive through a car wash! What kid, what grownup doesn't love suds being whipped on the car while you're in the warm safe interior, waiting for the transformative experience of having the car emerge out of the bath squeaky clean and ready for the next set of adventures?

(Here's a fellow who might not like the experience, even as he loves his car games at home.)

Tonight may well bring down the temperatures to their lowest numbers yet. We're ready for it. The house is warm, winter is one third behind us. Aren't we lucky!

Monday

We woke up to more freshly fallen snow. Once again, there is great beauty just outside the farmhouse window.

Still and quiet. Gentle and calm.

We will get that Arctic blast by nightfall, but for now, it's just plain old winter cold. Nothing unusual, nothing to keep us housebound.

Breakfast first though. Keep that hot oatmeal coming!

Afterwards, I think once again about stuff. I want to empty out the farmhouse more and I have to devise a better way to do it than just to walk around each room and see what items throw themselves at me in their uselessness. Stuff. Why do we bring so much of it into our homes? I tell my Polish friends who bought my Warsaw apartment that I am not going to think twice about what's there. They can take it all, along with the keys to the unit. Those sweet spoons from Paris? That blanket from Scotland? Nice, but I don't need them here. I have plenty of blankets, plenty of pretty spoons. Trinkets, big and small, belonged to an era that is quickly passing (of frequent travel to my own place in my country of birth).  I wanted to see if Warsaw is still a big chunk of who I am. Turns out it may be, but I don't need a constant reaffirmation of that. And I don't need a physical space (with physical objects in it) to feel that my roots are deeply wedged into the neighborhoods and streets of that city.

 

Monday is not a day I typically spend with the kids -- rather, I catch up with all that loads my todo lists from the week before. Typically. But today, Snowdrop really wanted to skate and since much of the rest of the week will be too freezing for words, I agreed to pick her up at school and head out to the local park rink.

(gaga, can I borrow your scarf? sure!)

(skating selfie)

I take her home afterwards and I linger there for a bit. It's the first time no one in the household is under quarantine! Sparrow just came home from school and Sandpiper is a little dazed by the sudden tumult, as older kids, a sitter, mommy and gogs all descend at once. 

Still, it's good to see them all again, without masks and inside a warm space!

 

 

 

From there it is a mad dash to pick up Ed before the sun sets. No great ambition for today's skiing -- just our local park. It's cold alright, but we stick it out. Ribs and knee? Best ignored. Can't pass up a beautiful ski run in the sunset. 

 

 

 

Inhale, exhale. Smile.

 

 

finally

It snowed last night. Not the icy shower we got in December. Not the wet two inches we got in January. Not the scant dusting that comes and goes leaving nothing more than a thin cover over packed ice. It snowed the beautiful snow of the high mountains. Light powder, several inches of it, covering every mistake and imperfection that winter has carved out thus far. In the morning, the sun is out, the skies are crystal clear. This, my dears, is what makes us love winter so much!

I am still mightily bruised from my ice tumble yesterday, but I can tell that nothing is shattered or punctured and even the swollen knee will recover at some point, perhaps in the near future. In other words, I'm on the mend so I wont fret about it. Indeed, I joined Ed in shoveling outside. The snow is light, the air is bracing, the farmette lands look splendid with their winter quilt of white stuff.

Breakfast, on the other hand, shows just how muddled the season can be: on the one hand, we have our warm oatmeal and I have the furnace up to give us plenty of warm air and there is a candle on the table celebrating the coziness of the season. On the other hand, Ed and I are talking about our spring planting project. I have ordered some stuff for it and I need to read up on how best to transform the soil out back to something more hospitable to the new arrivals than solid clay. Too, I bought a small bouquet of flowers at our grocery store (we're still doing home deliveries) and it could not shout more clearly that it belongs to the season that comes after winter!

Winter beauty and spring thoughts. They often go hand in hand.

In the afternoon I decide to throw caution to the wind and go skiing with Ed. I just cannot resist it: perfect snow, perfect sunshine. It's as close to a majestic mountain winter day as we get around here.

Despite the fact that my rib cage still feels like it's on fire, though not as blazing a flame as last night, and I still cant use my knee in all possible bends and permutations, nonetheless, I feel like we ought to aim big today. We have a number of Nordic ski trails within about an hour's drive of the farmette. I pick a cluster to the east -- in the Kettle Moraine State Forest. 

And it is beautiful! We are a little late to arrive. Ed had slept until the noon hour, we lingered and dallied and did this and did that. (For example, I conducted a mega transaction today: I sold my apartment in Warsaw.) Still, we have a few hours of daylight left. The trails are full of new snow and most of them are beautifully groomed and ready for us devoted Nordic types. We choose the intermediate runs. None of this sissy gentle stuff. (My ribs will never be the same again! Uff!)

We see fewer than a handful of others. We have the peace of a snow covered forest. What more could a person want...

We drive home in that blissful state of quiet satisfaction. It was such a stunning winter day! We are grateful and content. (And a little sore.)

 

With love...

the cheepers are coming, the cheepers are coming...

Is it the first sign of spring? Today, the girls and their protector left the barn and walked (slid?) over to the garage.

This sign of movement, of abandoning their corner of the barn where they huddled all day long for all of  January, is hope-filled. It's as if you can remind yourself that no huddle lasts forever, no brutal wind can bar you from eventually moving forward. 

Marveling at the beauty of it all, I sit down to breakfast, alone because Ed could not, would not wake up before the lunch hour.

It looks like it is a fairly good day for ice skating. Below freezing, but with a bit of sunshine. Yet there's a hidden gut punch: the wind. Oh, the bitter cold wind! Nevertheless, I had said that if all goes well and Snowdrop manages to check off the requisite number of days under incarceration (surely it felt that way to her) symptom free (check!), we can go skating today. Sparrow wants to join, but he doesn't have skates and I feel he is not yet ready for them (unless you put him on double blades and even there, I think he would be a reluctant ice boy). Nevertheless, there is such a thing as boot skating and what's to stop him from keeping up with us on the ice in this way? His mommy would be there for moral support.

And so we meet up by their neighborhood ice rink: my older girl and her two older kids and I. Eating snacks and figure skating and boot-skating on a pretty good piece of ice.

(look gaga! with eyes closed!)

All was grand until we were done. I waved them toward the bench and went out to do one last fast loop around the rink. Yeah, there's the clincher: I wanted to be quick and so I picked up speed. And the blade caught on something and pretty quickly I went down, chest and knee thumping the ice like a big lid clamping down on a pot that's about to boil over. That'll teach me!

I doubt that I did any lasting damage but it was a good reminder (because I seem to need a million of them) to not go for speed. I suppose my ego had been bruised when the other day Ed said I was good, but not as good as the twelve year olds playing hockey on the ice rink the evening he and I stopped by to test the ice. The kids had commanding speed. I suppose somewhere in the back of my head lodges the idea that I still can have commanding speed and at the same time remain safe from crushing falls. Possibly that is not a good way to approach skating at my age.  

At home, I spent the rest of the day cradling my ego on the couch and hoping that the knee and the ribs are all intact. 

(Ever nimble deer outside, laughing!)

a routine out of the abnormal

One thing that we've learned from all this (she sweeps her hand broadly to indicate the whole mess we're in...) is that we rely on, we like, we thrive and prosper with routines in place. Just think how you begin your day, how you approach food, how you plan visits with friends or family, how you pour yourself a cup of coffee at this hour and a glass of wine at that hour. Flexibility is good, but establishing routines is what makes a household hum and what frees your mind to explore the unusual and the adventurous.

Covid continues to be ever so clever at taking a wrecking ball to our well established routines. Sure, it's fantastic if you don't get sick and especially fantastic if you don't die. Millions would give a lot to be in that privileged place. Still, I cannot blame you if you are despairing at how your days look with Covid breathing down your neck (eww! what a horrible image!), day after day after day.

The young family in Chicago is once again having their week turn upside down, as after a few days of school, Primrose needs to quarantine once more, because there was a case of Covid in her class. Here, in Madison, Snowdrop is still under quarantine with her very real infection, though her brother has returned to school. The non-Covid babysitter has had to hang back for the past two weeks as the family has moved from one infection to the next. Me, I brought the girl to the farmette one day, then retreated, as first her dad and then she herself turned positive. But, I like routines, and especially around kids and food, and so I have fallen this week into a steady habit of driving over to her house, each afternoon, with our usual fruits and some baked goods (muffins remain a big favorite), some book about some aspect of winter, and lately -- a big old quilt that is a great cover when you just feel like the cold has penetrated every layer of your clothing.

But first, the morning: it is a very cold day. (But not enough snow still! Take a look!)

Ed and I both eat hot oatmeal once again.

And eventually I drive over to chat/read/eat/play with the housebound girl.

We are outside for a good hour. I give credit to the hot chocolate, the quilt and the sunshine.

(it's called boot-skating)

There is a gusty wind, which means that the high of 16F (-9C) doesn't feel very high at all. Snowdrop's face is pink, my nose is now probably closer to the color of beets, but still, we persist!

If at the beginning of the week things looked extra gloomy for her, for her entire household, right now they look better. Not only are we slowly climbing out of their Covid attack, but, too, the new routines have offered a pleasant regularity to each day: I found, she found, we all found some pockets of predictability and yes, joy, in this crazy and weird week. 

 

Toward evening, Ed and I walk along the trail that hugs Lake Waubesa, with a little detour onto the lake...

 

 

 

My it's windy and piercingly cold out there!

Still, it is another evening of stunning colors! 

We were ever so happy to be outside, and perhaps even happier coming back into a warm farmhouse.