Wednesday

Oh, we are prone to indulge excessively, aren't we... No small scoop of ice cream! We want a double on a waffle cone, or better yet, a triple, with sprinkles and chocolate sauce and a cherry on top. No one lily for me -- I'll plant dozens, wherever there is room and come July, I'll take one photo after another, even though there is such a thing as "too many lilies!"

Well, my patient souls, this is July for you. Ocean is going to be full of lilies. My life is full of lilies!

All around me I see their gentle blush and I think -- that fading rose tone, blending into a tangerine orange and a lemon yellow -- that's just exquisite!

Or, how about orange marmalade spilling into scrambled eggs?

With the lilies come the tree frogs.

Of course, my life is not just stuck in a pool of lilies (though how good does that sound!). First of all, July gives us other splendid blooms.

(I never thought of sweet peas as perennials, until mine showed up again and again and ... yet again.)

And I do have other thoughts running through my head and we eat summer meals and have summer moments on the porch...

And there was the inspection of the tomato field -- the tomatoes are splendid this year!

But there is no question about it: lilies are in almost all my July days and so, too, they will be in almost all your July days, Ocean readers! (I say "almost" because I will be away for a handful of them.) And that's not a bad thing. Remember, by February, we will all be starved for the beauty of a lily. Even just one lily. Perhaps this lily:

[I should say that I actually had a fuller day than it may appear here. For example, I picked up Snowdrop at Aldo Leopold Nature Center where she had the next in a series of summer day camps. This one focused on nature and art -- how fantastic is that! 

(pausing by the prairie flowers...)

Afterwards, she came to the farmette with me for her usuals. And then I drove her to her next activity: softball, on the Blue Jays team.

Her brothers are there to watch. And to get in their own practice runs.

I leave them all playing or watching or practicing softball. I head back to the farmette, and this time I do not speed home like crazy to avoid horrible storms. That was yesterday's adventure!]

In the evening, Ed bikes, I hum to myself -- luli luli lily! (That would be a goodnight lullaby in the Ukraine, with a lily twist.)

With love...

project no. 862

The farmette is a place of wonderful possibilities. And challenges. And, if you have an imagination and a will for it, the land has the ability to inspire you to run free with ideas on how to improve it and how to stay sane while you live and work here. Ed is a source of constant quirky ideas. And we are embarking on one that on the one hand makes sense, on the other -- well, it's quirky.

It comes from me gently prodding him to think of ways to improve our parking situation. In the summer, the afternoon sun comes in at just the wrong angle and it heats up the cars tremendously. No big deal for him -- he hardly ever drives anywhere at all in the summer, but a real nuisance for me as I cart the kids home in an overheated vehicle. In the winter, the problem is with the snow build-up. What lands on the cars can be swept off without much fuss, but the snows settle by the doors and over time they form a sloping mound of ice. It's slippery for the kids and it's slippery for me! So I've been suggesting for a while now that we put up some kind of roof or cover. 

In your average outdoor parking place, this should be easy. There are any number of sheltering option out there for cars. But the problem is that we routinely have huge truckloads of wood chips dumped at the end of the driveway. There's no other place for them. Big trucks have to be able to safely unload a cargo there, so that any thought of a permanent car shelter is unworkable. 

Ed never gives up that easily and lately he's been thinking that perhaps we could put up a very very sturdy and very very large shade umbrella over just my car. You know the type -- people use them on their decks for shade over a seating area or a swimming pool. The important thing is that the arm on which it rests can be anchored at the side and the whole thing is collapsable.

So now we have a new project: to clear the space by the parking area and to see if we can dig in an umbrella stand there. To do this, we have to pull out huge ancient hydrangea bushes. We did that yesterday and it was painful! Those bushes have runners like you wouldn't believe! 

What to do with the bushes? Me, I would have dumped them on our wood pile. Not so Ed. He begged me to come up with a landscaping idea where he could put these bushes in. I finally chose a space at the edge of the property, right by the prairie that the town is planting to the east of us. It's an inhospitable place to say the least! Clay soil, with thistle and wild parsnip growing like crazy. Today we tried to dig out all that crazy stuff and put in these poor bushes. Well, Ed did a big chunk of the work. I chased away deer flies and occasionally relieved him of the digging.

Stage two of the project will be putting in that umbrella. I honestly have a hard time believing that this will work, but I never say no to an offer of a solution to a vexing problem! (Umbrella is on order. Stage two will follow once it arrives.)

Breakfast, somewhere in there, between the digging and the mowing and the replanting.

The rain had given the flower fields a nice bit of moisture, but of course now we have the mosquitoes again. Not terrible, but still, very present. Nonetheless, I take a long stroll through the flower fields because finally, at long last the lilies are beginning to pop out!

And so I have my seasonal job: snip the spent flowers and admire the purity of the new blooms!

It truly is magnificent out there! We are just starting the color-filled flowering season, how good is that!

In the afternoon, the young family stops by (on their way home from Chicago) and Snowdrop stays with me for some missed hours of play. As I wait for them on the driveway, I notice (and the cheepers notice) that the next farmette fruit is ready for picking.

(She is shorter than a sunflower!)

I can't say we stay a long time in the great outdoors -- it's hot and muggy once again. Besides, she started a book here the last time and she was anxious to finish it.  

While she reads, I bake some cornbread.

No, it's not Thanksgiving! It just struck me that I ought to include a bean salad in our supper repertoire and a plate of bean salad seems like it needs an addition of something. Cornbread seems sensible for it, no?

Okay, pause in cooking so that I can drive the girl home and visit briefly with her brothers and mommy.

Back at the farmhouse, I'm in the kitchen again. Here's the newly developed salad, with black beans, corn, peppers, green onions and avocado. In a lime and olive oil dressing. I know, I know -- it will be even better with the fresh Wisconsin corn, coming to us in a couple of weeks! I had to make do with last year's stuff.

I think that using canned black beans is a bit of a cheat, but I feel noble enough making my own salad dressing. Besides, who's to know!

Storms outside, calm and quiet inside. A typical summer combination. 

A typical summer day.

finally, a wet fourth

At around 4a.m., on the fourth, four cats run up and down the farmhouse steps. At least this is what Ed reports as he comes upstairs to sleep. He'd just spent some time combing the black fur on the mystery cat who, for the second time, visited the farmhouse, along with the three regulars who come for evening naps here.

So you think this cat belongs to. someone?

There is no collar, but it smells of... laundry detergent. Some kind of a fragrant clean smell.

Did you try feeding her? If she's hungry then that's some evidence that she is lost or homeless.

No. She's not skittish, but you know how the rest are. If I get up, they all flee to the door. I did not want to cause a raucous. 

We search various online billboards for lost kitties. There's no listing nearby. We'll have to see where this takes us.

Not too long after, we're up. There is a window of good weather this morning and we both want to finish outdoor projects. I clean up some of the fields, Ed continues to dig up the weeds in our courtyard. With cheeper help.

The flower fields are still tame for a July day. Here, I'll show you the stars right now, but they are, for the most part, solo bloomers. Most are still biding their time.

Two more things on my list for today: take a walk in the prairie in the local park up the road, and finish picking the cherries in the new orchard. The goal: get it all done before the anticipated, the much anticipated afternoon storms pass through.

The prairie walk is the easier of the two. We have been so busy with farmette work that we haven't been hiking much (in fact, not at all!) and so it is a joy to see the prairie in its early summer splendor!

My friends yesterday talked about movement goals that they set for each day and I was thinking -- isn't that a clever idea! I am not a person who easily sets or meets goals. Days roll by on their own steam and Ed and I often change course many times. But perhaps I should reconsider? In any event, a walk sounds like a noble goal and indeed, the walk is wonderful!

And now it is getting awfully close to noon and we still haven't sat down to breakfast. This seems like a good time...

And just before the rain starts, I get to the cherry tree. This is a project. Snowdrop was able to pick many of the cherries reachable to her from a ladder. Birds have certainly done a job on about have of the fruits on this tree. So how do I reach the rest?

When I was a child, my grandma would let me climb the tree out back and I was adept at balancing myself  on the higher limbs. But this tree is too young for that. The branches aren't strong enough to support me. (Too, I am 69). But combining a foot on the limbs with the second on a ladder rung does the trick. I get to many if not all the good clumps. 

And once I am done, the rain does come down. I can't say there's enough of it. Maybe half an inch by evening. But it's a start. Let's hope for more overnight.

One more comment for this holiday Ocean post: it is of course a day with the usual (yes usual) horrors in the press. Both young families are in northern Chicago this weekend and so once again a shooting hits a little too close to home (what can I say -- every shooting hits too close to home, if not my home then yours, or theirs or someone else's). And of course, it's not only the ones suffering loss in a senseless shooting, it's hundreds more who witnessed the tragedy, who will never again feel a silly giddiness at a parade passing through. So you shake your head and think -- we've come to this point exactly how? 

I was reading in the Washington Post today how "nearly every American has foreboding the country they love is losing its way." Maybe it is? Isn't it easier to kill democracy than to build it from scratch?

But here's the thing: are we any different today than we were, say 150 years ago? It's not for me to reflect on that. I am not a historian and even though I taught Property courses in Law School for many years, I am not the right person to write about transformative events that shaped this nation. But I want to leave you with the words of one writer, the historian Jill Lepore, who did pause to consider this country then and now, looking back to a time when Katherine Lee Bates wrote the poem America the Beautiful (1893). Lepore (whose piece appeared in the National Geographic a year or two ago) says that many of us believe this to be a poem about a nobler period in our history, "... as if Bates's poem dates to a simpler America. It does not. Americans of Katharine Lee Bates's day were as politically divided as Americans of this day -- arguably, they were more divided -- over everything from immigration to land use to racial justice to economic equality. And her America was similar to this America in more ways too: It was wondrous and cruel, rich and poor, merciless, beautiful and ugly." 

And yet, here we still are. Struggling.

If you don't know about the life of Bates, I really want to encourage you to read about her in Lapore's piece here. It's a good use of your time on this Fourth of July, 2022.

I hope you had a reflective yet beautiful day. 

With love.

week of friends

It really was not planned to be that intensely focused on friends. The week just filled itself with people in the way that it does when you open yourself up to the possibilities. And tonight capped it with a dinner that truly was extra special icing on an already grand cake.

That, of course, came in the evening. The day? Well, with all the sunshine and dry weather, I needed to finish working on the front flower strip. I do it early. Very early. Right after a quick feeding of the animals and an inspection on what's going on in the courtyard-facing flower fields.

(one large lilium, exploding; the rest -- still holding back)

(the first of the delicately hued day lilies)

(getting to be taller than the house!)

(these always bloom ahead of the pack!)

The front strip needs a good weeding job. But the dirt there is so dry that the hose soak has to come first, otherwise you cannot pull out the roots of the grasses and weeds that sprout in the tough soil. In all, it's a lot of work, but I finish it! It's not magnificent, it's not sumptuous, but it's good enough. 

It's close to noon by the time we sit down to breakfast. I am so in need of a rest that we linger on the porch for a long long time.

With a fan, it's very manageable, even as the temperatures are once again creeping up to over 30C (87F). 

As we sit back and lightly rock on the springy chairs, I'm filled with that sense of wellbeing that comes from a very deliberate acceptance of all that a day may present. Ed and I share in this purposeful contentment, preferring to quietly watch swallows dart in and out of the garage than to list and review all of life's irritants. And it strikes me that when you are young and searching out partners in life, you don't think much about how it might be to spend senior years with someone. You assume that if you have a solid foundation, then you will in some fashion grow together. But what if you like peace and prefer mindful acceptance over a never ending spelling out of all that is wrong with your life? Shouldn't you be sure to find a partner who is like you in this regard?

Ed, for all that we do not share, is indeed very much like me in this regard. I swear, violent storms could knock down our house and tear up the farmette lands and we would get up the next morning, and start planning the rebuild of our next home, taking time to sit and watch swallows, because in this quiet activity we find joy.

And now comes evening dinner. Here, I have to smile at how many dinners I have eaten with these two friends!

I met them first when I started writing Ocean, so maybe 18 years ago. He blogged too and we somehow found each other through this shared hobby.

Ocean has done this for me: it has grown my pool of friends. Some live far (Australia!), some live closer, like these two. And most live somewhere in between (California, Michigan). Some were older when Ocean came along and some have died in the last year (lobsterman's wife Bex, intrepid France traveler Lee, beloved Cambridge artist Lily). But they were and are friends, as solid as can be. 

So here we are tonight, on their porch, reflecting back, looking forward (their kids join us and it is super cool to listen to their stories too) and I'm thinking -- each day brings many precious moments and this is one of them.

(All this and fabulous food too...)

Good night to you, dear reader, wherever you may be.

With love...

flowers

On the one hand, the blooming season has been late this year, but on the other hand, the number of buds on any perennial stalk is large. Larger than in previous years. Nevertheless, on the second day of July I am typically seeing clumps of lily heads everywhere. Not this year. Small batches, single flowers are still the norm. It'll be another week before the buds begin to open up. (I've stopped saying that any particular year is strange weather wise, because they're all strange. We no longer have great predictability. The only thing that is certain is that this growing season will be again in some way unusual.)

I am up early. I want to go the the Farmers Market downtown and it is not as fun to go there when the crowds swell in the later morning hours. Not if you really want to shop.

After being up most of the night, Ed is reluctant to come with me. What are you shopping for? - he asks, eyes closed.

Well, flowers for one. 

Yes, flowers. I'm not sure what I'll see this week, since the spring peonies should be mostly finished and the summer field grown dahlias aren't ready yet, but surely there'll be something. Too, I want to check out the veggies. This is strange, given that I just picked up a full box from our CSA on Thursday, but the fact is, most CSA boxes (including ours) are overloaded with zucchini right now and the only way I can sneak zucchini into our dinner diet is to cut it up into tiny squares and toss it with a salad (along with other gems such as cukes, radishes, sugar snap peas and whatever else you may have). Ed is not otherwise a fan of zucchini. 

And here's what surprises me at the market: the crowds really start to swell as early as 8 in the morning. I mean, it's not shoulder to shoulder yet, but you're not going to have the space to yourself. 

Too, I see that more and more vendors, especially (but not only) the Hmong vendors, are adding flowers to their sales. Nearly every other table has great big bouquets for sale. Of what? Oh, everything! I still see spring favorites -- peonies and lupines -- but also summer stuff: lilies, sunflowers, etc. And here's the problem: insofar as there is choice, it is impossible to pick out a favorite, because you don't know if someone else's bouquet will be better. 

I find this to be the greatest source of frustration with our market: you walk in a circle around the Capitol and you cannot tell what will be for sale down the road. When I used to be the market buyer for L'Etoile Restaurant, I would routinely do the circle several times to figure out where the best stuff was. But of course, these days I don't want to spend the whole morning on that effort. So I take a chance, buy a bouquet, and pick up some asparagus, and boom! a few stalls later I see better/cheaper asparagus and even more stunning bouquets.

It's good to get to know the vendors and to pick your favorite sellers as a starting point. I have my favorite greens guy (Snug Haven) and perennial guy (Dave at FF) and potted annuals guy (from Koepke's). Now I have to search out a favorite for bunches of flowers. There are many contenders! Really many!

As I leave the market, struggling with a full load, I realize that I've over purchased again. I mean, how can you not?! It's the last asparagus of the year, the last arugula. The young carrots are irresistible. And of course, there are the bunches of flowers. I come home with two.

Our breakfast table is the better for it.

The rest of the day I spend on outdoor work. 

It's not light stuff: for the first time this year I turn my attention to the front flower strip. The one that faces the road. I've ignored it because at some level I've given up on it. Never plant perennials near a maple grove! The tree roots there are fierce and the soil loses nutrients by the minute! A dry spell doesn't help. Still, the flowers I did plant have, for the most part, come back (in a very wimpy form). And really need water. And some weed work. Today I do both.

By evening I am spent. To the core. My eyes refuse to stay open. Somewhere in the distance fireworks crack and boom and sputter. I barely notice. Can you be asleep and still write a post? I think so. Indeed, I'm living proof of it.

Good night!