oops

Well, it was bound to happen. I had had several close calls and luck was going to run out. The stones between levels of flower fields are uneven and slippery. The weeds have covered the places of secure foothold. So in navigating a bug infested overgrown lily field and in trying to step down to a lower level, I slipped and fell. A cat came over and meowed next to me in sympathy. Me, I just wondered if I'd bumped my camera (I did not) and if I wrecked my fake knee.

Here's an interesting fact about having a fake knee -- you don't necessarily feel damage in the same way. I mean, if I banged the metal or plastic parts, it's not as if I would feel the cracks. The proof is in the use afterwards, no? So I got up, bent it some, found it to be weird but working and moved on.

But I gave up on flower care for today. A few photos of an end of summer garden...

(the endless theme of a chicken crossing a street...)

(blushing late bloomers)

(summer's end...)

And now I am happy to be inside where there are no mosquitoes and where the air is delightfully less humid.

Ed is asking for a hair cut, I then fix breakfast. Everything seems normal. So maybe it is?

Breakfast, on the porch.

And now Snowdrop arrives.

It's not hot today but I do offer her a chance for one last swim at the Goodman community pool. It'll be closing this weekend, so it's today or never! She's thrilled with the idea. She has discovered the slides and she is drawn to their fast, splashy descent like a magnet.

(but first, some books, and some horse play at the farmhouse; it's not possible to get them to stop their shenanigans, nor would I want to...)

(at the pool: loves those slides...)

(happiness is...)

But we can't linger too long because I have to get her to a scheduled meeting with her new third grade teacher. 

She and her sibs are so lucky! I've seen or met all their teachers now and they are dedicated, caring educators. How can you go wrong in a setting like that?

Evening at home.

Ed works on breaking up a wasp nest building around the doorway. Me, I just enjoy that beautiful light that comes in the hour before dusk. Even an early fall garden looks sublime then. And yes, we're moving into early fall territory!

with love...

moving on

You know what I'm ready for? The first deep frost. It always kills off the mosquitoes for the year. You start to enjoy the great outdoors once again. In fact, can anyone think of one bad thing to say about autumn? Yes, that's our habit here, at the farmette: we always look forward to the joys of the next season.

In the mean time I'm slowly returning to a less weakened state. So much so that I happily agreed to have Snowdrop here for a chunk of the day. But that comes later. First, the dreadful walk through a buggy garden (but, enjoying, too, the last golden lilies and the royal purple phlox)...

Then a breakfast indoors, solo, because it's another hot and steamy day and Ed is sleepy and who am I to wake a tired guy...

The croissant is a frozen thing that you bake yourself. Sounds good, but has no taste. Heap on the jam!

I take it easy still. Weak and underfed and under-watered, I do not think I am a candidate for plunging into the hot, soupy air. Nonetheless, I take out the bike. Just for a short loop. And as so often on these rides, my head fills with the melody of a song I first heard when I was 6. My sister and I went to see a live performance of Snow White in Poland. You've watched the musical perhaps? It's been around since 1937. This particular performance though was in Polish, and on stage, and I will never forget the utter joy of hearing A Smile and a Song. I swear the Polish lyrics were about the happiness at seeing the beauty in this world. The English lyrics are close to this as well:

With a smile and a song

Life is just a bright sunny day

Your cares fade away

And your heart is young.

With a smile and a song

All the world seems to waken anew

Rejoicing with you

As the song is sung

There's no use in grumbling

When the raindrops come tumbling

Remember you're the one

Who can fill the world with sunshine

When you smile and you sing

All the world is in tune and it's spring

And life flows along

With a smile and a song

I cannot tell you how many times I've set out on my e-bike and that theme has exploded in my head. I let it do that today as well.

Snowdrop comes for lunch, which for some reason she really loves here, at the farmhouse, even though she always asks for pasta -- presumably the same as she could have anywhere else on this planet. Afterward, we read, finishing up the Firefly Summer (such a good story!), which feels so perfect as we amble towards the end of our own summer season.

(we're trying to get her to push her hair away from her face; today she agreed to a loose French braid that her mommy pleated for her; let's hope she gets hooked on it!)

(this is before pillows started to fly...)

The young family has loads of car trouble so I lent them mine for the day. Not that I need Blue Moon. I haven't been in that car since I came back from Chicago. The fact is, if it weren't for my shuttling of the kids and trips to Chicago, I'd probably not use the car more than once or twice a month in the warmer months. The bikes and motorbikes are perfect for short trips to nearby places.) 

Toward the eve, Snowdrop gets picked up, I return to cooking supper -- this time trying hard to make a dent in our tomato haul which is threatening to spill out of the big box freezer in the basement -- it's that copious this year!

(tomatoes picked just yesterday...)

We're more or less back on track to a calmer normal. For a couple of days anyway!

With love...

looks like another day with just Ed

He's recovered. Me -- not yet. Whatever struck is still sticking with me. Still feverish, still completely disinterested in food. To me, not being hungry is the worst! I know, I know -- many would wish not to want food all day long. I had years of that as well. But in the rare times where my appetite went out the door, I've longed for days of excitement at the thought of a nice dinner or breakfast. It's far better to want food then to be disinterested in it!

This morning Ed makes me a cup of chicken noodle soup. Campbells. He says I need the salt. It has zero appeal to me but he persists and finally I give in. Breakfast of preservatives and chicken fat. Not on porch -- too hot. I'm on the couch, under a blanket, reading, dozing and ultimately watching a fun romcom (Red White and Royal Blue) while Ed is off doing some work project.

What do you think -- did I clean the garden in my woebegone state? I did, but only for a handful of minutes. Still, a couple of photos for you because I do believe finding color in my day, even a crummy day with no appetite for much of anything is important. Here you go! (You can almost see the steam rising from the flower beds! It's that hot and humid!)

Now let's see, might I tempt myself with an egg and some crackers for supper? And a chocolate square? Okay, I'll add cucumber slices. Not because I am hungry for any of that, but we've harvested too many cucumbers and the chickens are laying too many eggs. 

Another day of couch sitting. So long as we're both feeling lethargic, may as well watch the debate. Always enjoyable to see people try to outdo each other in praising their own abilities to fix problems.

Good night!

with love...

two days with just Ed

We're in a heat advisory situation. Tomorrow we're to reach unhealthy highs. You'd be tempted to complain when temps are slated to feel like 112F (45C) by midday (that's tomorrow's prediction), but although we will set records for the day, we get a lucky break in that the heat wave is with us only for three days. Peanuts compared to places where scorching temps linger. And linger. And linger.

This morning is still pleasant, though buggy, so again, I do minimal work outside.

And why the kitchen breakfast? The porch, after all, is lovely on a pleasantly cool morning. 

Well, Ed is on a call with a potential late fall sailing crew and I'm curious how it goes. If I want to listen in, I have to stay inside.

[I'm sure that this one is slated to happen. It's a longer sail and on a monohaul and he prefers catamarans, but there seems to be good chemistry and the boat owners appear congenial and his oceanic experience will be much appreciated. Looks like another month of sailing is coming up for him!]

And then I bike over for an appointment downtown. It's my last chance to hit the trails before the heat really pounds away at us. Forty-five minutes each way and I have to say, the return, against a hot wind from the southwest, was not pleasant.

Or, maybe it's not the wind? 

I have a date tonight. With Ed. To eat out. Just the two of us. So rare. Such a treat. By late afternoon, I know it's a no-go. The bug that has been circulating around town has struck. I am definitely not in any state to sit in a lovely restaurant, especially one that serves food. That I would have to eat. Oh, the very thought!

Couch time. afternoon, evening. And within an hour or so, Ed, too, is slumped on the couch. Not hungry. At all. Food? Yuk.

Hoping for a quick recovery!

with love...

two days with just Ed

Some days are meant to be memorable. A wedding maybe, that first dinner in Paris, the day you laid eyes on the Grand Canyon. But some aren't. They're slated to be ordinary and normal and yet, at the end of it all, they stay in your head. They mark a passage of time, or a change that took place, or a feeling that sprung like the first crocus in spring. And some stand out because inadvertently, they turn out to be dividers: everything that happened before and everything that happened after. People think of a cancer diagnosis in this way: all my life before that day and all my life after. I suppose you could add other grim news into that batch. But joyous ones too: all my days before I met X (name your best friend or your love), and all the days after.

I think of last Friday as an inadvertently memorable day. One that sticks in my mind, even though it really was ordinary! And yet -- memorable in its beautiful ordinariness. A marker of the celebration of ordinariness. So that when Ed notices that I added a new mug to the dish rack and asks me about it, I smile and say -- that was from a lunch on that ordinary Friday that I celebrate for its innocent simplicity. And when I eat the last pastry, purchased in the morning of that day I smile again: the modesty of that moment, purchasing it then, stands out to me.

Hey, did I not work in the garden before breakfast? Well, minimally so. The weeds have taken over most of the flower fields and though I had intended to clean up at least some of that mess, it's too buggy to do it in any enjoyable way. So I snip a little, pull a tiny bit and then move on.

Ed thought I needed a few days where I can take a deep breath and concentrate on just lovely things that are so easy to find all around us. He proposed that today we do a bike ride to the village of Paoli and from there, that we make our way to a swim hole that he discovered when kayaking in the Sugar River last week. He said it was sandy and deep and it may offer a pleasant swimming opportunity. I'm game!

Paoli had been the first destination for me with my new e-bike and back then (what, maybe two weeks ago) it took us an hour and twenty minutes to bike each way. This time, an intersection construction that slowed us down, was nearly done so walking the bikes took no time at all, and, too, we stuck with the Military Ridge trail for a chunk of the ride, avoiding many of the hills leading up to Paoli. That cut back the travel time each way to one hour and two minutes! 

At Paoli, he led the way to the path that would take us down to the river banks. And then he went swimming.

It did not tempt me at all. The water was murky and deep and my knee is not ready for swimming in water that goes way over my head. But I watched and smiled at the childish pleasure one gets in swimming in a churning river.

(back on the bikes)

Returning through Paoli we stopped at the Creamery Cafe and shared an egg sandwich ...

... and then we biked home.

How tired am I from all those weeks of little sleep and hyped up activities and childcare and everything else in between? So tired that for the second day in a row I slept the afternoon away on the couch.

I woke up ready for another Zoom call with a friend who lives way too far for my liking. 

And Ed prepared tomatoes for the freezer. Each day he picks at least twice this amount. We have way too many tomatoes!

Ed thought that a dinner out would be just the ticket (a rare offer -- we aren't the "eat out" type), but the place he suggested had no available tables, so we put it off 'til tomorrow and ate leftovers tonight. Deliciously easy. I whipped up a Nina-groni -- my own take on the classic Negroni -- and exhaled.

with love...

Sunday balance

When you have many weeks of kid centered days, you tend to look for balance when they end. My balance came today: early in the morning, I worked in the garden, and then I spent many hours on a Zoom call with friends. Adult friends. People who know me well, so I need offer no explanations on why this, why that -- just stories to exchange, theirs, mine, all rolled into a comforting blanket of friendship. Though maybe I should not use the term blanket to describe anything today -- it is hot out there and it will be hot tomorrow and the next day and the day after that!

Breakfast of leftovers. Sweet treat from my last sweet morning in Chicago.

And in the afternoon, once again I bike, despite the temperature (91F/33C and humid), despite the fact that I am still very tired. Rest is elusive these days. Biking feels as restful as anything else.

In the evening I am delighted to cook dinner for the young family here. There is joy in that visit. Always.

(after spending the afternoon jumping into a swimming pool, Snowdrop doesn't look very joyful! Don't be fooled. The girl is all sweet smiles once she fills up on roasted beets!)

(Sparrow is starting his very last week of preschool tomorrow. He is so proud to be moving on the Snowdrop's public school in September!)

(Sandpiper loves singing and acting out the Wheels on the Bus song. Just like Juniper! Who ever wrote that song is a genius.)

Dinner.

The kids insist I take this last photo. They really know how to find pleasure in family gatherings! Good for them. Happiness, love -- they're precious. Not to be squandered or taken for granted. 

Saturday: return

I've said this before, working closely with a child -- being attentive to her emotions, desires, behaviors, words -- you learn to fine tune your ideas about human behavior, about family, about the world. This is the time for you to be more patient, more compassionate. To act with greater resolve and thoughtfulness. To not hide behind the easy. To forge ahead, calmly, with understanding.

A week of grandma camp, lots of time with young ones from both families, with their parents, their spouses too -- all this is of course very intense. Did I navigate it well? You never can tell. You hope that the wisdom of the years has lead you to a good place and that your watchful eye has guided you to good decisions and reactions. When to be firm. When to offer help. When to accept different approaches, even to things you've done one way, your way, a million times before. You learn not to judge. To resist the temptation to give unwanted advice. You learn to offer your best, knowing that sometimes it's not going to be good enough.

These were my thoughts as I drove back from Chicago to the farmette this afternoon.

A brief summary of our morning still in the city: Primrose had a swim class and so very soon after breakfast...

... my daughter, her two girls and I went to the local pool -- three of us to watch, one of us to swim.

(getting ready)

By the time we were done with that, and everyone was showered and bathed and dressed and pressed, it was time to head out to brunch. At the Pompette -- a lovely, bright place just a few blocks up from the young family's home.

Absolutely heavenly quiche! (For me. One girl had French Toast -- her fav, the other had sausages -- her fav!)

And then we walk home (their home) and I pack the car and head north.

Ed was just leaving to bike when I drive up. He pauses to review the last few days with me and once again I marvel at his insights, given that he has zero experience with kids and historically, not such a good track record of successful childhood family life. It's always good to listen to another perspective. We chew over details and bounce around ideas and then he bikes and I put my feet up for a good long while. 

And then I, too, bike. Because frankly, in movement there can be rest.

It's been an incredibly busy summer.

With so much love...