Windy!

I share this with Ed today: it's windy there, it's windy here!

I woke up extra early to tract his arrival on the Caribbean island. Or at least into the protected channel of an island. You can't quite place a boat on top of an island. And in their case, you can't easily dinghy over to the shore either, because, well, they lost their dinghy somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. Long story apparently, but definitely not his fault! 

There were gusty winds that allowed for a fabulous sail and I know this because once they anchored, their journey over, he called. So we are no longer outside of contact range. He's bubbling over with stories (insofar as Ed bubbles), but he's saving them for the return to the farmette, which will happen sometime this week.

Here, it's blustery alright. There are tornado warnings just to the south of us. We haven't the mega storms, but we sure picked up a lot of rain. Things are looking pretty November-ish!

As I was picking up some produce from the Farmers Unite program (you order on line directly from each farmer and you pick up all your produce from a nearby site), I let myself imagine the boat bouncing around 10 footers out at see and I thought how lucky the crew was to have Ed on board. From what I heard, they had no experience in navigation and not much with sailing either. Ed, on the other hand, has had an abundance of experience, though frankly, I do think that sailing comes naturally to him. His dad cultivated the love of being out on the water and I have to say, it's a love that's pretty deep within him now. Ed is famous for always reminding me that everyone has their genius and I am quite sure that many people have more than one genius. In the case of Ed, you would have to include sailing in his own storehouse of brilliance. The guy laughs hardest when he recalls sailing adventures. He is wired to manage the trickiest navigation, the most perplexing meteorological event, the craziest breakage or tangle onboard.

I suppose one's genius may shift over time. You stop sailing, you lose your knack. It reminds me of my daughters who were both math whiz kids in high school. Yet neither of them chose professions that included math and I am sure that ship has sailed for them now (to stick with nautical analogies). Watching the grandkids, I have to smile because it is so easy to impute genius even at this age. Snowdrop is such a word-focused girl! (She is forever questioning my word choices! Yesterday: gaga, why did you say toasty warm? What does toasty add? For her, things don't fall, they cascade. And so on.) Such a story writer too (always her favorite  hour in school), that you're sure she'll be an author person someday. Sparrow, on the other hand, will come up to you and say -- did you know that 4 plus 6 plus 1 plus 14 is 25 and that two of those is 50? I mean, that kid goes to sleep thinking up math problems. Well now. Watch her bypass writing and go into spaceship engineering (this is what she says she wants to do in life -- launch rockets) and him become a dreamy poet. So many things go into developing a skill or passion or genius! Who knows what rises to the top and what stays buried within!

In the afternoon I take a dinner over to the young family. We were to all eat together yesterday, at the farmhouse, but then two out of five developed worrisome upper respiratory infections (worrisome to me, less so to the young set) so I opt instead to cook dinner and take it there today. We can have an outdoor meeting!  I step out with my pot of crunchy chicken. My, but it's windy and wet out there!

What starts out as a drizzle, turns into a cold wet shower. Well that's a bummer! But hey, they are prepared!

They need the outing. Being housebound in this type of weather is never great for energetic little guys. We brave the wet and the wind and make our way to the playground. For a very brief romp on the equipment.

I have to say, Sandpiper loves being outside with his whole little soul. Perhaps this will be his genius or at least passion -- outdoor adventuring! Ed in the making.

I linger in their home as they warm up...

.... with popcorn and some building activity that Sparrow got in the mail and that the whole family helps assemble. They'll reheat dinner later. Me, I need to return to the animals who need to be fed and, in the case of the chickens, locked up before dusk.

Of course I'm going to have soup for dinner! Of course! Only cats, quit climbing all over me! I know you miss Ed. He'll be back soon. He'll give you all the rubs and snuggles you want. Just be patient already!

With love...

trees, eyes and croissants

We are finally going to start in on November weather this weekend, beginning with gusty storms and pounding rain this afternoon.  Indeed, I get out of bed in November darkness. In part it's the early hour -- pre-sunrise, as usual, but, too, the clouds make for a steely gray landscape out there. 

I have no choice but to get going. I have a post-surgical eye appointment very early. I decide to wait with breakfast. Rushing to eat in a darkened kitchen seems so not right!

My eye doc takes great pride in her cataract surgeries and in my case she has reason to be proud. By giving the two eyes different distance lenses, she managed to accomplish the goal of permitting me to see far and see reasonably near as well. (One eye for each function!) Sometimes I need readers, but, too, I can go a whole day not needing anything at all. So yes, she should be proud.

On the other hand, when I tell her about my accident in France (my eye still has the telltale black and blue markings of an injury), she surprises me. I explain how I had been treated in the ER room and no one wanted to charge me anything for it and she just couldn't grasp the logic of this. They treated you without requiring payment? How could that be? -- was her repeated theme.

I remembered how the French ER doc knew all about our health care system and how it functioned in its payment chaos and dysfunction. It strikes me as funny that a French doc knows about that dysfunction but an American doc has little clue about what appears to be an actually functioning system, where a patient gets care and never sees nor worries about the strange and confusing bills that come at us afterwards. (I say this with a sample of one doc from each country, so please know this is not a general statement about them or us.) Ah well -- my doc did fantastic work on my eyes. Why should she involve herself in the details of payment, right?

After the morning appointment I felt fresh croissants would be a wonderful reward for a delayed breakfast.  I drive over to the bakery. Two temptations today:

It is now nearly 10 and I know that by 11 we are to have the rains come down on us. If I want to keep up the daily walking trend, I need to do it now, or else limit myself to pacing the farmhouse. So I turn the car toward our county park and somewhat blindly (you know how dilated eyes feel!) I walk the paths of my favorite trail.

And only then do I sit down to breakfast. It's lunch hour and my daughter calls and so you can say I am having breakfast not alone at all, but with her!

And now it's a sprint to finish tidying before I'm off to pick up Snowdrop. Unusual to have her here on Fridays. I typically save this day for catch up stuff with Ed, but there is no Ed, and I don't care about catch up stuff, and she wanted to make up for lost time last week, and so here she is.

But what a drive it is! Torrents of rain. Hail. Thunder. You name it, we got it! Still, such storms pass quickly and by the time we are at the farmette, there's just a light rainfall. Not strong enough to keep her from climbing her tree. (And by the way, she is starting to have very definite opinions on what kind of photo I should take and post on Ocean. You're going to see a lot of tree climbing. I obey instructions!)

Meanwhile, out at sea, the sailors have stopped posting daily updates and so we can only guess that everyone is alive and pushing through the last 24 hours on the waters of the Atlantic. By tomorrow they will almost certainly hit the shores of the islands. Unfortunately, I see rain in the forecast for the Caribbean for the next week, perhaps longer. Ah well. It will be warm rain. I'm sure it wont keep Ed from swimming in the salty seas.

Dinner tonight? Oh, this is a no-brainer. My veggie soup! With grated parmesan. So fitting for this wet and stormy day!

With love...

and one last one...

First of all, I want to join the long line of food writers who have have felt compelled to post beautiful tributes to Julie Powell, who died, possibly of Covid complications, at the ridiculously young age of 49. In case you don't know her, Julie was the one who started blogging in 2002 about her year of cooking from Julia Child's path breaking book -- Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Eventually Nora Ephron made a movie about this and Julie went from being a city clerk in New York to being very well known, certainly among those (like me!) who read quite a bit of internet stuff on cooking and love movies about kitchen troubles!

Bruni in the NYTimes writes that Julie changed the world of food writing. I'd like to think she did even more than that. Her blogging began at a time when blogging was thought to be really weird. Heck, I started a year and a half later (in January 2004) and it was still regarded as really weird. You had to really have the strength of conviction, the I don't-care-what-you-think-of-me attitude to go on. I remember those years. My daughters stood by me. My American friends did too. And of course Ed. Others? Opinions varied and I heard them all. 

I'm sure this was the case for Julie as well and as she continued to write after her initial success with Julie/Julia, she stuck with her own vision of what deserved to be published and read by many. She never adorned her writing or vulgarized it to gain a readership. As a person who has been writing Ocean posts daily, I know all the temptations out there. And so I completely admire those who resist them and write from the heart. Julie wrote from the heart.

*.    *     *

We have before us one last day of late August weather. Stunningly beautiful, if you can ignore the oddity of hitting 72F (beyond 22C) here in Wisconsin on November 3rd. 

As I tidy up the farmhouse, I look out at the rising sun and the brilliant colors on the crab outside our bathroom window. We have always thought that this is the best view in the house!

*.   *.   *

Since I've been back from my most recent trip, I have been tempted every single morning to drive the twelve minutes to the bakery for breakfast croissants. I've resisted. I need to adjust to being back. To eating oatmeal. To this, to that. Today I ran out of excuses and I happily drove to pick up three croissants. I thought they'd last for three mornings (they reheat well in the oven!), but I ate one today and Snowdrop devoured the second. 

The plan for breakfast was to eat a leisurely meal, with my kindle at the side. Instead, I eat with Dance at the side. 

In the meantime, my regular breakfast companion is still out at sea. To me, he seems once again to have slowed down and is making weird (from my reading of the maps) twists and zigzags. I can only guess they're trying to pick up better winds. Watching the charts reminds me a little of watching an update load on your computer: the end is in sight, but it seems like the last stretch takes way longer than the first 75%. 

From the navigation maps, I can tell that he is now closer to the island than to the US mainland. Which of course doesn't tell you much except that if he wants to get to shore quickly, well, he's got to keep heading south.

*.    *     *

I do still have farmette tasks to do. The fallen leaves need to be mowed for mulch and the flower fields need to be trimmed for winter. Too, I have some seeds to sow in the meadows. I'm not sure if this is the best time to sow perennial flower seeds, but I know that it is one possible time and so I take advantage of the chickens enjoying an hour digging in the newly updated compost pile and go out to the meadows to do my work there

Despite the beautiful weather, I almost do not go out for a walk. There's just so much to do! But in the end I tell myself that if I stop now, I will not resume the rigor of daily brisk sprints.  So I walk. In the new development. I know, right?

*.    *     *

As usual when I pick up Snowdrop after school, I ask her about the highlights of her day. She always loves her recesses (this is when she connects with her best friend who happens to have landed in a different class) and today is no different.

But I liked the second recess better than the first.

What happened during the first?

Oh, three boys were chasing us on the playground.

What do they do when they catch you?

They don't catch us.

You're faster?

No, boys are faster, gaga. But girls are smarter.

I feel I ought to defend smart boys so I suggest that perhaps there are smart ones on either side of the gender divide. She considers this. Not in my class. 

Fair enough. I do not know the players here so I best say no more!

At the farmette, she plays a little...

... but most of our time is spent reading. She has a bit of a cold and I sense that anything low key is best for her. 

*.    *     *

Evening. I'm late coming home to put away the chickens. The cats are meowing their heads off, feeling themselves to be neglected far too long. Relax, all of you! I'm here!

I reheat Sunday's dinner once again. Tomorrow I'll reheat the soup. I'd forgotten how cooking for one means that there will be leftovers. Lots of them. I offer no protest. 

With love...

and another...

You always have to remember that your good fortune is not everyone's good fortune. Here we are, experiencing the most splendid November weather I have ever had, and elsewhere, ten foot waves are pounding on little boats while sheets of rain are battering the crews trying to keep going, despite it all.

One consequence of having your beloved out at sea is that you are in a period of silence. There is a way to communicate, but only in an emergency and by that, I mean one that requires immediate action on the part of the sailors. You wouldn't send a message saying you just had a heart attack and are dying in the hospital because honestly, there's nothing they could do for you out there in the middle of the Atlantic. And you might be tempted to ask "honey, where did you put the remote to the TV?" but I'd advise against it. Emergency means emergency ("I need your kidney for a transplant now, so head back to shore ASAP" might qualify...if no other donor can be found).

Nonetheless, there is information out there. I track their progress on a map that has their position updated every few minutes. (I texted a sailing buddy of Ed's that's doing the same. I ask him: why did they zig zag in the middle of the night? He answered: "I was wondering that myself! I don't know...") Partial information can be a terrible thing.

But, we assume, poor weather, broken lines, and dinghy lost at sea notwithstanding, that they're finally picking up good winds and heading due south. (How do I know about broken lines and a lost dinghy? Once a day they post a one sentence summary of progress. Or lack thereof.) I'm thinking -- if lines broke, boats flew off, and calamities ensued, there's no one I'd rather have on board more than Ed. Always calm, always switches into problem solving mode. My hero.

Meanwhile, at the farmette, I deal with the crew of animals. At least one is sick and there's not much I can do for her except occasionally pick her up and clean her up. The hope is that it's just her. That it's not a virus or parasite. So far, the Bresse girls are in outstanding shape and the rest, the older bunch, are hobbling' along.

Breakfast? I take myself elsewhere. To Paul's (or actually Kim's since lately his wife has been running the show at what is actually called Oasis Cafe). The croissants here are very homemade, but what you love in a coffee and croissant is how and where you're consuming the two. This coffee shop is at the top of my list of local favorites. They could sell croissants straight out of a Pillsbury tube and I would still think of their place as perfect for a solo breakfast. The friendliness here is tremendous.

My walks are getting less imaginative. Today, for example, I contemplated walking around the UPS drop off point (where I was depositing a package). That happens to be a strip mall by busy roads. In the end I nudged myself to do better, but honestly, I didn't much care where I went so long as there was a warm breeze and sunshine on my face. But I should have cared. I drove to our local park and it was well worth the effort. November scenery can be deeply satisfying.

Snowdrop is at the farmhouse after school. Less tired...

... but still happy to snuggle under a blanket at the farmhouse. She has fallen in love with the fleece thing I bought at the Detroit airport on my trip back from New York, with her head resting on the pillow she chose when we were at the Giardini Botanici di Villa Taranto this August. Who says travel does not deliver useful items!

Evening? I cook up a pot of soup. Ed left me a whole box of veggies from our CSA, so veggie soup it is! (Not sure onions carrots garlic sweet potato acorn squash red cabbage tomatoes and corn, all together, ever would made it into a serious cookbook, but it worked for me!) How would have I ever managed to get this far in life without my yellow pot! 

Good night, with love...

November

I'd say the first half of November is right up there for me with the first half of March.  If you lived in Wisconsin, you would understand. So I extend my welcome to this month with a sigh. I mean, November! It tests your patience, really it does. (In case you do not live here, let me just summarize it this way: it turns dark and cold and it has no redeeming virtue.) Nonetheless, we are having exceptionally good weather right now. Perhaps record breaking good weather. A high of 70F (21C) today, tomorrow. Weird and wonderful, all at the same time.

Out at sea, Ed is less lucky. Dodging storms (so far as I can tell). I am looking forward to the retelling of how this all unfolded for him. (Right now he did a sharp east swing into the ocean, to cross the Gulf Stream. Once that's done, he'll be picking up some pretty hefty winds. Which, of course, is a good thing for a sailor!)

Let's get back to our lovely morning, here at the farmette.

We have an automatic gizmo on the coop that opens the door for the chickens just after sunrise. It broke on the first day back for me. This simply means that if I want to stay in bed past dawn, I do so knowing that I am torturing the chickens who want to be out. Sigh... Up with the sun then!

A lovely walk to the barn...

And back...

Breakfast: I was all set to eat alone, in the company of my computer actually, when guess who showed up!

Okay, fine, Dance. But you're stuck with me, the one who does not like to share the table with walking beasts at mealtime. I'll be patient. Until Ed comes back. Then I'll go back to pushing you over to his side of the table.

In the late morning, I sow seeds. We're trying out ginseng under the huge maples out front. Myself, I have little hope for this project. I know ginseng needs shade and it will get that, but I think the soil there is lousy and dry and I have doubts about anything taking root. Even hostas have give up. Still, my ever-wanting-to-try-new-cultivars guy wants to give it a go, so I sow. After brushing away the canopy of gold that right now covers the entire front yard.

And then I sow some more, in the bed of hostas by the barn. They say if a weed will grow, so will ginseng.  Oh, do we have the weeds by the barn! Maybe we'll have better luck there. Wait, chickens! Please do not follow me and scratch out the seeds! Please! Hmmm... maybe we wont have better luck there! Shush!

My walk today is in the Arboretum. Just for a change. None of the wildlife areas within a short drive are attractive for me in November. It's hunting season and it just pops the bubble of pleasure to run into men with guns during a hike. So, Arboretum it is.

It's actually very pretty. Most of the trees have shed their leaves, but this just adds to the enchanting blend of gold with bare limbs. Really lovely.

And then Snowdrop is here and we have our brief time before I have to get her ready for ballet.

She is a tired girl! Hmmm... I wonder why? Could it be that every trick-or-treater is having a subdued day-after? Still, she is ready on time and indeed, we are early today! Impressive cooperation and coordination!

And now I am home. Chasing chickens who balk at going into the coop, feeding cats, reheating leftovers yet again for myself.

Good night to all, on dry lands and sailing across turbulent seas. 

With so much love...

Boo!

What incredible Halloween weather the kids will be having! Here, at the farmette we do not get trick-or-treaters, but if we did, we surely would have to stack up on candy. No child will want to end the door-to-door collection when it feels more like an early September day rather than the night before November 1st!

People who know how to track weather systems are telling me that the weather out where Ed is sailing is giving him good winds. That's the upside. My own reading of the maps tells me that he's in the thick of storms right now. Let's hope he reenters a good weather bubble. I know they never last, as ours wont either, but we'll take and be grateful for all the beneficial winds and grand Halloween skies, thank you very much! And now, if you'll excuse me, I have chickens to feed.

 

I bake muffins this morning. Here's my logic: Snowdrop will be here after school. Snowdrop loves my muffins. Maybe if I pile in some healthy yogurt and berry muffins into her before she goes off seeking her candy fortunes with her friend, she'll have the energy that this night will require.

Breakfast is with my friend. True, Diane is in Florida and I am in Wisconsin, but I have her right there at the table with me!

And then I take a walk. A longer one, to take in this wonderful day with the gentle light that only November and February provide. Light blue skies and golden-bronze landscapes. Normally, at this time of the year, we're slushing through mud and turning on the lights inside even at midday. Not so on this Halloween. 

Back at the farmette, the crab apple has lost its leaves. The birds, especially the robins hit on its red apples all day long.

And then I pick up Snowdrop.

We spend a few minutes just enjoying the awesomeness of this day!

I feed her and turn around to take her back to her neighborhood.

(on her way out! to be costumed and made ready at her friend's house)

This is the first year where I'm not seeing them all head out for trick-or-treating. The kids are spread out: the oldest one is going with a her friends, Sparrow, too, is going with a school buddy, and Sandpiper is tagging along with his former nanny's family. (The kids in Chicago are out with friends as well.)  I am happy that all five grandkids are reveling in the specialness of this day. Thinking about all of them in the quiet of my little space in the farmhouse is a lot easier than following along as they make their rounds.  I say this after years of experience!

Happy Halloween to all you costumed little bandits!

with love...

farmette life

Being pseudo farmers, or maybe call us farmette caretakers, or just plain two people living in the country with nine chickens and six cats is serious business. I was up before 6 in the morning and I did not sit down to breakfast until 9:30. In between there was the tidying, unpacking, clearing, watering, trashing, feeding, oh, a million things that required my care. And I'm not done yet: I just paused to finally have a good cup of coffee.

Ed did put in some effort to get this place into good working order before he left. And the mechanicals are all chugging along well. But there is still a lot to do, whether or not he is home. A shocking amount of work in fact. Even as I did wake up to a beautiful morning and that in itself is wonderful. Three years ago, when he left for a similar sailing trip, it, too was the end of October. The day after he left, we had a snowstorm. It was the year the kids trick-or-treated on icy snowy roads. At the farmette, I had a lot of shoveling to do! Moreover, I got what the doc thought was pneumonia. And we had baby kittens (Dance's kids before we neutered every single cat that showed up here) and they required training so that they would go into the sheep shed when the weather got rough. One of them chose to rest under my car, unbeknownst to me of course,  and as I backed out, he got tangled and I saw in horror a little cat fly into the air and then collapse in a dead heap of flesh behind me. That was all three years ago.

Today, the weather could not be more lovely (for the end of October). Less warm than in Paris, but beautiful nonetheless. 

And it will be thus through the first half of November. We did not turn the water off outside because there will be no frost in the immediate future! This is remarkable and a little frightening. But so so beautiful!

(sunrise...)

The chickens messed up the sunny bed I planted just before leaving (grrrr!), so I spent a bit of time covering holes. They proceeded to dig them up afresh. They teach you to be patient, that's for sure.

The cats are all mad at us for shutting them out for two days. Most of them disappeared. Even the most loyal cuddlers left the farmette to seek adventure elsewhere.  Don't tell me cats don't hold grudges! By afternoon the three wanderers came back and meowed their heads off, saying, I'm sure -- are you sorry for leaving us? Are you?? 

(We called this one "Unfriendly" a long time ago. Talk about a wrong call!)

(Dance, the queen...)

Breakfast was of course alone, but with flowers. I had ordered groceries somewhere between 4 and 5 in the morning and they were delivered promptly at 7. There was a flower sale and I thought this particular bunch with lovely roses stuck in it would remind me of the bouquet I kept in Paris, so I clicked them right into the shopping basket. Small reminders of trips recently taken are important in the transition from travel to being home.

I did also want to go out for a bag of croissants: that is an addictive breakfast and I can never have enough of it. A croissant would have been a very fitting accompaniment to my solo breakfast, possibly with book in hand (still on that policeman who himself eats croissants every morning at his favorite cafe-bar), but I held back. A twelve minute drive to the bakery is bad enough, but, too, one must remember that there are virtues to oatmeal, so I sighed deeply and transitioned to my non-croissant meal today.

After breakfast I returned to farmette business. Tulip bulbs came in my absence. Thirty of them. In they go. And afterwards, I took a walk. Nowhere remarkable, but I had been walking so much the past ten days that I want that habit to continue a while longer. Besides, this weather wont last. Seize the day!

(farmhouse, up front)

And speaking of weather, Ed called, to check in, yes that, but also to tell me that they are leaving early. Like, tonight. The sail date was set for November 1st, but there are bothersome weather systems and they want to beat trouble before it has a chance to beat them. This of course sounds terrifying to people who never head out to sea, but to Ed it is just one more thing to consider when you're preparing for an ocean run. He is by far the most experienced person on that boat but he tells me the rest are fast learners, so he feels they're ready to go. Again, I would have liked to hear that he is the least experienced person on the boat, but on the other hand, Ed is a safe sailor and so I know no one on that boat will be doing anything foolish if he can help it.

Happy and safe travels, my love!

In the afternoon I prep the house some more and I start in on dinner for the young family. Their other grandmother is visiting so we are a table of seven,  even though there is no Ed. Of course, it is wonderful to see everyone again!

(she's got him climbing trees, and that's a good thing for this very cautious little guy!)

(dinner..)

(his first macaron...)

I'm on a Paris internal clock still and so I feel dozy early, but I fight the great desire to fall asleep as soon as everyone leaves. I read, I write, I think about Ed's trip, about our insatiable desire to discover something new. Hoping for great (but safe!) adventures for all of us...

With so much love...