strawberry day

Once a year, Tipi Produce -- our CSA farmers -- organize a strawberry u-pick for its members. You get a row, you get some buckets and you get a set time when you can pick. Just this Friday they decided Sunday should be that day. The strawberries are at their best. I signed us up.

It is a glorious day. Stunning, really. Sunny, crisp, with a pronounced breeze. Not hot at all. It doesn't get much better than this! (For the first time, one of the Bresse hens takes a little stroll...)

(the phlox stands out)

We are up around 6 and get to work outside. Me -- not for long. I need to do some baking prep before we set out to pick our berries. And of course, we do pause for breakfast.

I decided to bake a strawberry tart for dinner. I used to make red fruit tarts all the time. I know the recipe for the shell, the creme patisserie, the red currant glaze by heart. But it's been a while, in part because the berries you get in the grocery store are too big and cutting them into slices just doesn't do it for me. You need market berries, or better yet, a u-pick with flavorful small berries -- at least this is my vision for a tart. (Too, making it is soooo labor intensive! Takes forever!)

I make the dough for the crust and let it rest in the fridge. And we're off!

Picking berries at Tipi's is fun. This year, they put down enough wheat straw on the rows that the weeds are largely suppressed. It really is easier to pick when you don't have to push aside thistle.

I warned Ed to pick only the very best, but he and I have different yardsticks for this and so of course, his bucket is fuller than mine.

We have a very productive hour out in the strawberry fields (forever!).

On the drive back (Tipi's farms are only about 25 minutes by car to the south of us), we pause at the nearest town of Evansville. Call it an exploration of small Wisconsin settlements: I'm looking for good places to bring visitors who want a taste of small town America.

Evansville is pretty.

So why is it so desolate? There is a cafe in town and Ed and I stop there for a treat...

We kind of think the pecan roll came straight from Costco's freezer section, and moreover, there is a sign in the window indicating that the cafe is ready to close doors for good. It's not a surprise. One person stopped for a drink while we were there. It's not the kind of traffic that will keep a cafe in business.

It always saddens me to see these Main Streets so forlorn and deserted. What would bring people -- local people, visitors, anyone! -- to these town centers? A dedicated cafe life, maybe a bakery where you absolutely must buy your daily bread -- these things work in France, but they're not part of our culture. Is there something else that would be a draw? For sure the stores with "antiques" and "nick racks" are not bringing in anyone, not in any stream of sustained traffic. And so eventually the eateries close and the shops go out of business and you have a Main Street that looks like it belonged to another era, offering nothing at all to those who pass this way right now.

At the farmhouse, I return to making the tart. 

There, done!

And the young family comes for dinner.

(I take the kids to the new orchard: cherries! Sparrow is the rare kid who doesn't love cherries, but he's polite!)

This is what you look forward to all winter long: an evening with food on the porch.

(Sparrow asks if we ever go up on the porch roof. We do! Can he go up with us? Not today....)

(Sandpiper, before the tart...)

(Sandpiper, after...)

Hey, it may well be a whole year until I bake a strawberry tart again. The berry season is very short! So, enjoy this most awesome dessert developed by Paul Bugat, pastry chef at the infamous Parisian Patisserie Clichy,  and brought to you today by the farmhouse staff of dedicated berry pickers and one ambitious pastry baker!

(some go straight for the strawberries...)

(others linger over the creme patisserie...)

Later, much later, I clean up, put my feet up, feel the night breeze, and savor this moment of summer calm.

With love...

Saturday

The weather did an about face and so did I. You do that in the summer time. If it rains you don't (usually) go swimming. If it's cooler, you think of ways to stay inside. 

Lately, on a weekend morning, I have a terrible craving for a breakfast that's more than just the usual fruits and granola or oatmeal. Honestly, if I had a bakery just down the street, I'd probably have breakfast breads and croissant type pastries every day, but I don't. The nearest bakery with good stuff is a twelve minute drive. Somehow on a Saturday that seems like peanuts (even though, as a retired person, I should make no such distinctions between weekdays and weekends). Today, rain notwithstanding, it was indeed peanuts. I came back with some lovely croissants and a baguette for Ed (who always will choose a good baguette over anything else in a bakery).

Dance was unimpressed.

Outside, the rain gave a little relief to the flower fields, but I'm hoping for more tonight. When you poke around the plants you come up with dry dirt all too quickly. They need a good soak. 

Each day a new lily will begin its bloom. These are the early girls and they are not only stunning, but deeply admired because right now there are so few of them.

Okay, so what's the plan for a wet and rather cool Saturday? We were to go swimming -- all the kids, including the youngest, but obviously that idea faded. So I went to their place with my bakery box and with the idea that I would play a bit, especially with those who don't get so much of my attention during the week. This is how that turned out:

(Sandpiper loved his croissant!)

(I brought over the book Snowdrop had been reading at the farmhouse. She was lost to the world...)

(I think it had a happy ending...)

(Sparrow does not seem to like his hand in cards...)

(all three assured me that they were perfectly safe and having great fun)

In the afternoon, I got lost in computer reading -- something that I never want to do for more than a few hours. Luck had it that the rain paused and so Ed and I went outside and spent a profitable several hours admiring our tomatoes and cucumbers...

... picking a few lavender stems...

And then I turned to weeding, because a small rain may not help deeply rooted perennials, but it sure as heck helps the weeds multiply. Three solid hours of yard work.

I had warned Ed that we will eat leftovers tonight because there are too many small portions of unfinished dinners. Call it a downsizing, or refrigerator cleaning meal. With a copious salad because we not only have local lettuces and arugula, but also market carrots and radishes, and CSA sugar snap peas and kohlrabi. All that and heaven too! 

Eating a meal at this time of the year is always remarkably wonderful. 

Friday

It's been a busy week. A friend described for me her plans for this day and they were leisurely and vacation-like and I thought -- shouldn't I load up my summer with vacation-like days? The kind where you go to coffee shops and take walks and maybe plunge into a pool or a lake somewhere out there. And eat ice cream cones and read beach books by the dozen. Doesn't that sound nice?

Someday.

For now, I get up early, tend to the animals, pull some weeds. (The light on a summer morning is magnificent!)

(The early lilies)

Though here's a nod to summer fun: I had an ice cream cone. Not exactly alone. I had picked up Snowdrop from her last cartoon drawing class and we headed to the zoo. She'd been begging me to go every single day (we drive right past it after art, on our way to the farmette) and I said on Friday we'd go for sure.

And so long as we are there...

... we may as well get ice cream and since I'd been musing about it just this morning, I decided that I owed myself a cone as well. Vanilla for me. Chocolate for the girl. How she manages to get that deep rich chocolate all over her face is beyond me, but she does! All over. (The clothes miraculously stay clean.) Lovely summer colors!

From there it's a short walk to the merry-go-round...

... and I realized that the "zoo" is an umbrella term for "let's have some fun and go on rides and eat sweet things and maybe see an animal or two." I went along with everything except picking up that stuffed toy at the exit. There is no way that Snowdrop needs another stuffed animal. No way.

It's another hot day here is south central Wisconsin and after a zoo trip nothing feels better than an afternoon inside an air-conditioned farmhouse. I think we're done with temps in the 90sF (over 33C) for a while and that's a good thing. You can't get tired of summer so early in the season!

In the evening I do a lot of listening and processing. Ed has stuff he wants to run by me, and of course, there's much in the news that needs our attention. It's a different sort of busy work -- much of it sifting and sorting through piles of complicated information. I'd say I got my workout from all sides today. So I need a head clearing moment. And nothing works better than an evening stroll around the farmette.

(A whole new category of iris is starting to bloom...)

(Do you know what flower dominates here, at the farmette? Of course you do -- it's the day lily. Ah, but do you know what the second most commonly found one here is? The phlox. One form or another blooms from June all the way until the end of September. I love the delicate flowers that form such a large cluster! And the colors! And on some varieties, that phloxy fragrance...)

 

Oh, hello. Are you here on a repeat evening visit? 

You will stay away from the tomato plants, wont you? Go ahead, knock off some cherries if you want. Just leave our veggies alone, okay? Thank you! And good night...

Thursday

Summer days for me are never lazy, rarely hazy and honestly, not that crazy. I remember when I traveled from Poland for a summer in Connecticut (How did that happen? Read about it in my book, Like a Swallow!). I thought then -- wow, this place is muggy and warm, but there is never a day when you didn't feel like the air was closing in on you. There was, every day, a haze. An oppressive haze. I missed the crispness of a blue sky.

Here, in Wisconsin, the skies are often without a trace of the mid-Atlantic mistiness. Today is a classic example of it: bright and beautiful.

Okay, not hazy. They're also not crazy because I rarely travel far in July and August. I try to avoid vacation crowds, at the airports and elsewhere, and, too, I grow my flowers for these months. I wouldn't want to leave them for too long when they are in their most splendid moment.

And of course, not lazy, because there is endless work to do outside. Today, once again, I stepped out early and picked up a hose and snippers and got to work, finishing just before it was time for me to get Snowdrop.

(water on the plump buds of a day lily)

(The meadow project in the new orchard)

(There's always time for breakfast.)

 

The girl said she wanted some outdoor time and I was happy to go along with this. We headed to the young orchard. Two draws there right now: the meadow (where the scent of Sweet William was just intoxicating!)...

... and our cherry trees. She loves these ripe fruits straight off the tree. She calls them sun-warmed and they really do taste like they still have some sun in them!

(Inside, she goes after the blueberry muffins with a vengeance. No one loves those muffins more than Snowdrop.)

Evening. Ed and I work outside again, then retreat as the light fades. The fireflies fill the courtyard, as if in celebration of all that lies ahead. We put away our tools and go inside. Deep breath of night air, exhale. One more time: in... and let it go. Until tomorrow.

Wednesday

If you ever need proof that the best you can do for your kids is set a kind example, just watch the world of chickens. It's always like this: you put new young chicks into an existing flock and the older ones gang up on them. They become mean. They peck and chase. The little ones are scared and flustered. Eventually things settle down. More or less. As they say, the pecking order has been established. And then, some time later, you add newer younger chicks, and the very ones that were clobbered just months before turn on the new ones and peck and chase and scare the delights out of them. They learned to be mean.

Ed says that this is just a natural ordering that contributes to the survival of the entirety. I have to think he'd never been bullied in his younger years or he'd be as mad as I get at the instigators of the coop warfare. Indeed, this morning -- a brilliant sunny morning...

... I check on the little ones. Cherry (from last year's additions) follows. The minute she sees them, she starts the chase, the peck, the clobber. Ed would tell me to leave them alone, but I never do. So I interfere with the natural order of things. So be it. Cherry chases the Bresse hens, I chase Cherry. It is a loud set of minutes!

Okay, time to settle in for a summer breakfast. And time to bake blueberry muffins! Bake first, eat after.

Time to also celebrate one of the younger kids finally getting a Covid vax! (Three more have to wait a couple of weeks.) Such a long wait! So much relief...

And as every day this week, I roll into a day of play/read/eat with Snowdrop.

In the evening, Ed rides his bike, I meet up with my older girl for a rehash of life's issues. We haven't done that in such a long time! We're trying to make this a regular habit going forward.

And then we have a sports event to go to. The Blue Jays have their first scheduled game -- against the Robins. This is soft ball, not quite at the league level, but still, well coached and with t-shirt teams! That counts for something, no? These girls' teams, ages 6 - 8, have been practicing all spring. 

None of us have watched Snowdrop play. She goes to practice with a friend and all we know is what she will report after. Recently she tells us that her coaches like her batting. But of course, what does that mean? All kids need encouragement. So tonight, I am a tiny bit surprised that she actually is good at batting! I remember the bat and ball Ed and I had for her some three or four years back. I'd never seen anyone less inclined to practice hitting that ball. Tonight, on the other hand, she had one miss. Hit the rest.

So often, kids surprise you: you peg them as one thing and it turns out their reach is so much greater...

And these two? Where are they heading in life?

I'm not making any guesses. Sky's the limit right now. For all my grandkids.

Summer nights, summer days. They have a touch of stardust, a touch of the sublime. So easy just to throw on a t-shirt, shorts and head out, in flip flops. So pretty to look this way, and that way, and always find something to admire. And to think the lily season has yet to begin! So many buds out there! So many flowers waiting to bloom for us.