Labor Day

It was very satisfying to see many people -- walkers, bikers, joggers -- out on the bike path early this morning. Labor Day should give you that: a morning to recoup, reflect, rejuvenate your soul, all in a natural setting, so that you can come that much closer to a feeling of peace and serenity. Ready to hop back on the treadmill tomorrow!

Ed and I were out there, early bikers that we've become, because it's so damn hot later in the day. And so I wake up, feed the animals...

(the last lilies)

... and then call out to Ed, who would probably enjoy a few more minutes, make that a few more hours of sleep, but still, he shouts back "I'm coming" and we are off.

Nothing about the ride is unusual, except that we add a tiny snippet to our regular old loop, making it a 55 minute ride. (Just enough to make at least one of my watch rings happy!)

But despite its predictability, it's a heavenly ride. Fields of goldenrod, fields of Sandhills... Heavenly.

(I suppose not so heavenly was the sudden pinch I felt near my breast going uphill on the rural road. While pedaling, I reached inside my shirt and pulled out a yellow jacket. Dumb bug: paid with his life for his miscalculation!)

And we detour to Lake Waubesa, just to appreciate that small body of water, even if it suffers in the way that all our nearby lakes are suffering from too much muck in it right now (and all summer long).

Breakfast is timed to be more like brunch, but on the porch and beautiful in its simplicity and calm.

Two things of note from this afternoon: I bought a ticket to a museum for an exposition in October. One that I know I will love, if only the crowds wont push me out to the sidelines. Secondly, I read the article in the NYTimes about Elaine LaLanne. It brought back memories (both for Ed and for me) of our youth, when, back in the 1960s, we'd channel surf and stumble inadvertently on Jack LaLanne's program promoting fitness and a bunch of other health-related habits that were rather novel for that decade. (Jack was her husband.) I include the article for you here if you, like me, have too few older people who serve as good role models for where you may want to see yourself in the last decades of your life. People who have had great sorrow, but managed nonetheless to live with cheer and purpose. People who view senior years as not something straight out of a horror show, but just one more stage in life that offers interesting possibilities for a life well lived. People who you admire for their acknowledgement that some problems are very real, but so many, way too many, are there because you've let them fester and grip your soul. People who don't give up on joy. It's a very paltry set. I know nothing about Elaine except for what I read in this short piece, but I have to say, her clichéd sayings and aphorisms brought a smile to my face. I like them! Maybe you will too.

In the evening, the young family is here for Sunday dinner. I know, I know, it's not Sunday! But, we are celebrating Labor Day together and it feels so good to see their smiling faces here at the farmhouse once again.

And now it's time to face the new academic year. Kids, may it be a splendid one for you!

With love...

obsession

Refresh. Refresh, refresh, refresh. Once more. Nothing. Same screen, promising an answer today, but when? Yesterday, they posted at 7:10 a.m. Refresh, refresh. 7:30, 7:45. Nothing new. Refresh. 8 a.m.: bingo!

Ed, they have it! Today, starting at 9! They just posted on Facebook!

Just enough time to feed the animals and water the pots outside. It's going to be a very hot day.

By 8:42 we are off, on our bikes, racing down the big hill, across the highway, over to Stoneman's Farm. 

Careful Ocean readers will have noted over the years that I love Stoneman's sweet corn. In the past, they'd start the harvest around July 20th and continue until Labor Day. This year the weather really played a nasty trick. If you planted after the April rains and if you did not have an irrigation system in place, your corn was not going to germinate in the drought that plagued us all May and April.  They replanted again and again, and crossed their fingers and still the weather was only partially on their side. It took this long for them to get their first solid batch of corn to the farm stand.

Is it the best in the world, most awesome corn you can find? Maybe. I mean, if you blind sampled Stoneman's against Natalie's, Tipi's, and maybe even Eugster's, you could pick it out if you are a knowledgeable consumer of corn, in the same way that you could pick out a Stradivarius if you are a knowledgeable violin person. But honestly, the differences between these top growers are tiny. Unless you serve your corn perfectly steamed, on a special plate all on its own, your corn eaters are not going to appreciate the delicate sweet kernels, that shot of sweetness in the mouth, the delightful taste of late summer lingering on your palate.

And still, for us aficionados, Stoneman's is not a false promise -- their corn is superb and we wait all year for it, and when the announcement comes that it has arrived, we rush to the Stoneman farm (thankfully, it's only a 15 minute bike ride down the road from the farmette), because we know within an hour it will be sold out. 

We haul away 18 ears. Ten to freeze (off the cob), eight to serve for dinner today and tomorrow, because, you know, us obsessive types will eat the corn within 24 hours of picking or it's not the same -- the sugars quickly begin to break down and turn to starch. So, same day is optimal. Second day is almost as good. Thereafter -- it's just corn.

Of course, Sotneman corn fans, nuts that we are about the corn, do also form  a community of people who like the whole routine of going down to the farm, of seeing the Stoneman kids play in the yard -- older ones helping collect the money, younger ones chasing the cats and dogs that live there.

We like the fact that it's a generational thing -- Stoneman started growing sweet corn 60 years ago. The grandson took over the operation and now the entire team of kids and grandkids seem to like each other as they work together -- picking, hand checking each ear, selling it to us within minutes of harvest.

It's an obsession, sure, but not only with eating/serving the world's most delicious corn. It's with the idea that people can still get along splendidly and come together, intergenerational, to share something they know is good and will bring smiles to us hungry corn lovers. Tell me that's not something to admire and love!

(we carry in our haul...)

Breakfast, on the porch.

Hot as it may be (especially in the afternoon), we still do want to put in our share of steps. Well, that's my bugaboo. You know, the watch goal: close those rings! We review our options.

Ed thinks it might be fun to return to Paoli and do a quick swim in the Sugar River water hole. I'm agreeable. We don't bike to Paoli this time. The goal is to get there, walk to the river, follow a trail we'd noticed before, and maybe check out the town's attractions. Paoli draws a bigger crowd on the weekend. Does it come alive in some fashion? We'll find out.

And I'll tell you right away, without any buildup or hesitation -- for us, the trip is a bust. The village is packed with visitors, not only because there's live music by the river and a small farmers market (of sorts) extending inland. It's especially crowded today because there is an art fair on their village square. Tents of art. Quilts, ceramics, paintings, metal sculpture -- you name it, it's there.

It's not that we object to art, or even that we don't like or value the stuff local artists display. It's that we are not buyers or browsers. And today, Paoli gives the impression that it's just one big shopping mall. We weave our way between tents, and walk in and out of the Paoli shops as well, and they, too, are full of trinket stuff. With perfumed interiors and shelf after shelf, counter after counter, table after table packed with things to display, some nice, some of questionable value, impressive in the sheer quantity of it, there for you to buy and take back home and forget about the next day. 

And the water hole? Well, there were kids at the shore, attempting (unsuccessfully) to catch fish and Ed decided it was too crowded to offer the tranquility that he likes so much in these more remote places.

And the path? We explored it, he picked up some burrs in his socks, I kept an eye out for ticks and then the path sort of ended in a thicket with nothing to show for it. A bust, I tell you.

Nor did our luck improve thereafter. On the way home, we stopped at another place we like to hike and we found the trail there too to be overgrown. Passable, sure, but offering the same burrs and sticky seeds for Ed's socks and tall grasses surely with ticks. So we turned back.

And as we drove home and listened to the radio, I said, quite truthfully, that this has been an exceptionally wonderful afternoon, because, well, it was just that. Adventuring with Ed brings its spectacular rewards and not a small number of busts and dead ends, but it's always peaceful and beautiful and fun.

(evening, at the farmette...)

with love... 

Saturday

So many things done in the course of the day can stand in for meditation! Practically anything, done slowly and deliberately, can offer that peace that comes from living in the moment. At least those were my thoughts this morning, as I walked through the routines of the day. Breathe in, feel yourself go limp, clear your head of clutter.

(Does anyone besides me love that look of a drying autumn garden?)

For me, clutter is the mortal enemy -- hardest to tame in the head, even harder to tame in your house. I want to remove all useless stuff (in the head and in the house), I want the joy of an empty space and yes, an empty head, but it's slow going. Still, I know where I'm heading: toward that world free of debris, free of unnecessary shreds of unpleasant memories and unused acquisitions.

I enjoyed, therefore, this small article this morning in the NYTimes (and by the way, when I share articles from the Times, they are free for you to read). I mean, it's really small in that it offers no new perspective. It touches on ground we have walked on and certainly on a topic I've written about here, on Ocean. Still, it was a sweet reminder of how little it takes to feel the exquisite beauty of a simple pleasure.

Right after I feed the animals, Ed and I hop on our bikes for a loop ride on our favorite roads and trails. Yes, before breakfast. If the day is going to be hot, we need to do our ride early.

And of course, breakfast is just wonderful when it follows, rather than precedes an exertion.

I resist the temptation to sit and read for the rest of the morning. Instead, I make my way back to the new meadow and study its contents. 

The sweet photo notwithstanding, it's not exactly a success story. Ed did till the land before I seeded it, but the grasses took over and the flowers, though pretty around the edges, are for the most part lost in the thicket of the tall grass stems. I'd recently learned that you can sow seeds of Yellow Rattle onto the soil where you will be establishing a meadow. This plant suppresses invasive grasses and allows flowers to take hold. I had mowed down a good chunk of the meadow and I put in some Yellow Rattle seeds this morning. I know I did a sloppy job of it, since the soil was not totally clear of grasses, but I've decided that meadows here are always going to be a work in progress. Slowly, they get better, but it's never going to be a splendid field of just wildflowers. We have too many weeds and aggressive plants waiting to pounce onto any available surface. To create stronger meadows, we'd have to spot treat these invasives, and that seems like an overreach merely to support a meadow. 

(meanwhile, Ed is harvesting tomatoes... so many tomatoes!!)

I retreat to the farmhouse in time for lunch, noting with satisfaction that my watch rings are getting mighty close to closing.

You would not think that something like a watch could motivate you to do well in life. I mean, it's just a watch! And yet, last night it prompted me to close my final ring by walking briskly 9 more minutes (Ed heard me pacing back and forth upstairs before going to sleep). And today I could not help but think that maybe I should work harder to close all rings earlier so that I dont have to pace the bedroom at the end of the day. As if it mattered! We are strange creatures, easily influenced by... anything! Even an inanimate watch...

In the afternoon, I pick up a friend and we drive over to a birthday party. In the park. It was slated to be a hot hot day today, but it's mercifully cloudy and so the temps are moderating in the upper 80sF (a tad over 30C). Ed stays behind and waters our nut trees out back. They're little and they need help. 

And now comes that beautiful early fall evening. The sun is lower now and our walls are dappled with light and the imprint of dancing maple leaves. It is, simply put, a heavenly time of the day, of the year.

With love...

September 1st

It's always momentous: September 1st. Australians call it the beginning of spring. Poles, back in the days, designated it as the first day of school. Here, at the farmette, I think of it as a huge turning point: for me it announces the arrival of autumn. Habits, vision, outlook -- they take on the imperatives of the next season and indeed the one after as well. For a northern gardener, there is spring and summer, and quite separately there's the half year that gives us autumn and winter. And as always, I'm happy to see it coming.

I'm back to going to bed late and getting up early. And since I have no kids here for the next few days, I'm back to thinking about broader issues (rather than musing about this child doing that, and that child doing this, and wondering what it all means and where it's all heading). And as I sift through the events of this past summer, the recurring thought is that everything that happened, everything that was said, and that will be said is a repetition -- thoughts, feelings, words -- excited or disappointed, anxious or happy -- it's been done a million times over, no, a trillion times over, so that no feeling is unique (snowflake my foot!), no expression is novel. 

We are a bunch of repetitive sheep, thinking ourselves to be somehow special, entitled to attention for what we feel and how we express emotion, whereas in fact, we merely repeat what others have said and done countless times before us. Indeed, by the time you get to be seventy, you realize that repetition is there in your own back yard.  It is what brought this on for me in the first place -- I'm noticing, at seventy, a certain familiarity in what I hear all around me and in what I, myself am feeling. Those words? I've heard them before. Emotions? Recycled. 

So what's a person to do, knowing that there is nothing original left to be felt, said, expressed? 

There's a comfort in knowing that good feelings come around again and again, but also in knowing that horrible words are merely a repetition of utterances spoken for millennia. Bullies are a fixture, mopers moped and will continue to mope long into the future. Tune them out, walk away, don't bother challenging them -- they wont go away. A drumroll of negativism will continue long after you and I are stardust. 

Wait, so we are doomed to suffer the indignities of listening to foul speak? 

Since I was really young, like teenager young, I have wanted to live without anger and criticism and all that goes with it. But it took me this long to finally accept that you just can't avoid it, not at all, there are few safe harbors that offer calm, because we as a human species are easily triggered and we seem to enjoy fighting, in the same way that our cats here at the farmette seem to get some pleasure occasionally hissing and clawing at each other. Had they the ability to utter nasty words and critical expressions, they would use them, in addition to the claws and hisses. Peace is a very temporary state of affairs. 

So this sounds pretty pessimistic, no?

No. Quite the contrary. Knowing that it is unavoidable puts the burden on you -- the person who cannot stand argument and nastiness -- to actually not mind it. Ed has been coaching me in this for years now (he, like me, finds argument, disappointment, aggression, negative emotion to be pretty useless) but I've not been listening. I kept thinking -- I can run from noise. Avoid it altogether. I know I can. But it's not true. Noise is everywhere and all you can do is not be bothered when it comes your way, knowing that there is nothing new about it -- it's been said, done, thought, uttered again and again and again by all those trillions that have come before me and you and so it will continue. Your peace is what you construct in your own world of thoughts and pleasures. It's there, but it's within you, not within the world you inhabit. And do remember -- life is packed with good repetitions too. Keep your eyes open for them!

After those thoughts, I walked through the garden, fed the animals and sat down to breakfast with Ed.

(pot near picnic bench)

And then I went to the eye doctor.

You're supposed to see your surgeon a year after having cataract surgery, but I had one eye done in April of 22 and another in October of 22, so I picked this mid point and went today.

Good, good, she said. (Remember? This is a doc who really likes her own work, and honestly, with good reason!) However, you do have a new cataract in one of your eyes.

Can that even happen? I thought once you were done, you were done! So, more laser zapping is in store, though there's no rush. Eyes were the event of 2022, knee replacement -- 2023. Let's return to eyes sometime in 2024!

And then I drove home and pulled weeds, getting the beds ready for winter. (Yep, for winter. The prep starts now!)

In the late afternoon Ed suggests tennis. No, not ready for tennis. Maybe disc golf? No, I'm terrible at it. How about a hike along the Ice Age Trail? Third try's the charm! We set out.

And it's exquisite.

Calm reigns. Good feelings abound. 

In the evening I cook fish and corn because it's already September and though our freezer has a bunch of fish chunks, the corn, that fresh Wisconsin corn picked just this morning (or a few days ago) will soon be gone.

Happiness fluttered into our living room like a butterfly set loose in a prairie.

With love...

new ways

When you come back from a trip, it feels not unlike the beginning of a new year: you have this urge to rewrite in some small manner the way you go about your day. Throw in some new stuff, discard antiquated strategies that haven't worked for years. Well, in my case -- for weeks.

I no longer want to start the day with a garden review and cleanup. Sure, I tidied it up a little today because there were obvious sore spots that needed my attention. But then I let it go. I'm finally beginning to look at it in a new light -- an autumnal light. Appreciate pockets of bloom, often coming in from the pots...

Smile at a sudden burst of phlox color in one corner or another...

Take in the weirdly off schedule, but very pretty hollyhock...

And then I move on to feed the animals.

Breakfast -- a much simpler meal of defrosted pound cake and leftover berries.

I do need to water the porch pots, but then, despite the brilliant day -- full of sunshine yet not too hot (that scorching heat will arrive tomorrow and stay with us through early next week), with diminished mosquito activity -- in other words, despite the nearly ideal conditions for outdoor work, I shrug and put it off for another day. Instead, Ed and I go out for one of our combination bike/hike outings. Just locally. To smell the prairie, because in early fall, you really appreciate the scent of a drying flora.

(such a blue sky!!)

In the afternoon, Ed picks tomatoes (lots of cherries!)...

... and I return to a more dutiful set of tasks. You cant really change all your routines. Habits are stronger than our impulse to shake things up. And so I water the pots. Mow the paths. And in the late afternoon, Ed and I go to our local farmers market, bringing our contribution of rhubarb for the bakers and eggs for Farmer John.

And now here comes the evening: finally, our dinner out, at Sardine. It is totally perfect.

We ate on the early side and come back just before the nearly full moon ascends to shine on the farmette lands. 

May it shine brightly on you tonight as well.

With love...

leaving Quebec City

When you are still part of the labor force, long vacations can be a godsend. Indeed, some would argue you cannot disengage from your work during a short getaway. It takes a few days just to groove into a new rhythm. Another few to stop thinking about the projects you left behind. The French know this. The scoff at the American vacation which is, by their metrics, too short, too intense and too low on good food. It's not a vacation if it's not at least two weeks long.

I used to subscribe to this as well. When the kids were grown and I was once again alone, I took the longest vacation of my life. It went on forever, covered many weeks and many countries and it put me in credit card debt.

Since then, I've completely flipped on this. I have cut back so much that even Ed says my travel vacations are too short. All that trouble for just eight days? -- he'll ask. It's nine! -- I'll protest, thinking that nine is a lot, perhaps too much, next time I'll make it seven.

It's simple really: I dont need to be away. But I do need to get away. It is unfortunate that I live in a country where distances are vast and public ground transportation is poor, because it puts me in flight far too often for it to be environmentally sound. Nor do I especially love airports and bumpy flights. But I will find ways to accept that price for the chance to put myself elsewhere, as often as my conscience and my wallet can afford it. Not for long though. I love Ed, I love my life back home, I dont want to be away from it for too long.

This Quebec trip though, is unusually short. I'm returning home today, so I will have been gone for all of three nights and four days. It's short in part because the young family's getaway is also short and I am here for our time together. For them, travel is an adventure, but it's can't be relaxing. Young parents know this: going away with three young kids, where one of them rarely likes to sit still, is challenging. I can imagine that after a handful of days you begin to feel nostalgic for your home where you can actually get through a meal without working hard to keep the little guy quiet. Yes, it's all worth it and the memories are grand, but don't for a minute think that it is easy.

So, it's a short vacation for them and an even shorter trip for me and still, it is beautiful and the memories will be intensely exquisite. 

The morning is cloudy. There will be rain, there will be storms they say. No matter. We will navigate the city with umbrellas!

But first, breakfast. (I bring down my prized blueberries. Is this even allowed? Better not ask. I add them to the hotel's strawberries  and raspberries and have myself a delicious yogurt with Canadian berries supreme! And croissants.)

Afterwards, I take a stroll around the old town. I'm not ambitious today. 

And just before noon we meet up for lunch (definitely lunch!) at Les Trois Garcons, a bistro (in the best sense of that word) up the hill.

(here they come!)

(In our case, it's 2 garcons and 1 fille)

(On the move! must be time to go...)

They turn toward a museum. One about chocolate? Or about comic books? I do not know the ultimate decision. Me, I leave the upper town and head toward the hotel.

At two, I catch a cab to the airport. The driver is chatty and curious. Where are you from, where did you learn French, the usual. Importantly, he asked if I liked Quebec. I would have lied to be polite except that I didn't have to. He beamed: we are three things -- clean, safe, and friendly!

Yes they are.

I'm surprised that there are no weather delays. The flight takes off on time and by evening I'm in Chicago. 

International arrivals at O'Hare right now tests your travel patience. It's worse than arrivals/departures in Paris and that's saying a lot!  The line to clear immigration snakes through low, stuffy corridors and it snakes through hallways and then more corridors and you feel so embarrassed that this is the welcome all visitors receive when they land here. I know the airport is undergoing construction and there are posted promises of better days ahead, but from the looks of it, that may not come in the immediate timeline. I was happy to have my trusty KN95 mask but I do think that we are not doing ourselves any favors by packing people in like this from all corners of the world. If they weren't sick before arrival, they will be after they're done with this line. I asked one of the guards if this was unusual or an everyday thing. He and his pal answered in unison: it's every day. One hour to clear passport control? Really? 

A bit of a layover there, and so I treated myself to a bubbly something or other at the American Airline terminal. It was lovely.

On-time departure for Madison, and by 10:30 in the evening, I am home, under the light of a full Blue Moon. Hi Ed, hi farm animals! I am home.