Sunday

It's become almost a truism to say that negative emotions are the triggers for change. In other words, there's a positive in the negative. It pulls you out of a rut. To be graphic about it -- if you're stuck in a mud hole, you're not going to throw up your hands and say -- oh well, this sucks. You're going to try to get out and spend the night instead in your warm comfy bed, head resting on a soft pillow. And you'll take a different path next time. That is, if you get out alive.

See, this is the other truism that could be floated: a mishap will make you stronger, if it wont knock you down flat. But it's not as if you long for mishaps to happen, just so you can feel your strength. You don't want to spend a night or two in a mud hole, no matter how strong you may feel afterwards.

(This, of course, is a matter of opinion. Ed, for example, would disagree. No mud hole? No mishaps? May as well stay home.)

I was thinking about this as we face another brilliant day, where positive feelings tumble one after another. It wont be quite as hot as yesterday, but still, it's warm enough. Short sleeve weather!

My first job is to pick up some baked goods at Bloom Bakery. This is a new visit for me. I've been stuck on Batch and Madison Sourdough for years now and I hardly notice the appearance of this new kid on the Monroe Street block. There was a family proclamation that there should be a birthday cake for dinner tonight and so I preordered one at Bloom's. 

I was pleased that Bloom's was very crowded this Sunday morning. I like the fact that Madisonians care about their baked goods. Bloom's is a mere 12 minute drive from our house, and I quickly decided that I should come here more often -- it had that feel of a special place, with all the smells of a really good kitchen.

It's windy today and so I opted for breakfast indoors. With Bloom croissants and pain au chocolat. 

A delicious plate of treats! A magnificent discovery.

And now you see the creeping in of that word from yesterday -- magnificent. Soon to be followed by beautiful (because it really is a beautiful day) and splendid, and I bet more than anything -- sublime. Am I amassing too many good feelings these days? Does spring keep you rooted in place, because so much of it is so good, you don't want to risk upsetting the applecart? 

I dont think so. We've had so many bad weather days and pandemic days and worried days this year that I think we deserve to coast with the superlatives for a while. 

And so we revel in the magnificent: we go outside, look around at all that's suddenly exploding in our yard and think -- what's there not to love!

In the evening, the young family is here.

... for dinner, and for cake of course. Lemon today. Light and airy. Sort of like the vision in my right eye!

Happy birthday celebrating indeed! Oh, and happy election results in France today. What a splendid week! Yep. Simply sublime!!

With love...

Saturday

It is as good as I remember it. All of it. The warm morning, the walk to the barn to the sound of birds, with pauses to take note of what's growing along the path...

The truly sublime gentleness of a summer like breeze, allowing us to easily spread out our breakfast foods on the porch...

And the market: no chill today! Indeed, about as opposite to last week as we can get! A high of 80F (yes, really!). That's 26.6C for you nonAmericans. I meet up with the young family for a walk around the square. 

It's crowded. Lat year, this alone would have given me pause, but this year is so different! It truly feels like a walk in pre-pandemic times. 

The kids are spirited and energetic!

Sandpiper is transfixed by what he sees. All those people! A stroller walk with a leaf of spinach, a bit of croissant, then, too, a cookie -- what is this place?

The spinach is a hit with Snowdrop as well. So long as you don't "ruin" a veggie by pouring a weird sauce over it, she'll eat any and all, especially raw and freshly picked. 

A magnificent day calls for work in the yard. I have to say, it is impossible to dig and pull, let alone plant without bending over. I do defy the doc's orders, but I try to go easy. 

And when my eyes are pouring tears and my sinuses scream "enough!" I take a break. On the porch. And it's heavenly!

Is it because the last two summers were so abnormal? So difficult? Or is spring always like this -- the explosion of growth and the promise of happy moments with a feast for the eyes and of course, for the soul as well?

I know we still have to barrel through the cold coming at us from Canada this last week of April, but this day reminded me that it's all worth waiting for. Fantastic! All of it, so fantastic!

Earth Day

Grateful for the showers today. The earth is damp, the plants are pumping water up their growing stalks.

Of course, you can never keep everyone satisfied. Yesterday, two clumps of daffodils exploded in color. One of them decided that the rain was just too much. The flowers are leaning hard under the weight of all that rain.

You really cannot please them all. Nor should you despair when those you'd think would be reaping this season's rewards turn out to wilt at the slightest setback.

I know someone who is thinking about getting chickens, except she has this (warranted) fear that it will be a constant struggle to keep them safe from predators. I know another person who is embarking on gardening, though visions of a failed crop are holding her back. I can only nod my head in sympathy. Plunging into greater involvement with nature is humbling. No matter how experienced you are. We've had chickens for nearly a dozen years and I've been growing perennials for nearly forty years and in the case of perennials, we're talking massive plantings of huge flower beds. Yet, the coop gets raided (we lost a pullet just last summer), and ask me in September how I feel about the strength of my flower beds! Each season nature shows me who's boss and how, despite all my efforts, readings, instincts, copying of masters, I still manage to botch things, to lose control, to be outwitted by an unanticipated menace. Ed would agree. His tomato project always starts strong and then... well, sometimes it stays strong, other years it withers.

Still, we keep on trying. We never assume that we will achieve perfection or even anything near what we would imagine as grand. We expect a fair amount of failure. We're not scared off by it. We adjust and try again the next year.

In the meantime, the rain comes down and we wait to see what's next.

Snowdrop is here after school. It's definitely not a beach day or even a farmette outdoor play day. 

(That pot of flowers may add color for now, but do notice that the crab apple buds will soon offer some competition!)

(another source of color? the Venice umbrella!)

But since it is Earth Day, I bring out some reading stuff that's easy on my eyes (meaning she can handle it herself), and fitting for this important day where the natural world nudges us to take note and take care with all that grows around us. Books about plants. About butterflies.

Evening. The rain stops. We are anticipating the second and perhaps the last beautiful day of April tomorrow. Since April has been stingy with the warm sunshine this year, we get excited with its fleeting appearance. It's like living in Scotland, except without the sheep and the whisky. On the bonnie bonnie banks of Lake Monona.

Birthday, on the eve of Earth Day

Hello, world! I am celebrating all your bright spots, your green landscapes, your hope, your beautiful interplay of life and shape and form. I am celebrating the fact that for 69 years, I have been part of it all. So many sublime moments... So many breathtaking experiences! A few close calls, quite a number of challenging adventures. Life, rich and beautiful.

And yes, I'm going to call it a daffodil day at last. This counts, don't you think?

I do have to start the day with a visit to my eye doc for a post-op checkup. She has her usual gravitas about her, but proclaims the surgery to be a total success (so far). (Ed comments -- do they ever say "it went just okay?")

But I can't read! -- I protest.

You should not be reading. You should not be bending, You should not be doing anything after surgery. Just rest, okay?

No, not okay. That's instructions for old people. 70 years plus. I am 69 and I have been waiting for spring for a long time. Spring is here. I am done resting.

Well okay, she continues. But remember that gardening is dirty work. Keep those hands out of your eye!

Personally, I think working in a clinic with sick people can be called "dirty work," but hey, I get it. Farmette fields are basically a mixture of clay, compost and animal waste.  Though how I'm supposed to plant and weed without bending over is beyond me. Oh, the challenges of life!

 

Ed and I go out for breakfast to Paul's Cafe. How great it feels to sit here again, yes, with computers, but with some human exchange as well (we know and like the owners, Kim and Paul, and they put up with us... I'm lookin' at you, Ed!). Life, regained.

 

A visit then to Natalie's Garden Center. Another friend of long duration. I can't yet buy all the annuals because we're to have a hard frost this coming week. But I buy a little. To get us started.

It's a stunning day. All sunshine and blue skies. No jackets, just a sweatshirt. T-shirt for Ed.

And here's the thing -- my eye doc said I had had unusually cloudy lenses. Indeed. With my new one in the right eye, the world is as bright as lemon meringue pie! With the left eye? It's all mustard brown. I have to wonder -- which is the true color of our big beautiful planet? Is it really lemon meringue? Who knew!

Another stop to another flower greenhouse (Kopke's). I like to support Natalie, but there's stuff here that you cannot find anywhere else. Again, I buy carefully, with an eye toward the weather. Anything I put out today will have to come in next week as the Arctic air will chill us once again.

In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop. She asks -- can we go to Bernie's Beach? Can I swim in the lake?

Oh, little girl! The lake waters have just melted! Yes, it does feel relatively warm. We touch 64F (18C) this afternoon. But the winds are strong and they'll be bringing the water's cold onto the shore. 

But I'm so warm!

She takes off her sweater. Her socks. I smile at her Wisconsin enthusiasm. Okay, little one. Let's go to Bernie's Beach. 

(Determined!)

(Cold? Maybe. But so fun!)

(A few minutes on the play structure, remembering previous games of "ice cream shop!")

At the farmhouse, I ask her if I can try out a pony tail with her hair. She hates pulling it all back, but it's my birthday and she wants to please. So, just for a few minutes!

And when I return her home, we all pause for celebratory champagne. With presents! 

We can't resist a photo. My girl's husband plays photographer!

Such a beautiful day...

But wait! Not done yet! Late, late in the evening, Ed and I go out to Sardine - a favorite restaurant by Lake Monona. We've gone there on countless family occasions, big and small. Memories abound. But it's been a while. A first for Ed and me since the pandemic. (We are in a golden moment where both have had the second booster quite recently, so eat-outs are less of a worry.)

People have very different attitudes toward birthdays. They love them, they hate them, they party through them, they get together in large packs and dance the night away. Me, I like to fill the day with small favorites: a special breakfast, a trip to the plant store. A bunch of flowers, a small pile of cards. 

A toast, a dinner. It can be at home or out, but something out of the standard repertoire. A cake? Yes, we'll do that later, on the weekend. A special drink with the younger family? That will come next week. It's this whole varied package of delights that makes me smile a big happy grin. Not one thing is exceptional or big or loud. (As Ed's card reads -- "There's just one difference between how much you're loved on your birthday and how much you're loved every day. Today you get the card.") But all of it, card included, concentrated in the proximity of April 21st, is just over the top wonderful.

To all who have reached out, or simply read along today -- thank you.

With so much love.

Wednesday

Call me weird, but I have been genuinely curious about what eye surgery would be like. I've had plenty of operations in my life -- ones that cut me up solid -- so I am no stranger to hospitals or blades and knives that snip and chop away at your insides. But a sharp instrument that would dissect your eye? That was hard to imagine. Your eye, forced into an open position, awaiting the arrival of something that would pierce its wet surface -- like, how is it supposed to react? Wouldn't instinct prevail? Wouldn't you fight tooth and nail to keep that dagger from reaching your eyeball?

Perhaps it would be a stretch to say that I was looking forward to today's cataract surgery (with a laser assist, followed by an implant of the newest lens, though not of a multifocal type), but it is definitely true that I had an unhealthy eagerness to get to it as soon as possible. Because, well, I was curious.

No breakfast today (not allowed!) and a quick walk to feed the animals.

 

("hey, thanks for stirring up the dirt in the pots for us!")

And then, the trip to the Surgical Center. This is a place in our hospitals and clinics system where elective surgeries are performed. Eye stuff. Carpal tunnel release. Stuff you can do on an outpatient basis. Ed dropped me off, I went inside.

And the waiting began. I hadn't quite realized how much waiting. Perhaps everyone needs many many rounds of eye drops, or maybe it's because I skipped days of it that are typically required prior to surgery, but my oh my, we went through a lot of drips and drops. 

After several hours, the doc came in, discussed once more what's coming out and what's going in and at this point I was also offered one valium. You know, that woozey pill to make you think life is good and that you could easily climb Mt Everest if you just put your mind to it.

That's it? -- I asked. You're coming at my eye with a knife and I get one valium? I had hoped for something more trippy, so that I could not only imagine climbing Mt. Everest, but maybe even think that I could paint rainbows with my bare hands or at least run like crazy through a field of Alpine flowers. Well, no matter. I popped the valium, which had no effect on me whatsoever. Maybe it was only a pretend valium. I understand hospitals are stingy with those sorts of things. With good reason of course.

So now comes the trip to the laser machine room where they basically zap every offending piece of nonsense out of your eye with this huge laser zapper. Only they couldn't quite fit it into my eye. They assured me that the eye size was just fine, but the socket -- not so large. We went around this for a while until finally it was in and the zapping began. And here's the good part: even though your eye is wide open, you don't actually see stuff! I was told to look for the little oval shape and stay with my focus on that, and this kept me plenty busy as the little oval shape kept changing colors. 

After a while, the doc and the staff proclaimed total success and I got moved to a second surgical room. Here, they played 60s pop music and I noted that this was a good call, given the demographic that typically gets cataract surgery. I hummed along to "I Got You Babe" and so did someone else in the room. Maybe the surgeon, maybe the nurse, hard to tell.

Now came the implant of this new lens that is supposed to be quite the advanced technology, even if it doesn't offer good reading vision. What I found out today is that it also doesn't offer great super distance vision, but the doc reassured me that most of us dont really require great super distance vision, given that we are not football players or anything. I found that to be interesting reasoning. (In fact, I've always had pretty good distance vision. I'm the one who can spot a brown sandhill crane against a brown cornfield far far away, even as Ed struggles to do the same. Will it now be worse? So that we both will be mediocre sandhill crane spotters going forward?) The doc said we mostly use our midrange vision and this new lens is great for that. Well okay, if you say so. (I do trust my doc totally. She went to good schools and has been doing this for several decades and has the right serious surgeon's bedside manner, with just a touch of a smile. Nothing too big to make you think she's trying to sell you something.)

This second and final stage is where you see beautiful multicolored stars! I mean, it's like a very miniature fireworks display. This is also where they offer you an additional sedative. I dont know why. It would seem to me that scraping your eyeball with a laser is more of a candidate for easing your thoughts than implanting a small piece of plastic, but I went along. And of course, this had no effect on me either. Perhaps it made me more chatty because I distinctly remember my doc telling me to be quiet, as she needed my mouth not to move while she was pushing in the plastic.

And then I was back in my recovery room and Ed drove up and we went home.

Yes, it's a couch day for me. I mean, of course it is! But I did first sit down to breakfast. At around 2 pm. And I lit a candle, because, well, you've got to give some encouragement to spring this year and I figured one bearing the name "Bright," with hints of citrus, would do the job nicely.

And in the eve, well, call it a birthday eve. The flowers come from a guy who really wasn't one to celebrate anything, until, well, several prompts caused him to change his mind.

It's been quite the April thus far. Unusual and strangely beautiful.

With love...

Tuesday

When you have more than one child, you know not to make comparisons as they grow. Each one has superior traits, and struggles with unique sensitivities. You love them for who they are and you help them thrive in the way that gives them as close to a lifetime of happiness as is possible.

So why do we still compare everything else on this planet and rank it all as if it were one competition?

Why did I, for example, sneak a peak at my blog post from April 19, 2021, just to see what flowers were blooming then? (Answer: daffodils were almost past their peak, tulips -- those not chomped down by the groundhog -- were starting their show, and hyacinths were bulging with bloom buds.) It just made me groan with despair as I looked out onto the stubbornly cold garden. Well, maybe not despair, but I did have unfavorable thoughts about what's taking place now (very little) as compared to last year (a lot).

I mean, does this even count as a first daffodil bloom of the year? I don't think so.

Maybe this?

Nope, not yet. Really, I have to be satisfied with these, from the store (and yes, I baked muffins this morning):

At this point, I have to remind myself of the huge significance of April 22nd -- and I don't mean the fact that it follows April 21st. I mean that it is, at least since 1970, Earth Day. Did you know that it was Gaylord Nelson, then a junior senator from Wisconsin, who came up with this celebratory date, picked from the calendar almost randomly, in between spring break and final exams at our university, so that it would capture a large student participation? 

For me, Earth Day is like a reset click: the time to make sure I am really paying attention to what's outside in my immediate environment, and how it's thriving under our stewardship. This week, everything will be very late in showing its spring growth, but even in this unique year, we will get there, and a spring burst of color will come eventually. Patience, Nina! Cultivate patience!

In the meantime, it is still cold outside, but I am finally motivated, so I do garden prep work, digging out weeds -- for the flowers that will eventually go in, for the seeds that are yet to be sown, for all that I hope to accomplish this growing season.

I'm also getting the tubs ready for the annuals. They are a super important component of my garden plan, as they carry me through early spring and late autumn and, too, I experiment with new and old plants in combinations that are both familiar but sometimes sort of whimsical. Ed went to Farm and Fleet and picked up some tin tubs to replace the wooden planters we've used up to now. The wooden ones do not last more than about three or four seasons. They rot, they splinter, they disintegrate. So he wants to try something more durable. Talk about funky! I'll take a picture once there are flowers inside. Right now they look like the tubs my grandma would have used for washing clothes outside, back in the 1950s.

And right around lunch time the phone rings. This, I have to admit, is an expected call, though I wasn't sure it would come so I kept it to myself. It's from my eye surgical team and they want to fit me in for surgery on my most offensive eye (sorry, no insult intended) for tomorrow.

Tomorrow??  Yikes!

What about the second eye? (They only do one at a time.)

Well, that's a problem. We don't have another opening until late summer.

Wait, I will need glasses for one eye and a reading lens for the other? That sounds totally weird.

I have to agree -- she tells me. It will be strange.

Nonetheless, I am moving ahead with it. I am not one who likes waiting around for exciting new developments. [Wow, two unrelated surgeries in one week! Am I feeling old yet??]

 

And in the afternoon, Snowdrop is here. It's just warm enough for her to be tempted by the outdoors again. Well, for a few minutes anyway.

In the early evening, we pick up Sparrow and I drive the two jovial kids home.

("hey, I'm jovial too!")

(daddy's still at work, mommy's busy with dinner, so she helps him with homework...)

After that, the evening is a blur, not the least because I'm pumping mega amounts of drops into my soon to be butchered eye. (You're supposed to be medicating the eye for three or four days prior to surgery, so I'm making up for lost time.)

Dont you think it's a perfect moment for a frittata?

 

(with spinach and oyster mushrooms from the Saturday market)

 

 

And if it's frittata, then I'm almost sure to get a FaceTime call from the Chicago group! It just somehow works out that way.

Later, much later, Ed pops corn and I pour a nice fat glass of white Burgundy. Drinking wine was the one thing that did not make the list of all that I cannot do in the next twelve hours. 

What an interesting way to end my run as a 68 year old, don't you think? (By Thursday, I'll be 69.)

With love...

 

Monday

Somewhere in the middle of the night, Ed comes up to the bedroom and tells me -- I can't get the cats out and by the way you should take a picture of what's outside.

I mumble, indicating half sleep -- I saw it. Snow. It's too dark. Get the cats out or else.

We have this rule: the cats do not overnight in the farmhouse. On the rare occasion that they refuse to leave, we close the door to the bedroom on them. But that should happen only when all else fails. Apparently all else failed. (Likely they were put off by the snow. Well who wasn't!)

No, you really should take a picture. There's a certain quality to the light...

Yeah -- the quality is that it's dark. If I get up, I wont fall back asleep again.

In the end, the cats complained loud enough that they were excluded from the bedroom if not the house, that I had to get up anyway. I have a more forceful personality I guess, because I had no trouble chasing them out onto the porch. And as long as I am downstairs (now wide awake, mind you), I may as well take that picture, which properly belongs on a holiday greeting card. Only not an April holiday greeting card.

Of course, that was it for sleep. Still, there is something luxurious about staying in bed and watching the light slowly creep in. Ed reads, I just revel in the comfort of not having to do much of anything.

But I do have to be up and running on the early side of things. I have an eye doc appointment. Right after I brave the horrors outside...

... and eat a quick breakfast.

My eye appointment is a bit of a gift. I had it scheduled for early summer (first available!), but then on a lark, I called on Friday and they had a cancellation and so boom! I grabbed it.

This is to discuss the apparently crucial need for cataract surgery. I still don't know how I went from "you dont need it yet" last year to "you really need it ASAP" this last month, but once I came to terms with that, I decided I wanted to move ahead with it as quickly as possible. Visions of shedding my smudgy glasses forever, with their imperfect progression of progressives (you always have to tilt your head just so, to catch the golden spot for reading) suddenly became so rosy and beguiling that I could not wait to get in queue for the procedure.

The visit with the doc was long and it was sort of like peeling a banana you had hoped was only slightly soft but turns out it's rotting all the way through. In the space of an hour, I moved from having just a wee problem (cataracts), to having wrinkly surfaces and holes in a retina and who knows what else, disqualifying me from the super cool surgery that would have given me near perfect vision, eliminating glasses forever!

So, only monofocal for me? -- I ask, both glumly and naively.

Oh, no! You are eligible for the Vivity lens which will give you arm's length vision in addition to far away vision.

Well, at least Medicare will pay for that, right?

Wrongo bongo!

At this moment, I'd been at the doc's office for over two hours and my grocery shopper was madly texting me about substitutions, so I kind of tuned out the cost estimate for these not quite super cool lenses. But it was high.

I came home discouraged, but then I had a brilliant idea: Ed, are you still looking to give me a birthday present?

I'm not sure budget breaking eye surgery is what he had in mind (having instead planned a visit to the Dollar Store -- a favorite shopping place for him for Gorgeous cards), but at least he's thinking about it. And, he was much more upbeat about my ostensibly imperfect lenses. 

They're the newest thing! They weren't even available when I had eye surgery 2.5 years ago! I'm not sure why Ed is so keen on the newest thing in eye surgery given that he wears the oldest cheapest Timex watch on the planet and our clothes dryer is a curbside salvage from thirty years ago (man, does that thing spew hot air!), but still...

By the afternoon the snow had mostly melted, but the day's high is stuck at 35F (that's less than 2C), so you can tell where I chose to be parked during the remainder of the day.

April 18th, and this is what we have for my fields of daffodils:

On the other hand, as I noted to whoever was listening a few minutes ago -- I could be ending my sixties blind, and we could be at war. So yes, it was a very very good day, even though, last I looked, it's snowing again.

Sunday

Earth week, Passover week, Easter Sunday, Ramadan month -- all April holidays (this year), all human derived celebrations, all born of a desire to connect, to look beyond your own space, to use restraint. For me -- to engage with the natural world.

But first, well, I sort of grew up with Easter and it seems right to do a breakfast suited to the day, so I pick up a pack of cinnamon hot cross buns at Batch Bakehouse.

Ed says they are bland (this from a guy who actually likes plain bagels) and he is correct, but I think part of it is the mindset. Hot cross buns are supposed to be bland. Once you accept that, then the touch of cinnamon and the cream cheese frosted X can actually be lovely, in a soothing and cuddly sort of way.

I work in the garden despite the cold. I'd been reading more than my usual share of articles about things that grow out there and though I've been slow this year to connect with all the farmette plant life (and there is a lot of it), it's not to say that I have ignored it at some spiritual level. Still, I have this need to actually touch tender shoots and pull out domineering invasive plants. And so I work. Not too long, but I do make progress! And that's a good thing because this coming week I'll begin my planting.

Easter dinner: the young family is here of course. 

 

 

 

They've already done a bunch of traditional stuff with the kids, so by the time they come here, I think we can keep things low key. I even tossed aside the idea of baking a cake. There's a lot of chocolate floating around on Easter. Yes, even at the farmhouse. So I resist baking.

(Sandpiper the bunny rabbit)

(wait, what's Sparrow doing? ice cream? okay, ice cream!)

So, a good day. A happy day. Sweet and playful. April, despite the weather, at her finest.