Tuesday with Polish friends

My attention is split today between the farmette and Warsaw. Perhaps not in terms of hours spent planted there, across the ocean (I did not travel to Warsaw!), but surely in terms of thoughts processed and words spoken. 

I talked about traveling to the homeland with my doc this morning. (She is contemplating such a trip to her own homeland.)

I spoke as well to my Polish friends on a Zoom call, reviewing some of the events I had described in Like a Swallow. (They have been enthusiastic about the content, which is very sweet and very gratifying. After all, they lived those same years in that same Warsaw that I describe in the book.) We rarely go back in time, but the book allowed us to open some of those doors long closed -- a wonderful unanticipated consequence of putting something out for others to read.

And I thought about how history is painting events in this country and how it had painted events in Poland in the years I lived there and in the years that followed.

I had plenty of time for all this thinking, because the day was once again beautiful, but also dry. It was time to water the lavender. 

Oh, hello, Bresse hen! Are we really going to butcher you for a Sunday meal? Somehow this is feeling more and more remote. These four gentle hens are awfully sweet...

I give a quick glance at the flower tubs (oh, hi Henny!)

And at the sunflower that's growing (and growing and growing)...

And then I attend to my appointments and since I am out and about, I may as well stop by a bakery. For breakfast breads. Delicious!

In the late afternoon I pick up Snowdrop at robot camp. (She reports that each class has exactly one girl in it.) We don't have much time, but I bring her to the farmhouse anyway. Someone needs to pick the cherries! (We do not lack the cherries.)

For her, the farmette is a place of quiet  (no little brothers around, and a set of pretty quiet grandparents). I'm not sure she would appreciate a steady diet of quiet, but in small chunks, it suits her really well. 

And as she plays, I think to myself -- when did I become this quiet? Is it the Ed effect? Or is it that I have listened enough in my life to know that so many things are better left unsaid? Thoughts fare better when given space and time to simmer before served out on a plate for others to hear. Or maybe it's because I had a father who liked to expound and you know how that goes -- the next generation always wants to be different than the one before it.

When I was a nanny for the child of a prominent New York couple (read about it in Like a Swallow!), I learned how to do small talk very well. Put in a room full of "Very Important People," I could weave my way conversationally through sometimes tricky situations. At the same time, in the course of my life, I've met too many who just don't know when to stop a story. These days, if I have to pick one -- grab the stage or stay at the side of the conversation, I'll almost always pick the latter. 

Evening? I cook up soup which perhaps is not right for a warm summer evening, but still, I have rainbow chard and beet stems and a soup is an easy way to dispose of both. Besides, Polish people really love to eat soup. (We eat dinner on the porch, it's that beautiful outside!)

Wait, am I still Polish? Yeah... I think that designation will stay with me. Rainbow chard American, with a good chunk of beet Polish in me. For life.

Fantasia on Polish Airs

I hear this piece on the radio and I'm thinking -- if Chopin hadn't snatched that name (Fantasia on Polish Airs) for his lovely piano composition, I might have thought it to be a good title for a book. (For example, for my second Great Writing Project.) As it is, I have to come up with something else.

Not that I am deeply immersed in that project. Yet. I still haven't done much to "sell" my first book and, too, I have a summer of three F's -- family, flowers and friends. They take priority right now. Not unusual for summer months!

This week, I seem to be switching a bit to pay a little more attention to friends. I love my good friends to pieces. Truly, I can't imagine life without their presence. But so often they stay at the side as life plunges forward in torrents and rushing streams. So this week, I'm making more of an effort to see the people who mean the world to me. Insofar as I can do it. Too many live too far away!

Early morning breakfast at Paul's cafe, with my good Madison friend.

It's lovely! The weather is once again perfect and we sit out in part shade, part sun and the morning feels so leisurely. Like a vacation!

(At the farmhouse, I have a second breakfast with Ed. On the porch.)

And then, with only one short interruption for a Zoom call that is really more work than pleasure, I spend the entire rest of the day outside watering and weeding. The rain we were to have a few days back fizzled to nothing much at all and so I had to roll out the hose and soak some roots. There are too many new flowers and young plants that still need a sustained weekly dose of water. I can't possibly get to all in one day and so I work one field on one day and another later in the week. And always, always I weed.

(Unie knows how to scare the daylights out of the cats! She gets really close to them and they're sure she's going to attack!)

It seems to me that this year I am spending more time on flower maintenance than in past years. There's a reason for it. Last spring I planted probably several hundred new flowers. They typically start their robust growth the second year. Meaning now. I cannot let them wither and slump! It's their prime moment! So I make sure they are well weeded and that they get their weekly soak.

Yes, I know a more efficient watering job could be done with soaker hoses. It's true. But my fields are too big, too spread out all over farmette lands. And honestly, I do not mind hosing them (in a targeted way of course). I think lovely thoughts, I sing songs in my head, I revel in all that I see around me. It's the closest I get to meditating. 

With love.

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.