Friday

Well, never say never. Ed has a friend. A cheese farmer who comes to our Thursday market with his cheeses and curds. If you're a Madisonian, you may know him -- Farmer John. They always chat. Yesterday, Ed was spelling out our chicken issues: no one to butcher chickens we may choose to raise for their wonderful succulent marbled meat. And wouldn't you know it -- John has the equipment. He'd be happy to help us out. So maybe we're in business? At least the issue is on the table again: should we pick up three to four Bresse chickens, to add to our flock of five? yesterday, the answer was a clear no. Today, it's looking closer to a yes.

I suppose this is the moment when I'm getting to be a little nervous: will they get along with our other chickens? How will it feel to pluck the four young ones out and send them on their merry way to the roasting pan? 

How ever did we embark on this interesting detour??

Meanwhile, it's a beautiful morning... (Hey, Peach, you may be getting some "pen pals" soon!)

I'm just waking up to it, when Ed reminds me -- you said you wanted to wipe down the glass roof on the porch?

I did. I mean, I do. Perhaps not at the crack of dawn, but it is cooler in the wee hours of the morning. I climb out of bed and out the window, onto the roof. He throws the hose up, I take out a bristle broom and get to work.

I have learned to navigate that ever lightly slanted space even when it is wet and slippery. As I brush and hose, I think to myself -- will I do this into my 80s? Or will we let the pollen settle in, creating a permanent milky patina over the surface? Ed says he doesn't mind the haze on the glass panels. I'm the fussy one. 

He feeds the animals, I take a quick look at what's blooming. Let's go back to where the good honeysuckle is mixing with the sweet William and asparagus.

Oh, hello Happy! Nice to see you resting in the dirt... Ready for more girls?

I love the full grown cover crop we put in next to the new peach orchard. It reminds me of fields of wheat in Poland. (This is, however, cereal rye.) It moves with the wind!

And speaking of future years on the farmette, Ed finally reached the people who have been tending the land to the east of us (Heartland Ecological Group). This strip of property is part of the development that is going up all around us, but by virtue of our proximity to the wetlands, we have a wide buffer that has been designated as green-space. The strip to the east was supposed to be used for community gardens, but in the end, that project has been scrapped and instead we are getting a prairie. I mean, is that luck or what? The farmette is going to be surrounded on two sides by a blooming landscape. I could not be more tickled. (Here's a view toward the farmette across the soon to be prairie. The farmette extends all the way along the thicket of trees that Ed never wants to cut back! You can just barely see the roof of the farmhouse poking through.)

We reflect on our luck as we settle in for a beautiful breakfast on the porch. Black walnut cranberry bread from the market. With jam for me (strawberry and basil -- Ed calls it my frou frou jam), butter for his slice. And note the strawberries -- they are local. The season is coming on strong. I'd say we'll peak in the next two weeks. 

And then in the late afternoon I get in the car and head down to Chicago. Time for my June visit with Primrose and Juniper!

And as I pull off the highway and drive over for my usual first stop at Olivia's -- to pick up some flowers and other life's essentials -- guess who I run into, walking home from school!

Well now! I have company for my errands! Someone to help me choose the appropriate flowers...

(The young family finishes their walk as I drive the few blocks to their home...)

Such changes... I cannot believe Juniper is in "school" now! 

(I bring some Wisconsin berries for the one who loves berries...)

Oh, how quickly they zip through these early years of life!

Primrose, of course,  is the big girl in town. I do so love this age of both independence and playful engagement. 

I eat dinner with the kids. Well, Juniper is just learning to work her way through mushed avocado...

Primrose and I are a little more advanced in our eating habits.

And then the parents go out for an anniversary night on the town (which is more like a dinner out on some patio, since both kids are still without Covid vaccinations, though not for long now!). I stay home with the little ones. As usual, I am the world's least reliable "get them to bed by bedtime" grandma ever. I mean, Juniper is out, but Primrose? I'd never seen the movie we were watching! How could I possibly turn it off at the most exciting point of the story?! And she needed three books! Plus a story! Plus an extension of the story! 

Phew! I better be out of here tomorrow before the parents realize they have an over-tired and under-slept little girl!

Some of us just don't know how to pull the plug on fun.

With so much love...

Thursday

Seven years ago, a tornado target south-central Wisconsin, exactly on the same day that yesterday's tornado swirled through our state, only yesterday we were luckier -- it passed a little to the west of Madison. We got the winds and the stormy skies, but thankfully we did not get that dangerous mass of air sucking up everything in its path. Other communities were not so lucky, though at least we know that no one was hurt. We had plenty of warning. Many businesses closed down early. Kids were picked up from summer programs and taken home. People took care.

It's gratifying when people take care. 

Our clean-up seven years ago was huge and it took place just a handful of days before my younger girl's farmette wedding. This morning the post storm clean-up was nearly non existent. No large limbs toppling, no fallen trees. A clear sky and a sweet breeze to welcomed us to a new day. Oh, and another day lily. A new one, still very short, even as it will give maybe one or two blooms this year. Here's one of them!

And still, the warmth continues. We closed the doors and windows early. Keeping the house cool is getting to be more challenging. But breakfast is on the porch! The morning is that pleasant!

We review the chicken idea. We have heard from plenty of chicken people that if we want to raise broilers in small numbers, we have to learn to butcher them ourselves. I don't see that happening. What's the point of taking in a few young chicks, only to slaughter them some five months later? Seems like a gruesome hobby. Even roasting and serving the finely marbled meat of a Bresse bird doesn't motivate me to learn how to butcher the birds. We'll eat chickens, but someone else has to do the dirty work, and it seems there aren't many out there who will take your birds and turn them into chicken dinner.

I say to Ed -- how about if we raise little pigs, like we saw yesterday?

No. 

But they're smart and cute and would make lovely farm pets!

We have six cats that make lovely farm pets.

Not the same...

And perhaps that's a good thing.

For the moment then, we are with our six cats, four hens and a rooster. Oh, and a groundhog family that has been hanging out in the barn lately. And don't forget the swallows!

So many swallows! Lucky birds, treasuring their freedom, swooping down, chirping to their young, screeching at anyone who dares to come close to the nests high in the barn's beams and eaves.

With love...

a piggish day

It's hot again. We do have air conditioning, but if we keep windows closed, the house actually does stay fairly cool with minimal extra cooling. Only occasionally, toward the end of the day, will we hear the AC motors click on for a while. Our upstairs bedroom gets the brunt of the heat and that's a tough space to cool down. Or at least, even with covered vents below, you'd have to run things to a pretty chilly level before you could have that cold air drift up to where we sleep. Still, a fan works wonders and rather than crank up the AC, we keep it at a modest 77F (25C) and add a fan upstairs to chase the hot air out of there. So, we're doin' okay!

Outside -- well, what can I say. Hot is hot. 91F (33C) in the early hours and without a breeze. Not pleasant working weather. But pleasant for flower viewing!

Though I spare Ed the porch breakfast. We eat in the cool-ish kitchen. With a Dance tail in the picture, because these days, it's never too far from us at mealtimes.

It is a perfect day for a Zoom call with a good friend. I mean, I could have stayed on, chatting to her for hours! (Thanks for your patience, Diane!) Why move anywhere at all?

And yet, by noon, I close the computer and Ed and I do get going. On his motorbike, just up the road to One Seed Farm. 

You have to understand Ed's thought processes to get why this visit makes any sense. Working in the fields behind the barn (it's where we planted nut trees last year and where we plant all our veggies and, too, lavender), gives him ideas on how to best use that land. His latest? Perhaps throw it open to some more chickens. Not egg layers, mind you, but broilers.

That is what you call an Ed idea. From its inception to reality is a long path and usually, we never get to reality. We get lost somewhere along the way. But not always. Sometimes we actually implement the idea! You never know!

Since One Seed Farm raises and sells chickens, Ed concluded that they have valuable information about the process of raising/butchering broilers. So, we reached out to purchase one of their broilers and in picking it up, Ed opened the door for a general conversation about chickens.

We are coming to hefty stumbling blocks: we don't quite have the stomach for butchering our own animals and finding a place to do it for you in very small quantities is very difficult. Time and again we are told -- do it yourself. Well okay, but we wont. So we keep on exploring the possibilities, even as we have located our most perfect chicken hatchery, raising the very chicken we want (an American Bresse, which would be the French breed, but raised on American terroir). Right about forty minutes south of where we live. Amazing. 

Still there's no reason to go down this lane if we cannot find away to get that deliciously marbled meat from these (one hopes) happy birds. Again, it's a process. 

In the meantime, One Seed Farm has other interesting things going on: they raise other animals. Pigs, for example. And here's a thought: remember how two years ago I was really pining for goats? I may have been barking up the wrong tree. Goats are great. They eat your weeds. But pigs! They're even better: they are smart. They are beautiful. And they actually dig up your weeds so they dont grow back. Remember that these animals are truffle hunters! They root around for roots! I should have pressed for pigs instead of goats.

Of course, I could not give up a pig for slaughter. Never. That happy and smart animal deserves to graze on roots and grasses rather than making an appearance on your breakfast table. 

So we're back to chickens. Hopefully happy, but not too smart. We go back to looking around for someone who will do the dirty work for us. Then, and only then will we drive down to the hatchery that has the best chicken meat on the planet. Only it's still small and cute and you have to pet it and feed it and raise it to grow up to be a fine old broiler..

Storms came tonight. Nothing got knocked down, no trees fell on top of our farmhouse. We are grateful. I'll leave you with two photos that will introduce a new feature (that will probably last all of one month) here on Ocean: farmette gems. Today, I offer you our first day lily. Technically, other small yellow ones have been flowering along the driveway, but those are just little peanuts. This one is a real queen.

And here's success on our picnic table: the three bushes of the potted fraises des bois are producing! Lift up the netting and you get... one or two "wild strawberries.." Not exactly a plateful, is it?

We are not greedy. As I said, we are grateful.

With love...

Tuesday

It's not even noon and they say it feels like 101F (38C) outside. Our thermometer on the porch gives me a slightly cooler reading of 96F (35C). But the humidity is something else! We are sizzling out here in south central Wisconsin. If you're south of us, you'll have little empathy -- I hear you're not only sizzling but downright broiling. Eek! Welcome to the presumer summer. (Hey, what happened to spring? Oh, I see. It was washed away with the cold rains of early June.)

(stepping out into a steamy garden)

In the morning, before the heat beast lumbers in to smother us, I weed. In the lavender field (which is only moderately successful).

(On the other hand, the tomatoes are all happy and thriving!)

(You know who else is really happy? This very young monarch. Welcome, little guy!)

And I weed the more distant flower fields.

And I get my share of bites. Not mosquito, but deer flies. June, unfortunately, brings out the deer flies. I can only be mollified because I know that theirs is a two or three week visit. I do not know where they go next and I don't care: so long as they move on, I am happy. 

Breakfast is on the porch as a gift to me. I mean, it is toasty out there! But Ed knows how starved I am for porch breakfasts.

Then -- here's something new: Ed is reading up on broiler chickens. No, not the ones in your local grocery store. The ones raised on a farm just up the road from us. 

Are you interested in picking one up for us?

Um, why do you ask?

Because I thought we'd go up to One Seed Farm and chat to them about raising broilers. And while we're at it, we can pick up one of their birds. Frozen. For our own use. A five pounder.

Ask questions about raising broilers? Are you thinking we should raise broilers?

It's just an exploratory idea.

You think we should cut chicken necks with an ax and serve our pets for dinner??

You dont do the butchering. Someone else does it for you.

So one minute we're chasing Henny around the farmette lands and the next we're handing her over to a person with an ax?

No, it's not like that. Let's just go get our frozen chicken and talk to these people. You do know about Bresse chickens, don't you? (I do: they are a legendary French chicken that is purported to taste like no other chicken anywhere.)

You think we may be able to raise Bresse chickens here? In Wisconsin? At the farmette?

Let's just go visit a farm tomorrow. One step at a time.

So we have a date. For tomorrow. Honestly, I do not know where this is heading, but you cannot say that Ed is bereft of interesting ideas.

As for kids -- you want to know what's happening with the grandkids, right? Well, each week is different for each grandchild. Primrose and Juniper are attending summer school in Chicago. This week, Snowdrop is attending Robot camp in Madison and Sparrow and Sandpiper are home with a sitter. Next week -- well, that's next week. For now, I have a few days to catch up on farmette work and on Like a Swallow work. As Ed says -- we have such a comfortable life! Farmette work and a retreat to a cool house at the end of the day. What could be better!

With love...

Monday

And again it rains and I suppose this is a good thing because I have a whole pound of seeds to distribute in the expanded new orchard meadow. The seeds wont germinate if there is no rain. So hey seeds, do your thing!

I do a little weeding but not much. You know -- the rain. But I manage to grab four flower photos for you. Well, Dance may think it's all about her. Sorry old girl. I'm about to enter the month of the greatest color here at the farmette. I'm decidedly focused on the flower fields.

Too, we spend a leisurely hour in the morning watching television (aka The Hearings). First on the porch, during breakfast...

...then inside. I did have to cut out to visit my leg person who is teaching me how to exercise my toes. This sounds absurd, but it is in fact a very necessary bit of movement that I must do or else! 

Of course, it's not just the toes. It's the knee. And the back. And the this. And the that. Let's face it -- once you reach 60, you should basically quit your job and use your free time to run through exercises using every single muscle in your body. Or else!

I admit to the PT person that I did not do any of the assigned exercises in the month since I've seen her. She probably hears this a lot. Did you do what I asked you? Nope, not any of it. Okay, well, here are some more exercises for you not to do... 

What are you going to do with people who just can't be bothered to wiggle their toes... Even though they should. Or else!

When it came time to schedule a next appointment, the receptionist asked me -- so remind me, what part of your body needs help? 

Oh my goodness! Is this a trick question? I think the list of parts that don't need help is shorter! Where do I even begin! [I say this even as I work hard in the yard, and walked tons in Montreal, and trot up and down stairs and inclines without much effort. That's the funny thing about being nearly 70: on the one hand you are not much off your speed from a few decades ago, on the other hand, once you sit down, you may find it very hard to get up again.]

The afternoon is quiet. I am still rereading Like a Swallow. Just to be thorough and wise rather than careless and stupid.

Well, perhaps it's not very quiet: storms raged. Do not ask my daughters how nutty I can be in my overprotectiveness during storms! (Hint: I check to make sure everyone is near or in a sheltered place. As if they could not, at their advanced ages, all look after themselves. I suppose it all dates back to childhood summers in rural Poland, when I'd be on my bike, far from home, and a storm would come out of nowhere. Freaked me out, every time.) 

By evening, the skies clear and the next weather event creeps up on us. Which one this time? Tomorrow is the day we succumb to the Great Heat Wave of the year. Check in then to see if we melted away into a puddle of nothing. It looks to be that kind of a day! Flowers -- you wanted sunshine, you are going to get a wallop of sunshine! Hang in there, everyone!

With love...

farmette Sunday

If you've never published a book before then your first one will have a learning curve to it. A steep one. If you decide on an independent publisher (I did that), then you gain a lot of freedom: how to present it, market it, sell it -- these will be your decisions. Or at least you will be involved in charting the course for its printing and distribution. That's the upside. No one will make you do book tours if you don't want to do book tours. 

But there is a down side. You are like the project manager on a construction site. If you don't manage, you run the risk of things going a bit haywire.

That's the way I felt today as, for the first time, I picked up Like a Swallow and actually read it. Not on the various edit sheets online, but in paper. As the finished product. Tiny little imperfections started creeping up. Ones that I would have caught had I taken charge of the finished product and given it a thorough post edit edit. I just assumed that if the book is edited and I approve the edits, then we're done. A good project manager would have said no, you should read (or ask someone to read) the final manuscript before it goes to print.

The errors are small. Most of you wont notice them at all. And these days, you can correct them, though of course not on the copies already sold. But the point is, I am once again reminded that independence comes with a price tag and one tends to forget that price tag: you have to stay with it. You have to make wise decisions and oversee the project until its end. Lessons learned!

Yes, but am I even working on another Great Writing Project? I've started two. I'm testing the waters. Given how long it took me to write and rewrite (and rewrite and rewrite) the first book, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting. I shall be old and wrinkled by the time I oversee the next one! Still, lessons learned. In my pocket. I'm sure there's an old Polish saying that captured this sentiment well, only I don't know what it is. Something like -- err once and you're human. Err twice and you're plain stupid. 

Breakfast, with a rhubarb cake I made this morning because once again we are overflowing with rhubarb.

Afterwards I continue to weed the flower fields. 

And I'm talking about just the obvious places where you can't help but notice the sprouting of invasive armies of menacing weeds. It's buggy and for the first time, Ed has taken to spraying his clothes with Deet as he toils away at digging up the courtyard. We'd used frou frou sprays before with almost no success. Time for the hard stuff. Me, I'm still just swatting the bugs away. No sprays yet. The early generation of mosquitoes rarely lands. It just swarms around you making noise. I can deal with it for short bursts of time.

Toward evening, I throw down my bucket and scrub my hands and start in on dinner. It's a regular old Sunday and I'm cooking a regular old dinner of crunchy chicken for the regular old crew of five (plus Ed and me).

When they arrive, the big kids hit their play area as if they haven't played here in years and Sandpiper, ever the daredevil, explores every corner with a new boldness and curiosity that surely he developed on his big trip to Canada.

Travel gives lasting benefits. 

Summer isn't officially with us, but we surely feel its sweetness now. 

With love.

farmette life

And so I am back. It's June, with June weather, June weeds, June bugs. And June flowers. For ten days I've pulled myself away from peak growing season. Today I plunge back into it, making amends for my absence. 

There is a lot to do.

But before I show you where we're at, here at the farmette that sits right smack in the middle of south central Wisconsin, let me say a word about swallows. We watch them swoop gracefully as they search for food for their young ones and we think -- how cool to be born with that gift of grace. A magnificent bird indeed!

But wait, I wanted to mention something about the other swallow -- my book. (Title: Like a Swallow: Looking Back at a Polish Childhood.) Some of you have been wonderful with your sweet emails to me. I plunged with the publication without showing the book to anyone and even though I tried to imagine what it would be like to read it, say as an American without a clue as to life in postwar Poland, or perhaps a friend who had lived there then (imagining what the reader is thinking is a regular exercise for me -- I do it every day with Ocean), I couldn't be sure how it would "sound" to someone else. So thank you: I have loved hearing from you. You are a generous audience!

Here's the thing. My publisher wants me to encourage you to write a review. On Amazon, or wherever you may have found the book. I grimace every time she tells me this, because it sounds so needy and awfully self-serving. In fact, I never wrote Like a Swallow to load up my bank account. But I do care about reaching readers. I do want a story from that time, that place, to get to people who haven't given much thought to life in so called communist Poland. And in this my publisher is right: the more you, who have read it, do a thumbs up on various sites like Amazon, the more likely it is that someone else will read it too.

Thank you! And, reviews or no reviews, I do love hearing from you directly, so don't let this humble request keep you from scribbling something to me as well, if you're so inclined. I don't permit comments on Ocean, but you know how to reach me outside the confines of this blog!

And now back to the real swallows, right here in the farmette: so beautiful, so full of life.

They have their work cut out for them. So many bugs out there! Too many mosquitoes of course, but that's to be expected. We had the rain this spring. Oh, did we have the rain!

But, but... what's blooming right now? I know you're curious. I was curious too this morning as I set out on my morning walk.

And I was thrilled to see that the peonies are at a good stage of magnificence. Not finished at all! Still in full glory, just like in Montreal!

(The Big Bed is starting to fill in...)

Too, the Siberian iris (my favorite) is really doing well this year. I love this gentle flower. I haven't the mass that I saw in the Botanical landscape in Montreal, but even a handful is so very pretty to look at!

(Our old girl, Peach, strolling through the garlic patch)

Breakfast on the porch. It's such a haven now! The bugs can't reach it even as we are so fully outside. With a bouquet of cut peonies from the flower fields.

I do a lot of weeding throughout the day. There is a hefty amount of bending, pulling and digging and so I have to watch myself. My back is not used to it anymore! Still, I accomplish a lot.

In the meantime, Ed has been moving more dirt to the young orchard, creating more space for our meadow project. I'll be throwing down more seeds this week, even as the existing meadow of wildflowers and grasses is already giving us so much pleasure!

Such a typical farmette late spring day. It's good to be home!

With love...

Leaving Montreal

Well someone's been listening to my gripe about preflight testing for international travelers! As the young family dishes out huge sums of money to get the six of them tested before their flight home, I send them the message: guess what! The testing requirement is being lifted at midnight, on the day of your travel!

You could say -- well that's a bummer! They could have saved a chunk of money spent on documented testing. (They're all negative.) Or, you could say -- well that's a stroke of luck! Had they traveled a day later, they would have been in flight on the first day without the requirement! Meaning all the stranded Covid positive people will have hit the internationals skies, being free to return home.

Cup half empty, cup half full.

Me, I'm past all that. I woke up this morning with my own negative test in hand, ready to get to the airport.

But first, I worked in a Zoom call with my friend in Poland who herself now has Covid. And this is the nastiness of it all: the data on cases is so skewed right now, so unreliable, that you can really fool yourself into thinking that the pandemic is over. So few cases in Poland! No one wears masks on subways or buses. (Unlike in Canada, where everyone on the metro is masked.) We're done! 

Tell that to my friend who doesn't feel very done at all. She just feels sick.

There wasn't much time left for anything Montreal-ish today. I poked out for a quick good bye wave to the Old Montreal streets, empty now, because, well, it's early.

And I eat breakfast at the hotel. Granola.

And then I take a cab to the airport. Masking here is required, as it is at the Canadian take off. But the minute we are in the air, the people around me discard their masks (I don't). So done with it! Yeah! 

We are a strange species.

(Lovely view of the St Lawrence River...)

I change flights in Detroit, trying to imagine what the day is like for the young family still in Montreal. It can't be fun: they have to pack and clean up the Airbnb rental. They have to not leave anything behind, even as some of the younger tykes have a penchant for stuffing toys, pencils and who knows what else in places you would not  believe. But of course, no one ever said travel is easy, and absolutely no one ever claimed that travel with very young kids is straightforward. Nonetheless, those who do it never regret it. The memories, the family lore, the lessons -- they are yours for life. Searching out dropped toys and packing up dirty laundry is a small price to pay for the richness of experiencing life elsewhere.

(Landing in Madison, we dodge stormy cells...)

Me, I pick up my car at the Madison airport and drive home, to the flower fields, the cats, the chickens, the mosquitoes. To Ed.

Hi Ed...

With so much love...