Monday

My friend sent me pictures of a chalka braid -- a traditional loaf of bread that she'd picked up at a Warsaw bakery (this one). While she was at it, she threw in a picture of the snow as seen from her apartment window. As it happened, my sister, too, sent a picture of the snow scene outside her window in Warsaw. And my Chicago daughter sent photos of their outing to see the Nutcracker with Primrose yesterday. And not to be forgotten -- I received a pic, attached to a message, of the Madison bunch putting together a Clasen's gingerbread house at home. Oh yeah, and there were, earlier in the week, photos of my Michigan friend's sons, growing up.  

I list them because I love them all. 

There was an article in the paper recently noting how you should send impulsive messages to your friends. Sweet updates, kind words, encouragements, funny reports, pleasures shared in this way even if you cannot be together in person. I'll add to this -- include a picture! It's so easy with your phone camera. Snap, tap tap, send. These images are evocative and personal. Moments from a regular old day. So, put that fantastic technology to use! Send the photos. Blurred, crooked or fine and elegant -- they're always loved.

In other news -- we're still hovering just above freezing. The chickens are happy. They can scratch the unfrozen ground.

(Hey, how about a photo of me and my sing?? -- this from Dance. Who can read. Just kidding!)

Breakfast, working through the granola now...

And then I take out the baking pans. I glance through newly posted recipes daily and sometimes I mark one as "I need to make this soon." I did that to Melissa Clark's cookie recipe last week. Cherry rugelach cookies. Time to bake! (If you make these, up the temp a bit and bake them in the upper third of oven for a little longer than she suggests. No way are you going to get them to toast up otherwise.)

And this takes me all the way up to Snowdrop pick-up time.

As we were walking to the farmhouse and she, as usual, tested her ability to reach some higher branch of a bush, I thought -- kids stretch and twist and balance all the time. And then we all get lazy. Or busy. Or tired. Or some combination of the above.

(Isn't it time to zoom in on the Christmas tree again? Here so briefly, adding so much to all our December days...)

At 4:15 Ed goes off to close up the coop. It's been a while since Snowdrop asked to go with him. Today, she was eager to join in on this evening ritual.

(And she spotted my under-the-table bicycle. Just had to try it!)

The day ends. The cats sleep, the cheepers huddle. Winter peace. Serene and beautiful.

Sunday

I've turned good. I mean, really good. I totally resisted the very very strong temptation to head out and get croissants for breakfast. I'm doing (at least some of) my neck and knee exercises. I'm using my under-the-table bike. I tested my balance (NYT here) and my flexibility (NYT here). And Ed and I are walking again. Daily.

And it's not even New Year's Day!

I'm not sure where the motivation for all this virtue came from. Perhaps the realization that strength isn't born of couch sitting. More likely though, it's just one of those things. One day you get up and say to yourself -- time to do more, and you start doing more. Life's choices are very difficult to explain.

It's not the best weather right now: hovering just above freezing. So, the snow is melting, but the cold is with us nonetheless. Honestly though, this is a gift compared to what's coming. They're telling us Christmas is going to be very very cold this year. An Arctic cold, sweeping down to completely unnerve those who wish winter was ending this month rather than just beginning.

So, enjoy the near-freezing temps! They wont last.

(Here that, cheepers?)

In the barn, I see that we have caught yet another opossum. That's a third one since Thanksgiving! A family perhaps? Or, we have a population explosion nearby. These animals like woodlands, streams, marshes. And they also like habitation. I would bet many of them live underneath the porches of the new development that sprouted here in the last five years. 

Breakfast: instead of baking a cake or muffins, I decide to bake granola. I've done this in the past and never found a recipe that I liked enough to repeat, but the one on Food52 caught my eye this month because it's both easy and healthy and not too sweet. Oats, pistachios, cashews, tahini, maple syrup, flax seeds out of habit, and a dash of vanilla and salt. That's it.

And yes, we like it!

In the early afternoon, we go out for a walk in the Wild Life Area we discovered this fall, just to the east of us. It's a beautiful path, with plenty of woodlands and views to the neighboring farmland.

And when I slip on the mushy snow, I manage to NOT fall on my knee, so that the only damage is to my very wet pants and gloves. All bones working well!

Normally, Sunday evening is family dinner at the farmhouse time, but my daughter's household has been passing around the flu. They are all vaccinated so the virus comes and goes quickly enough and without lingering side effects, nonetheless, they are keeping to themselves this weekend. Here's hoping that it will all be history very soon.

Now excuse while I do some stationary pedaling again. 

now or never

We hatched our plan last night. Ed insisted that he is up for it and that I should wake him. Still, when the time came, I hesitated. He was in deep sleep.

I let him be. For now. Dressed and bundled against the chilly air, I go out to feed the animals. 

At the farmhouse, he's still sleeping, so I boom out to him -- Ed! It's now or never!

Fact is, when we went out for our snowy walk yesterday, we thought that there actually might be enough of the white stuff for skiing. But the temperatures hovered around freezing, climbing to one degree above by morning, and they would go up even higher today, so if we were to ski at all on this rather puny snow cover, it would have to be at sunrise. 

I'm up! -- he shouts down, not really being up at all, but I hear the certainty, the willingness to forge ahead.

He dresses quickly. My knee is still stiff and creaky from a night of inactivity, so he's charged with lugging the skids up from the basement. They'll stay on the porch all winter long, until the first crocus pops up in April. 

We load up the car and drive to our local park. We need to concentrate our efforts on the open meadows. Woodland paths are going to have a thiner cover. 

It's a foggy morning. The kind that called forth Rudolph to help guide that sleigh. I haven't had my milky coffee yet, so my thoughts skip around to absurd things, like the joke from my childhood that I thought was the funniest thing ever, about the taxi driver in Moscow who insisted it was raining even though the passenger thought that it was snowing. The wife nudged her fellow and said -- Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear. I would laugh and laugh because it hit all the right spots for a kid's idea of humor: communist Russia (well, USSR) and Christmas legends.

We ski.

It's not the fastest, slickest run on the planet, but my knee is not protesting and that's so very excellent. Too, the empty foggy park casts its own special magic. Half hidden, half revealed, telling us that you need to be brave and willing to push past the first layers of what you see.

We feel noble and triumphant after an hour on the quickly melting snow.

(drive back: look! can you see them? sandhills. they haven't left yet! hurry up -- we are just 11 days away from winter solstice!)

Breakfast, finally. With a stale muffin, dried up flowers and a prancing Dance, but none of it matters: it's the best! 

And then I do what needs to be done: paper onto boxes, ribbon, tag, and repeat, again and again and again. Dance watches, trying to make sense of what's going on.

In the late afternoon, I add a few good (under the desk) bicycle runs to the day. Book in hand, happily ticking off two birds: keeping the momentum of an active day going and plunging into the newest Louise Penny novel. Total awesomeness.

All this and chocolate covered gingerbread too...

with love...

Friday

A stunning day! No sunshine. No warmth to it either. Nothing out there for the cats or cheepers to celebrate. But to us -- simply stunning!

We knew it was coming -- a wet snowfall. Not deep, just a few inches of it, but this is enough to transform the farmette landscape.

I am up early, but Ed had already left to pick up the next month's supply of cat food and toilet paper at our big box store. He wants to beat the snow and avoid the store crowds. This is actually a tiny bit amusing, because three years ago we had sort of anticipated that the pandemic, which had shut down China back in February 2020, was going to hit us soon, and so Ed went out to buy... cat food and toilet paper. We have to use a special paper that is good for our septic system and we're always afraid that they wont stock it, so he bought two packs of some 36 rolls. And then the pandemic struck and the toilet paper crisis hit the stores and we felt so guilty! Who knew! 

My morning walk is lovely. 

And it just gets better and better out there.

Breakfast: oatmeal, against a backdrop of snow!

By noon, the snow slows down and the flakes we get are very very soggy. Sadly, it will all probably melt this week, but we don't look ahead to that dreary and drippy moment. We seize our chance and, despite the fact that it's too wet, and not deep enough for skis, and despite the fact that right now I can hardly walk with my stupid busted-up knee, we go out to our local park.

You may be tempted to rate snow falls on a scale of wonderfulness and delight. Don't do it. Stay with the idea that this is one out of the many episodes of beauty nature delivers to us on a regular basis.

We are enchanted.

In the afternoon, I was supposed to pedal my new device and wrap presents. [I finally purchased what all my therapists praised as a good knee exercise for the winter -- an under-the-table bike. Then it stayed in its box for three weeks -- I was too busy to get it out, and Ed was too sick to put it together, and I was too distracted to even read the instructions. But today we did all the above and now I have no excuse not to put in a bunch of bike miles. All under the table or straight from the couch! With book on lap -- what could be easier and funner? Ed says I wont use it and it will be yet another thing we then have to put on Craigslist. I think he is wrong. We will see.] I pedaled for about five minutes and I wrapped nothing. I got the message that Sparrow is home with a fever and so I offered to bring Snowdrop here after school. (She was supposed to spend a pre-holiday afternoon with her mom.

I asked her how I could make it up to her given the sick bro and the change in plans. She suggests a visit to Clasen's before coming to the farmhouse. I'm on it!

In the car today, I listen to a whole string of snow songs on the radio. You can't imagine how many winter themed ditties there are! Winter Wonderland, Let it Snow, Sleigh Ride, Jingle Bells, I've Got my Love to Keep me Warm, Frosty, In the Bleak Midwinter, Baby It's Cold Outside -- all on the radio today and all on my playlist! Oh oh, can you tell what decade I'm from? 

Let me end it with a snowy poem:

Out of the bosom of the air,

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow,

Descends the snow.

(H.W. Longfellow)

Thursday

I'm up just before sunrise. Quick check on cats, speedy refill of the feeding station for the cheepers. All good.

Then a shout up to Ed: wake up, we need to hit the road!

No time for breakfast. Ed has an appointment. In Janesville. A revisit to his eye surgeon. I quickly dump some coffee in a mug, scoop up a bag of granola for lap munching, and we're off.

It's a pleasant and easy drive, just under an hour, though of course, once there, we have a lot of waiting before us. He needs a corrective procedure so there is, too, the wait afterwards. 

Thank goodness for comfortable and spacious waiting rooms.

Done.

But so long as we're in Janesville, shouldn't we at least taste the city's good stuff? Where's the nearest well regarded coffee shop? Last time I was here for Ed's eye surgery (3 years ago) we were on the eve of the pandemic and I walked around the river's edge, stopping at a place that was modestly okay. And no, I'm not fussy, though places lose me if they still serve coffee in styrofoam cups and if pastries are singularly wrapped in plastic. 

We drive over to a cafe called Havana Coffee. By now I'm starved for decadent anything. A place that reaches to Cuba for its name has to be adventurous and bold, don't you think?

Good sandwich for Ed, okay danish for me.

We are past the noon hour by the time we leave Janesville.

A quick turn around at the farmhouse and I'm off to pick up Snowdrop.

As usual, our best conversations take place during the car ride. I ask her if she had any squabbles with her friend during recess (there had been some disagreement earlier on about the value of being a mermaid every day in their various pretend games: one girl thought no, the other yes). She considers this and then says -- no, not today. Actually I dont really know what the word squabbles means but I'm very good at knowing words that I don't know. 

Yes you are.

I pick up Taigu Noodles for supper. There is not a single noodle in our take out boxes (by choice) but it remains our favorite Chinese food in town. 

The full moon this month came last night. The Cold Moon. But today's lunar display could not be lovelier: orange initially, then brightening on the ascent. May it shine brightly on you as well tonight.

 

Wednesday

I'm up. Ed is already on a Zoom call. I shout down -- have you seen our old hen? He finishes his call and offers to go on a Peach hunt.

And he finds her. In the garage, huddled. We're sure she wasn't there last night. We had canvassed the place up and down, torch lights blazing. Who knows where she weathered the cold dark night, but she kept herself safe, even as we noticed more nocturnal animal activity around the coop.

Ed carries her back to the barn -- she'll stay there now that the opossum is gone, but it's hardly safe for her. She just doesn't move fast enough to escape any predators. Still, what are you going to do -- keep her in the garage? It would not take long for a raccoon to find her there.A sleeping chicken sees no danger. So, back she goes, into a barn corner where she at least stays out of the wintry weather.

The other chickens -- four Bresse girls, Unie the tiny one from a couple of years ago, and Henny -- almost but not quite as old as Peach -- they're active and undeterred by the cold outside. 

We will be vigilant about putting them away early today. 

Breakfast -- back to oatmeal!

Candle burning, tea steeping. My neck PT person reminded me to drink lots of water. I nodded in agreement and boasted that I make myself several cups of herbal tea each day and she said -- no no, I mean water. Not tea, not herbal tea. Water is water, so ... water!

I tell you, how fussy is that?! What makes water better than herbal tea? You can never satisfy these people! I make myself my tea and shrug off her insistent comments. Tea for the morning, water with dinner. Okay??

And blueberry muffins, baked later in the morning for the little girl who always eats three when she sees them resting, still warm, on the cake platter.

If you look at the calendar, you'll see us moving quickly toward Christmas and yet, I have paused in thinking about it. Somehow routine stuff has filled my mornings and those imagined leisure hours have completely fizzled into not much free time at all. I will recharge my holiday batteries today. Or tomorrow. As soon as I have enough time to make my way to the charging station! This weekend? The next week?

In the afternoon, Snowdrop is here. 

Happy and insistent that we click into our routines. As usual I am of two minds how much to indulge her great love for repetition. Same snack, same fruits, same spot on the orange couch. Rereading same books. She is always happiest if we stick with the tried and true.

In the evening, I drop her off, pick up spinach from my CSA, and return to the farmhouse. Chili tonight. And a salad. Talk about repetition! Might I be just a little like my granddaughter? Favorite suppers, favorite chocolate afterwards,  a glass of wine. A movie. And finally, a book upstairs. The set up rarely changes. And isn't that just grand!

Tuesday

It started off like the kind of day that maybe needs some oil squirted on it to take the creaks out. The tiny issues, the kind that aren't really much of anything but can be annoying nonetheless, were piling on. The cold and brittle landscape. The chickens, all fleeing the barn, why? Because we have another opossum hounding the coop. (This time we catch him before he gets inside to do damage.) Then there's Ed on the couch, still feeling lousy, insisting that "it's just a cold" even though I remind him he's been at it for nearly four weeks now. Then, too, more appointments to make, knee to wrap up, I mean -- come on! Let's start again, on a better foot!

Okay, I dump old bread pieces for the cheepers. The hiccuping hen is still hiccuping, but she is eating robustly along with the others so we will continue to monitor her and see where this is heading. 

Then breakfast. Dance is prancing on the table (grrr!), but she is merely a little hungry for affection so I do a pet-and-eat routine that seems to keep her nose out of my food.

And so contentment sets it. And then my sister calls -- it's been such a long time -- and it's really good to talk to her again and now contentment is rising. 

And the snow begins to fall. 

I mean, we cant fool ourselves -- it's not a snow cover worth beans, but it reminds us that patience will be rewarded. Some day.

In the afternoon I pick up Snowdrop and we zip through her farmhouse routines... 

... and I get her ready for dance...

And now she is at ballet and I am sitting back, enjoying my kindle and I think -- wow, what a perfectly lovely day!!

In the thick of this moment of bliss, Ed calls and tells me he can't find Peach.

Good old Peach, emphasis on the "old." We got her off of Craigslist in 2017 and she was already laying eggs then, so who knows how many years she had behind her. We sure do know she is old. She moves slowly, doesn't go far. Today, she came up to the house, but only because the opossum freaked her out. I don't know that she ever went back. 

We searched everywhere. Maybe she's just laying low, too feeble to hobble back to the barn. Maybe she was snatched. Maybe she died of old age. Maybe none of that. We'll have to see tomorrow if she somehow shows up, magically, as if nothing had transpired, as if it was just one of those squeaky days where everything didn't go exactly right, even though, in the end, we all were just fine.

Monday

If you're one of those people who leans toward arthritis (a funny image!), docs are always throwing therapy at you. I have had recommended: therapy for my back, therapy for my knee, therapy for my foot, therapy for my hands, and today -- a new one! Therapy for my neck. I almost called it off. My neck is feeling fine! Still, you can't just show up for therapy when you're aching. You have to be forward looking! You have to take charge!

So I went.

(After the morning rituals, including a lovely reheated Viennoiseries breakfast with a slowly mending Ed.)

Physical therapy for a neck is in the same category as spine therapies. As my older and wiser PT person tells me -- they're all related. (Then she proceeds to explain to me how they are related. I a little bit tune out on the details. She tells me she loves anatomy. I'm a more neutral on it.) But what surprises me is that for once, we don't really do exercises. She does all the work, with a lot of head holding and gentle twisting and sometimes I swear she is not doing anything at all, but then she comments how this is shifting, and she can feel that moving, and I believe her because afterwards I do feel, well, a little different. 

So, if someone recommends neck therapy for you, I say go for it! It's like an upper body massage without the essential oils and soothing music.

It does take time though. I am amazed, in fact, at how much time I continue to spend in clinics, considering that at this point, no one can tell me I am sick. We are constantly investigating! Indeed, they're still "investigating" the mystery illness from September. These people never give up!

It is, otherwise, a very quiet, very gray winter day. The landscape is at its dullest, even though I try not to use that word, realizing that a sleeping meadow or a collapsed flower field, or a dozing forest are all entitled to their rest period. Who am I to cast disparaging comments in their direction! Still, aren't you wishing we'd at least get some snow to add gentility to my farmette walks? I do!

In the afternoon Snowdrop is here. 

(against a gray-brown landscape)

This is a kid who really likes school, always claims to have 10 out of 10 days, bounces off without hesitation each early morning and yet, she is definitely counting the days til winter break. If I had to guess, it's the incredibly early start to the day and the tedious homework assignments that are off-putting for her. Honestly, I am with her, being one who could never understand why kids are loaded with additional work for the after school hours. I'm sure there is pedagogical logic behind it and maybe for some kids it's a necessary lesson in responsibility, but I would so much rather see a teacher merely say -- read a book and be prepared to tell us about it next week, than give out those ghastly sheets with sums and more sums and even more sums to do at home.

Ah well, the girl has plenty of time this afternoon to do nothing more than read and play here. Homework gets put off until... another time.

(ah, so this is where we can find color on a snowless cloudy December day!)

In the evening we continue the tradition of reheating leftovers from the weekend. An easy start to a busy week!

oh the holidays we love!

Did you know that today is National Cookie Day? So what did you do to celebrate it? Nothing? Nothing?? Silly you.

It's hard for me to bring out even more cookies today, because I have been "bringing them out" since I went to Clasen's two weeks ago to pick up a dozen packs of chocolate covered gingerbread. These have been my everyday go-to lunch since then (oh knock it off! I eat healthy otherwise!). Still, it's a cold, crisp, beautiful December 4th. Name Day for my awesome friend in Poland. (Happy Name Day to you!) And National Cookie Day here, in the U.S. 

Maybe I shouldn't ignore it? 

Fine. After I take care of the animals...

... I set out to Madison Sourdough Bakery to pick up a few cookies that Ed loves and cinnamon rolls (our favorites these days) for breakfast. 

On the drive home, I detour slightly to glance over at the corn fields to our east. Yesterday, we saw seemingly hundreds of cranes gather here in the late afternoon. 

(a sample)

They do that just before they take off for the south. And perhaps they did begin their journey because today there was only one. I hope you know what you're doing, buddy!

Breakfast. Ed does ask me if we've gone down the rabbit hole in our breakfast eating. I used to never stray from oatmeal. Maybe granola on a special occasion. Now, it seems that every other day I drive to the bakery for our morning Viennoiseries.  [You know the term, right? A Viennoiserie is a bakery item made from puff pastry or a yeasty dough, which gives it a lightly sweet taste. It can be further sweetened by light sugar or raisins or chocolate. It's a breakfast food and though France has recently succeeded in placing the French baguette on the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, Viennoiseries are really common throughout all of Europe.] 

Well, we're in the holiday season. Oatmeal for breakfast can make its way to the list of resolutions for the New Year. Though honestly, when you get older, you tend to want to balance life's enjoyment with obsessive healthy eating. After all, your teeth may fall out and your insides may warp any day now. May as well bite into croissants while the biting is good!

Then I wrap. The way I do it now (slowly) is a luxury. When I was at the Law School, first as a student and then as a faculty member, December was a real killer. Exams. To prepare for, then later, to write and grade. It was by far the craziest time of the year. Too, we didn't have the internet for shopping. Lines, everywhere. My vivid memory of December with the little ones is of packed parking lots and long hikes to stores and malls, with bundled up kids, who then had to get all unbundled inside, and re-bundled to get back to the car. Shopping bags, mittens, scarves, caps. Groceries to get. Holiday meals to think about. Insane. And so now, as I wrap a few boxes each day, I smile at the easiness of the job. Yeah, I dont like wrapping. No one likes wrapping. I wish I could see pretty boxes under the tree without me laying a hand on a single roll of wrapping paper, but it cant be done and so I wrap. Slowly. And easily. Well, but for the creaky bones!

The day is not without drama. Ed is having a relapse in whatever bug it is that has been hounding him since mid November and so spending time under a quilt on the couch feels just fine to him. I'm in the kitchen, working on dinner. It's early. 4:30 maybe. But the sun has set already and the cheepers are beginning to settle into their dozy positions. Except I see one walking up the path from the barn.

Ed, why is one of the hens walking up this way?

Don't know. I'll be putting them away in about 15 minutes.

Ed, why is another one at the barn door?

Don't know.

It's not right...

I leave my prep work and go to the barn. There's an opossum in the coop. He's about to go up to the roost. I speed open the roosting box and grab a sleepy old Peach, then slam the door on the chicken hungry guy.  I call Ed over, all the while holding onto Peach. She was one minute away from being someone's dinner. The other cheepers are scattered all over the barn, terrified and tired. 

We trap the invader. We have a place we can him to. It's a bit of a drive, but Ed's up for it.

I go back to fixing dinner.

The young family is here tonight. It's the first time that the boys see the tree and I have mild trepidations about Sandpiper, but I guess he is distracted by all the other ways where he can get his sweet little hands into trouble because he (mostly) leaves the tree alone!

(tree play)

(can I have some of what you're chopping?)

(dinner)

(proud use of fork)

(playing an old favorite: hair salon)

Chickens are sleeping, cats are sleeping, Ed is sleeping. Farmhouse quiet. Winter quiet. Everyone is safe. I think I'll have a little cookie.