Easter Eve

There are two things that stand out for me about Easter: first of all, it brings with it food traditions (different ones in different parts of the world) that are interesting and sometimes fun for me to replicate. Secondly, the holiday wakes up my sometimes sleepy friends in Poland. All my best pals there reach out on this weekend and it is grand to connect with them once again. 

Oh, of course, I love the fact that Easter comes at time when the earth here, in south-central Wisconsin, is also waking up. You already know that I'm nuts about spring!

Besides those factors, I've never latched onto Easter in the way that I have latched onto Christmas even though I'm not Christian. Bunnies and chicks -- it's all very charming, but there is a heck of a lot of sugar thrown into the mix: more than even on Halloween and that's saying a lot! Coloring eggs can be beautiful, but then you have all those hard boiled eggs in the fridge and only Ed is a fan of egg salad for a meal and he doesn't care how pretty the shell may be. So we do a very low key Easter: I make sure we have something special for breakfast and if the young family is here for dinner (and they will be), I'll prepare something out of the usual rotation. And yes, I'll put out some chocolate eggs (indeed, Snowdrop and I bought some in our travels just for this purpose), as if anyone needed more chocolate!  

Still, I recognize that many people love this holiday and it has great meaning for them, so if you are an Easter person, or indeed a Passover person, well then, happy holidays to you!

Our hens join in the chorus of good wishes!

(Morning walk: Snowdrop had asked yesterday "how come your neighbor's grass is so much greener than yours?" She got a very long explanation from me, with many references to the insanity of lawn maintenance! Still, you can see the green color coming back to the farmette lands, no?)

Breakfast, ordinary, but splendid with the pastel backdrop.

My day today is a marathon of gardening. Honestly, I really did work like a person possessed and Ed was not far behind, helping me fill tubs, fix the lavender field and do some of the grunt jobs that I happily hand over to him. Here's what we did:

I planted all the strawberries. We hit 64F (which is 18C) today and it is only going to get warmer this week. They will survive any frost that may still come our way. This is the set up we came up with for this year's crop:

I also planted all the phloxes that came from the same nursery (meaning early). And the astrantia, and the clematis, and the dianthus. Some plants were bare root and I'm not sure if those will fare well after the mudroom hiatus. We will see.

Then we got busy with the tubs. We have pretty much eliminated the attractive but short-lived cedar tubs and have replaced them with the aluminum ones which I admit, do look like the tubs my grandma used to do the laundry outside before we had running water. I wasn't sure how these would look in the yard, but after a trial run last summer, I decided that they were indeed farm-like and once they are filled with flowers, they look terrific. So we got them ready for planting. It's a tedious job and I'm glad it's behind us. 

Then I planted the lavender cuttings we wintered-over in the sheep shed. The whole lavender field is a work in progress and I was disappointed to see how fragile the roots of these baby plants were, but maybe they will survive the transplant. I'm hoping!

(the lavender field, before I added my row of baby plants...)

And, too, I planted peas. That was easy! The trellis was already set up. All I had to do was weed the dirt and push in several dozen peas. And water all the new plantings. And pull out endless weeds and creeping charlies in different flower fields. A marathon, I tell you!

At the end of all that, I said to Ed -- things are looking good, honey. (That's my standard line at the end of a work day outside.) He responded -- until the weeds grow knee high again.

Well yeah, he has a point. In early spring, everything looks grand and under control. It really does feel like you are the champ and the garden is your great work of art. Nature hangs back and lets you strut your stuff. Then it doesn't hang back anymore and you get the not so gentle reminder that you are a mere peg in her grand scheme for the land around you. You may contribute, but she is in control. The weeds thrive, some plants topple or wilt or are done in by any number of viruses, bugs, weather crises. It's all just so much bigger than you! Still, you contribute and in these early months of the growing season, you are rewarded by splendid buds and tips and all those other signs that maybe, just maybe all's right out there and maybe your successes will outnumber your failures and in any case you will have learnt a lot and the farmette lands will be the better for it.

April stuff

How good it is to step out, step in, do one thing out there, come back inside to finish your coffee, go out to do something else! In winter, you need to brace yourself and layer on the wraps for that blast of cold each time you leave the house. Now? You're in step with the weather. You are made of stuff that can join with the forces of nature. In out. All is one and you are part of it!

This is what April feels like.

Morning walk with the animals...

Breakfast with two of my favorite animals...

And then we do this dance of working in and out, not quite yet immersed in planting, but setting the stage for it!

One task that we have is figuring out where to put my strawberries -- the ones that came too early!  They're doing well out there in the mudroom and tomorrow I can put them in their permanent homes. But where?

They can't go in the ground. Chickens, groundhogs, rabbits, squirrels -- they all eat our berries. But last year I put out two pots on the picnic table and covered them with netting. That worked well enough, though netting and berries are a tricky combination. Everything gets tangled up and picking out berries is tough going. Ask Snowdrop, who did manage to reach for and consume our whole crop of fraises de bois! So yes, I'll use pots, though maybe I'll rethink the netting. But I cant just put them on the picnic table again. Ed wants to keep that mostly clear for his outdoor work.

Initially I thought we might put up a board over sawhorses, but finding a sunny spot for this set up is not easy. Ed offers another idea -- why not move some of the tree stumps that he sawed up and use them as "tables" for berry baskets? 

I like it!  

We work on this for a while. Tomorrow I'll plant (and take photos).

In the back of my head I have that nagging thought that I really should be working on taxes. On my quick pause inside, I get the papers together. It's like prepping the strawberry pots! The stage is set. I'll fill in the forms.... another day. (Insert sheepish smile here.)

In the afternoon I pick up Snowdrop, but not at school. She is home today because, well, school's out for the day. I'm getting used to these frequent school closures but I can only imagine how messy this is for most working parents. 

She is here, enjoying the coming of spring almost as much as I am...

She looks a little concerned here and I ask her why the hesitancy. Bees -- she tells me. She likes them, but  at a distance.

I look closer. Bees? Awesome!

And then comes evening, only it doesn't really feel like evening because the sun is now setting at 7:31 p.m. which is amazing and wonderful all at the same time. Honestly, is there anyone in the northern hemisphere who does not love April?!

a slower day

Two cool days offer a chance to catch up on indoor garden work. I'm always tempted to plunge and plant, but this year, my planting is limited -- maybe half a dozen new perennials and 15 new day lilies. Seeds in the meadows, annuals in the flower tubs. That's probably a fifth of what I usually put in, expanding beds, filling in gaps. This year though I'm realistic. I have only two, maximum three weeks to put stuff in and the beds are doing well enough to be left in their current state.  But this means that I have to think carefully about what goes where. So today I'm thinking. (I also have some two dozen lavender cuttings that we overwintered on a winter sill. They're looking good, so I will also be expanding the lavender bed pretty soon!)

When I do go out to feed the animals...

I keep my eyes out for that first daffodil bloom. I don't see it yet. So far I'm just dealing with crocuses. But even though you may think of it as a bare landscape, to me it is already bursting with growth. 

The frozen tundra-like farmette lands are a thing of the past.

Breakfast -- with tulips, because April and May are my tulip months! (Inside at this point. The outdoor ones, as every year, have been decimated by either the groundhog or squirrels. Some later ones will likely survive but the first buds are cut down to the ground. This is where one has to practice patience and understanding.)

This morning I scramble some cheeper eggs for Ed, who is being a good soul by trying to make a dent in our egg supply. I tell you, those Bresse girls lay like there's no tomorrow!

We then assess our tomato situation. The seeds we planted just before I left for Greece are a huge disappointment. The germination rate is just so much lower than what we usually have. I'm trying a new (for me) seed company and I am deeply regretting this experiment. 

Some of the tomato varieties are to be planted 5- 6 weeks before the last frost and so these should go in right about now. We get to it.

We'll see what happens going forward.

I then have to take a break and go out to the hospital to do the pre-op stuff for my knee replacement. It's a funny thing about that knee -- it was so out of whack a month ago, that I called my doc and asked if I couldn't maybe schedule the replacement for an earlier date. I could barely move! (No such date was available.) Then came Greece and I put that knee to a real test and honestly, it feels pretty okay now! I feel like I'm playing whack-a-mole here -- today it's fine, tomorrow it will pop up  and tear my leg apart. So, I'm moving ahead as scheduled, if only because I know that when it acts up, I'm totally incapable of doing anything that requires a functional limb. 

And after the deliberations and discussions at the hospital, I pick up Snowdrop, who again is forging her own style in dress choices! I'm so glad that she has shed much of her reluctance to move beyond hoodies!

It's true that at some level I don't care what she wears. Clothes do not a person make. At the same time, I care that she retains her adventurousness and channels it into her daily life, so that she can free herself to experiment and feel happy with her choices.

At the farmhouse, she almost always starts off with a round of some game or other with Ed on the computer. I dont object. It beats throwing pillows at each other.

Evening. I still get sleepy early and most movie watching results in me dozing off for a while. I blame the movie selections. Well, and Europe jet lag. And my getting mighty close to being seventy.

With love...

spring forward!

That was some loud hail we had at night! Some said it was like hearing bricks hit the roof. I wouldn't go that far, but it was intense! Still, we were lucky: no tornadoes, no damage. And now, looking ahead, we have before us a beautiful ten days of perfect April weather.

This means that today I start my seasonal work in the flower fields.

After animal care of course.

As I survey all that needs to be done, I have to scratch my head a bit and ask myself this: can I really maintain ten flower fields, plus the two wildflower meadows, even as I am about to cross over into my seventies? I ask Ed over breakfast -- given that you are so incredibly busy with the machine design, who'll be my right hand assistant?

He tells me he'll be there to help and indeed, all morning long he runs between farmhouse with his zoom calls and the courtyard, trying to give me some help with the dumping of the flower tubs (they've rotted through: we need to replace them) and with the cutting down of emergent saplings in places where they don't belong.

Me, I work outside all morning long, feeling grateful for all that I managed to do in the fall. I know I like to take it easy come the end of the growing season, but right now I have so little time and so much work before me, that I am just happy I did not totally give up the ship back in October.

And so this morning, after I bake muffins for Snowdrop (because she told me yesterday that this is a very important day -- her eight and a quarter birthday!), I begin my spring work.

I trim all the hydrangeas. (There are many.)

I dig up invading Creeping Charlie. (This is a never ending task that will stay with me all summer long.)

I clear the spot for pea planting (easy peasy!).

I trim all the lavender bushes. (There are over 50 lavender bushes on farmette lands. The lavender field that seemed so hopelessly limp last spring seems to have experienced a rebirth and may well give us a lovely field of flowers behind the barn. Not that anyone ever goes there, except for us, but still...)

And all the while, I feel the wind in my face, and I marvel at how perfect the temperature is for outdoor work, and the sun does poke out eventually and that feeling of hope is so pronounced that honestly, I would do a dance outside if I weren't so busy doing yard work.

And now it's time to pick up Snowdrop.

Shockingly, she is wearing a dress. Of her own volition. If you knew how fiercely committed she was this year to leggings and a hoodie, you too would be impressed with the transformation.

We read, but, too, she plays. One thing I love to see is how much she goes back to old toys here and gives them new life, new stories, new identities.

And in the evening, it's me and Ed again, on the couch, utterly wiped out by the first day of big time outdoor work. But wiped out in a good way! Spring is awesome!

weather pause

For several days now we've been warned: storms will pass through today and they wont be pretty. Well, okay, so I wont fix the garden and trim the lavender or plant the peas and strawberries or put in the bareroot plants that arrived here more than a month ago. Instead, I get to go back to good old paper work, trying to fix credit card issues and mistaken billing issues and travel refund issues right from the safety of my home and the comfiness of my couch.

But wait, first come the routines that are so familiar to you, to me! The walk to feed the animals and this time I concentrate on finding flower stems.

Then, eventually, the breakfast -- oatmeal and fruit. I can actually miss it because I've gone nearly two weeks without it! (With Ed, with Dance...)

And now comes the couch time.

It is unfortunate that the level of activity plummets after going so strong in the past days. Lengthy walks, constant movement -- few of us can sustain such intensity once we reenter the stream of daily life. Of course, spring and summer beg for big time outside, but we are not there yet. Today, we have to wait patiently for the storms to pass and to hope that we wont get the damage we've been warned about. 

I do have Snowdrop here after school and this too is part of our routine, including the mad dash (on Tuesdays) to ballet class. 

I'm glad the storms hold off during the day. No one likes driving back and forth when the weather person is talking about golf ball size hail and level XYZ tornadoes. We do have rain, but drivable stuff. It wont flood the roads. Yet.

Home again, waiting now for the night to pass, keeping fingers crossed and looking forward to the good weather that will return, well, probably tomorrow!

home

Snowdrop wakes at 5:30 a.m. Detroit time, which is 4:30 a.m. Madison time and 11:30 a.m. Paris time. And poof! Our time at the Detroit airport hotel is over. But I am grateful: the airline effectively bought us a night of decent sleep. Short -- just a handful of hours -- but luxuriously decent. (Though I have to laugh at my request for a room with a runway view! No plane is taking off now. And in any case, it's still dark when we zip up our bags and leave the hotel.)

I'm impressed by how busy the airport is at 6 in the morning. So many early risers, wanting to get... somewhere. We have to go through check-in once again and security as well, but then we are free to enjoy our last fragment of our travel adventure. 

We start off with a visit to Starbucks. Her choice. She wants some cake pop thing that I have never heard of and no, they don't have it, but she is for once hungry and we stock up on stuff and find a quiet spot to eat and read. 

We are moving into the next to last Penderwick novel and everything about this last hour in Detroit feels familiar and homeward bound. Perhaps not surprisingly, her appetite surges once again. Since her bout with the bug, she has been high on energy but low on appetite. Even a Paris croissants got only tentative nibbles. But Starbucks pound cake, scone, bagel -- suddenly she wants them all!

You could say that when it rains, it keeps on raining, because as we complete the plane boarding, we get the announcement that there is a problem with a door light. All these years and I have never heard of a door light problem and here we are, second day in a row with just this mechanical failure. So we wait. And wait once again. 

We take off eventually and by 10 a.m. (happily only with an hour's delay) we are in Madison. Her dad is at the airport and our travel adventure ends.

The amount of responsibility I feel traveling alone with her is huge. And so when she reenters the fold of her own family life again, I smile, allowing myself that happiness that comes from knowing you dodged all obstacles and managed the flooded roads and falling rocks and came out at the other end with nothing but stories under your belt. No great drama (police visit in Athens notwithstanding), nothing that we could not handle. 

And now I turn my attention toward home, where Ed has been giving me reports of bizarre weather patterns and just last night, of the burst of flower life in the farmette fields. Indeed, it's the first thing that I notice when I pull into the driveway: crocuses!

The morning is brutal in terms of my to do list. First and foremost I have to attend to the card replacement: all subscriptions and payments had been stopped once I stopped my credit card. Eventually I will need to get my driver's license. Then, too, there are the groceries, the tidying, the laundry -- are you bored yet?? 

Snowdrop did not go to school today and her parents both have work commitments so they drop her off at the farmhouse after lunch and now she and I are not in Athens, not in Paris, but here, with our usual farmhouse routines, except we're running on too little sleep so you might say we are moving slowly but gainfully through the hours of an April afternoon.

And in the evening I finally get to quiz my Chicago big girl, Primrose, about her birthday celebrations!

(recalling a particular birthday present...)

Yes, quite suddenly, I feel I am home. All the good elements are with me again.

Am I tired yet? Oh yeah. But I'm not thinking about that right now. Tomorrow I plunge into the spring yard preparation, weather permitting. I have only three weeks to get it all done this year. And it will get done. The certainties of life: taxes (yikes!) and spring yard work. April bookmarks. Waiting for me, here at home, along with all those chicks, cats and of course, Ed.

with so much love...

leaving Paris... the long way

We are leaving Paris today. 

Our last morning at the Baume hotel...

Breakfast, with a big stretch...

A croissant, a coffee for me...

An hour or two of free time before it's time to leave for the airport. Snowdrop and I walk to Maison Mulot -- a nearby bakery that I really like. I think she needs more food in her belly. I tell her to pick a pastry. (Like her mom, she goes for the eclair.)

Sunday mornings are quiet times in the city. The day is gray, a little cool. The square we pass so often, Carr de l'Odeon, is absolutely still...

The hotel is there, welcoming us for a few more minutes...

And still we walk. To the Luxembourg Gardens...

... where even in the early hours, boats are set loose in the waters before the Palace....

One more Parisian photo...

And now it's time to leave... Good bye flowers, good bye sweet room at the Baume....

We arrive at the airport in good time. Indeed, we have just about three hours before departure.

Or so we think.

We do our wait, we understand there is a delay, we wait some more. On board now, more delays. Something with the mechanics. Then something with the door. Then with air traffic controllers. It's getting nearly impossible to imagine we will make it to Madison tonight.

(She finishes her second full movie and still we haven't left the gate....)

On the upside, we do eventually take off, and we do eventually land in Detroit. Many hours behind schedule. 

Snowdrop, who hasn't complained about anything during the trip, had her heart set on home tonight. She is disappointed, and I am too. 

But, I did manage to book an airport hotel at Detroit in anticipation of this (Delta will pay for it), so now it's only a question of claiming bags and collapsing in our hotel room. For six, maybe seven hours of sleep.

Could have been worse: I was just waiting for them to announce that our flight would not leave Paris at all and that we would have to stand in long lines and get a room in one of the really crappy hotels to which you have to take a tedious stop-and-go bus within the airport area. I've had to do that before. There's nothing fun about it. 

So, hey, we are safely in Detroit and tomorrow we will be in Madison. One can hope!

With love....