Tuesday

Talk about ease of shopping: yesterday, I spent most of my free time (all the way up until midnight) buying holiday gifts. And I'm done! Now comes the awful part -- the daily arrival of boxes -- something that causes great anguish for my beloved acquisition hating Ed. I hide everything instantly and yet he notices it all. Still, I promise him -- most of it is for the kids and the minute the littlest one has cycled through all that's available here for their afternoons of play, the toys get donated and the play room returns to its prior emptiness. With maybe a comfy chair for reading. Okay, no comfy chair needed. Empty it shall be. I haven't yet given up my dedication (theoretical at the moment) to minimalism over clutter.

We wake up to a dusting of snow. Pretty, for sure, but so ephemeral and so very wet.

Breakfast -- I light my Montana Forest while Ed is out discussing a branch chipper with some Craigslist person. 

Then I snuff it out and switch to Rustic Pine. He claims this one is fine. As usual, I barely smell anything at all. I buy candles that are very low on fragrance. But my imagination tells me we have left Montana and are now near a forest and the scent of fir is all around us.

And speaking of growing things, I do some indoor plant maintenance today. We keep the huge orchid plants inside the sheep shed for the winter because they are just over the top and there isn't the space here on the window sill. After a summer outdoors, they burst into early winter bloom. I hope the sheep shed cats enjoy the display!

In the farmhouse, the Christmas cactus as usual has started to flower on Thanksgiving. It will grow dormant again by late December. Silly plant. For now, it surely adds color to the art room!

The two impatiens plants I bought in are doing well, the pelargonium - eh, they're getting old. I may rethink their fate come summer. 

The rosemary is robust, but I know its real test comes later when it strains for more light. Our windowsills just do not have that much sunshine (because of the surrounding trees... I blame Ed).

Inspection and maintenance done. I get in the car and drive toward the kids' school. Wait -- isn't their school close to Clasens European Bakery? And didn't I hear that Clasens is putting out "hearts moons and stars" already -- my very favorite chocolate covered gingerbread cookie, sold only at Christmas? We have had a long standing rule in our family, born of the days when my daughters were just little: the Christmas season does not start in any way -- not with the foods, the music, the stories, the movies -- until after Thanksgiving. In those days, we would have Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on in the background on Thursday and the kids convinced me that Santa, coming in at the end of the parade, officially launched the holiday season. Who can argue with that! But that means no Clasen's shopping until after Thanksgiving, right?

When you're 70 years old, you get to break the rules. You also get to keep your transgressions hidden from the world. So, telling no one, and especially not the grandkids, I drive over to Clasens and pick up a couple of packets of my very beloved cookies. I mean, what if there was a run on them? They might sell out! But shhhh! Tell no one! And no photos posted of my foray into that wonderland of holiday baked goods! 

Okay, time to get the kids. It's my last pre-Thanksgiving visit with them. A good one! The excitement of the approaching holidays is palpable! In fact, I had to ratchet it down a little. Too much bounciness doesn't always give us a productive afternoon.

(out the window, on our way home...)

And now the young families are in their own tailspin of Thanksgiving preparations and planning and I'm back at the farmhouse enjoying the images I have of them all, knowing that there will be stories from the holiday and there will be lots of smiles in the retelling. 

And tonight? Like I said, I'm taking control over the movie selection. Let me take a look at what's out there...

Monday

In having before us a quiet Thanksgiving, we are slated to also have a quiet pre-Thanksgiving week. This creates an opportunity to reflect. On gratitude, on joy, on the inevitable sadness you feel when you hear about someone's loss. Can you have all three emotions in one day? On one holiday? 

I think about this on my walk to the barn...

And I talk about this over breakfast with Ed.

Well, not so much about emotions -- that's not his topic! But about processing others' loss and grief. He tells me about recent articles/videos he's been tracking down on the science and history of electricity. (It's related!) 

Do you know that just 200 years ago we had no electricity?

I didn't have it growing up at with my grandparents in the village!

I don't mean that. The world then had electricity. Your house wasn't powered by it, but you made use of it at every turn. But 200 years ago, no one knew about it, no one relied on it. Magicians played with a static charge and then someone, actually a handful of people, took it a step further. My point is, loss is part of life, but then, look how much our lives have evolved to minimize loss! In such a short period of time.

I suppose someone might say -- I wish I lived more in the future, in a century where children no longer had to battle cancer (my readings this morning had been about that), then I will protect myself from a possible loss of a child from disease. Well yes, but if loss is part of life, it will be with us in some fashion always. Looking for a time without its threat surely is a futile enterprise. Isn't it better to think how splendid it is to have lived with all that we do have now, we the carriers of progress, perhaps not necessarily the direct inventors of cures, medicines, preventions, or electricity, but still, there, carrying the torch forward, in much the same way the magicians' play with static charge eventually lead the world to LED light bulbs, now available at your local store? With lights twinkling every which way we look -- including on our porch, with furnaces heating, hot water pouring out of our faucets. 

Ed often talks about collective knowledge, shared ideas, breakthrough in design (it's his field after all). We are both of the generation that couldn't conceive of sharing knowledge in the way that it is shared now (through the internet). We were happy if we lived near libraries (how many times as a young adult, I'd head over to the medical library on campus to look up some health topic?!), relying on encyclopedias to get us to a basic understanding of how things work and who invented what in which epoch. These days? It's all within a click.

In other words -- it is possible to think about gratitude, joy and sadness -- all in one breath! We are equipped to handle all three and indeed, it is our job to reach down into our souls this week and spend a few minutes with all three, recognizing their validity, their worth. Their unique place in our lives.

In the afternoon, I pick up the girl, who is actually very adept at cycling through big emotions in record time. Today is a fine example of it: a dismal morning, a triumphant math class, an even better recess, and now, at the farmhouse, excitement at the discovery of calligraphy and kaleidoscopic image making. (This, shared with Ed. Long story.)

In the evening I examine my stock of winter candles. Ed claims that one of them -- the one that produces almost zero fragrance -- is irritating his nasal passages. Fragrance to him is mostly fine except when it isn't. Then it's like feeding him cilantro: a downward spiral into a hellish world where you're forced to eat soap and take whiffs of acidic chemicals. Goodbye, Montana Forest scent! Or wait -- Ed, didn't you say you had some work to do in the sheep shed tomorrow?

You gotta love a guy who can spend hours in a machining shop (those places smell of... machines) but who flinches at the light scent of Montana Forest! 

We watch a movie tonight. Nothing about it is fun or funny or even mildly enjoyable, yet we are glued to it, waiting for each dramatic twist to take us further into a sinkhole of despair. Honestly, Ed! Tomorrow I'm taking charge of the movie selection. Somewhere out there, I will find a show that will make us end the day with a chuckle. Or at least a smile.

with love...

Sunday

For me, the mood is definitely tinted by the upcoming holidays. Little things, like checking bakery store hours for the week ahead. Catching sight of a Clasen's display in the grocery store, with a small gingerbread house and packets of my beloved holiday cookies -- their stars, hearts and moons. I have a legal pad that has pages of notes. What to do in the next five days, fifteen days, thirty days. What the kids might like for Christmas. What dinners will require special attention in advance of their preparation. It's all filling my head right now. And music, too. When I hike, I nearly always have a song running in my head. Once it sticks, it wont budge until the walk is over. I noticed in the last couple of days that the songs in my head are, well, of the season. (I love holiday music for exactly 4 weeks out of the year: from the day after Thanksgiving until December 25th. After that I swear I never want to hear another bouncy jingly tune again. Ever.) And the candles: I'm temporarily moving away from interesting scents from Scandinavian boreal forests and am plunging into pine and blue spruce.  All this before we've even dug into Thanksgiving.

I mentioned that we're slowly descending into a cold spell. Today is the last day where we're still well above freezing (a high of 50F or 10C) and so the morning walk to the barn is pleasant...

Breakfast? Oh, it's always deliciously wonderful.

And then I push myself to do my annual grand mow of most (but not all) of the farmette lands. I use the tractor mower for this -- you need a solid, large machine to manage the tall growth of our mock prairie and to power through, as it goes over fallen timber. 

It's a bumpy and dusty terrain (we haven't had rain for weeks!) and there is a very large part of me that hates this job. My head spins, my stomach turns. On the other hand, there is a deep feeling of satisfaction that you get from bringing down a year's worth of spent growth. Weeds, goldenrod, tall grasses, dogwood. Sticky seeds, thorny bramble canes, dried snakeroot. I bring it all down. 

The purpose of this is manifold: I want to slow down the growth of invasives, and I want to open up the ground so that the wildflowers that I love have a chance to emerge. Out front, I want to mulch the maple leaves into something that wont totally smother the grasses that do survive the dense shade.

By the time I'm done, I am ready to collapse and not move for at least ten hours. Did I mention how woozy riding that bumpy machine makes me feel?

All that and my movement rings dont even budge! Ah well: I sacrifice a good chunk of my day for the health of the farmette lands and the plant life that I want to encourage and keep healthy here.

In the evening, the young family comes for dinner. They, too, are focusing more and more on the holidays. Sparrow, who is always too quick to proclaim something as his favorite ("my favorite food is watercress!" "Have you ever had it?" "I dont think so...") has been saying for a while that his favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. ("Why?" "I told you already many times! Because you give thanks!") Feeling a bit like he is abandoning me by going with his family to Chicago for that day, he draws me a picture of just him and me at a Thanksgiving table together. "This will make you feel better!" 

All my grandkids are very, very sweet to me.

(wait! do I see braids??)

(Sparrow really loves to read these books to his brother...)

(If she stands on a chair pretending to be the Statue of Liberty, he, the one next in line, has to do it too. Sandpiper joins in, of course, though he is clueless about Ms Liberty, or her iconic pose.)

(finally, dinner is ready...)

Warm, breezy and fragrant summer evenings may be beautiful, but honestly, nothing beats the cozy and snug, dark evenings of winter. You add your own light. You add color. You add just a whiff of a forest scent (or you bake something with cinnamon). Maybe you mix up a kir vin blanc, or a warm cup of tea with honey. You take out the quilt or a throw blanket and you settle in for a quiet set of hours and it is nothing short of sublime.

Saturday

Since my kids have flown the coop (decades have passed!) and set up homes of their own, there have been fewer than a handful of Thanksgivings where I have not had either one or both of them, along with their families, at my table for that traditional turkey dinner. Sure, there are other grandparents who also value time with them -- three other sets in fact -- but none of them are ardent Thanksgiving dinner preparers. Or at least they haven't clambered to roast turkeys for big crowds. Graciously, I should add. Less demand for the kids' presence makes it easier for the young families to sort this out in a way that can accommodate the needs of the very young.

This year, however, is one of those rare times when no one will be in Madison for Thanksgiving. Well, except for Ed and me. 

It is a perfectly reasonable arrangement. The kids' other grandfather, though not a dedicated cook himself, has wanted to have the bunch of them over for the holiday and he surely deserves to have that memorable experience on his own turf. So Ed and I are coasting according to our own whims and predilections. Thanksgiving 2023 will be imagined by me, for the two of us. I'm thinking back to past times when it was just us:  in that horrible first Covid year, we were alone, yet I stubbornly roasted a turkey and did the sides. We had a lot of leftovers. On a previous alone year, we  went out to a restaurant and it felt really dumb to sit in a dining room with a bunch of others, all waiting for their turkey slice to be brought by a harried waiter. And there was one other time that I recall -- we went out for sushi. Restaurants serving Asian food almost always stay open on the holidays. The proprietors couldn't wait for us to be done so that they could close up and go out shopping in Big Box stores that opened with big sales even before the day was done.

What's our idea for this year? Oh, suddenly, it's easy! Since Covid, many very nice restaurants are in the business of selling prepared foods to go. It works this way: they do the turkey, the sides -- all of it. You pick it up on Wednesday, and presumably throw it all in the microwave or maybe oven on Thursday, and boom! You've got yourself a meal! And since restaurants always give copious amounts of food, there are sure to be leftovers. What's Thanksgiving without Friday leftovers after all. 

This new game plan means that on the Saturday before Thanksgiving (today!) I am not making grocery shopping lists and I am not searching high and low for better veggie recipes, nor am I sweating over whether to spatchcock the turkey, or whether to brine it, in salt it, or smother it in mayo before roasting. (I've tried them all in the past. Spatchcocking is my favorite.) 

Instead, it is a Saturday like all other November Saturdays: I feed the animals in the early morning...

And because I love freshly baked goods for breakfast, I drive over to Madison Sourdough for their rolls, croissants and bread...

(sky so blue...)

And I sit down to the morning meal with Ed and it is joyous because, well, for no reason at all actually.

It is a very quiet day. I have time to make lists for the remaining weekends of this year, very few of which will be quiet ones!

In the afternoon, Ed and I return to Donald Park. We liked it a few weeks back and it seems like a good hike choice for Wisconsin hunting week. Many of the Ice Age trails within a short drive are now taken over by men with guns. I am not opposed to hunters claiming their hunting rights and privileges, I just don't enjoying being among them in November. So we go to Donald's because it's a county park and we're not going to hear the occasional explosion of gunpowder. No ducking stray bullets required!

We had hiked one segment of it before and we turn in the opposite direction today, following trails that skirt woodland, prairie, and the sandstone cliffs that are so endemic to this hilly region. 

We are impressed! The park grew out of a vision shared by local farm families and especially Delma Donald Woodburn and a neighbor, Pat Hitchcock. Donations, easements and some purchases helped establish the park. Delma died at the age of 104, Pat -- at a slightly younger age, and it is in their senior decades that they worked on ensuring that their vision for the Donald Park became a reality.

The park has only 475 acres, but it is magnificent nonetheless. The trails are varied and never boring. You're walking along a stream and the next minute you're cutting across a restored prairie. One more mile and you're climbing up steep rocks. 

(from the top)

All of it is lovely and we try to imagine what the place is like in other seasons. We'll surely return!

As we stroll along the stream (Deer Creek) that picks up spring waters and meanders south, ultimately pouring its waters into the Mississippi, we note that the sun has dipped below the horizon. In other words -- it's late! How long have we been walking?! 

We speed toward the car and drive home, pulling in just as it really is getting dark. We breathe a sigh of relief: all chickens accounted for! No predator visits tonight. Just the moon, a few stars and the lights twinkling over the farmhouse porch.

Friday

In the middle of the night, I get that question -- are you awake maybe? 

Ed is standing over me with laptop in hand. Surely bad news? Or maybe a message calling him out to sea? A new discovery worthy of immediate sharing?

None of those. He is showing me an internet picture of an animal that resembles a giant white rat. 

We have one outside, in one of the crab apples. It's a white opossum. It's very rare. Want to see it?

Under normal (meaning daytime) circumstances, of course I would be curious. At 2:30 a.m. (Ed often stays up this late), I hesitate. Warm bed, cold night, white opossum. Hmmmm....

The white opossum wins.

Ed thinks he's very attractive. (His cells aren't producing pigment hence the ghostly white color.) Of course, Ed would find most animals that visit the farmette gloriously amazing. But we are also aware of the threat they pose. Not to us. Opossum love digging their 50 teeth into a sleepy chicken's neck and sucking the blood out for a delicious evening aperitif. We've had that happen, right inside the coop at dusk, before Ed had a chance to close up the hens for the night. Opossum are nocturnal, but in winter they get hungry and they come out at unpredictable times. We are on alert! Ed puts a brick by the coop door to keep the hens in for a longer spell in the morning.

Of course, by daybreak, when I'm out to feed the animals...

... the opossum is gone. 

For now.

Breakfast? Well, I swallow my pride (it is not a perfect apple cake!) and have a slice of that cake for breakfast. It's not so bad that it should be ditched to the chicken feed bin.

We are in the middle of a cool-down, but the progression toward more wintery days is gradual. Today, the sun is still out and the day is just a tad cooler. (60F yesterday, 45F today; or -- a drop from 15C to 7C.) It really is fine for a walk in our local park.

The kids at pick-up are bouncy and in good spirits.

We move smoothly through our Friday routines -- dance, violin, and a meet up with the youngest sib...

And by evening, I am home, with just Ed. Well, and the three cats that visit us here. No white leucitic marsupial tonight. Let's hope he has found a snug winter hideout elsewhere.

with love...

one last hurrah

We end the Great November Warmup today. And I finish planting. That is what I call a very happy confluence of events. Of course, one is never totally done with garden work, even now, in what is already the second half of November. I am constantly filling in holes in the flower beds, excavated by the hens who scratch like crazy, especially in spring and fall, when the summer lazies have left them and the winter freeze hasn't yet hardened the soil. And I am trimming spent flowers, not finding the contours of the winter garden to be perfectly set in place just yet. That stuff continues. But I can't call it pressing garden work. More like puttering around here and there.

Morning walk? A little nippy at the outset, but only at the outset. And very pretty!

Breakfast -- well, I decided not to really like the apple cake (too sweet, and just a tad too dry on the outside and gummy on the inside), so I pushed that aside in favor of, ho hum, oatmeal.

I took a walk, but not a long one. Another one of those nuisance appointments got in the way.

And I picked up the kids for a more normal afternoon at the farmhouse.

And wait, not done yet! I had a dinner with former colleagues.

So yes, a packed day, but at what point does it feel special? I mean, we're not likely to see weather like this again until April. How do we honor it? Well, as is so often the case, the beauty comes out in little spurts throughout. I feel it in the drive to pick up the kids, loving the hazy yet warm sun hitting my left shoulder both going there and heading back. I see it in a glance out the kitchen window while cutting up fruits for the kids and for breakfast, because the crab still looks so good before the birds rip out all those lovely red apples. And in that final dig into the soil to get one last Tahiti Daffodil bulb in, with a simple unzipped sweatshirt keeping me perfectly warm. Fleeting pleasures to be sure, and yet there are so many of them!  

Tonight we'll crank up the furnace and get ready for the big cooldown. By Thanksgiving, reaching 32F ()C) will feel like a gift.

100

In my family, we're all focused on this singularly memorable fact: my mother turns 100 today.

I told the kids yesterday that, to my knowledge, I'd never met anyone who was 100 before. Have you?? We read about these people. And I remember hearing that in the past you got a postcard from the president (or was it some other famous celebrity?) when you turned 100. My mother received no such card. I'm sure the practice stopped once it became more commonplace to reach that mark. And yet, I never met anyone who did reach it.

The birthday girl kept emphasizing that she did not want any celebration. She is not one who likes celebrations of any sort and we haven't ever celebrated this day before for that reason. Well, I mean, depends on what you call a celebration. Most people who claim that they don't want a fuss on their birthdays actually don't mean that you should ignore their day and in that my mother is no different. She welcomes family calls, cards, etc. So it's a spectrum: Ed is on one end and quite a number of family members are on the other and my mom is somewhere in the middle I suppose. (It's much easier to deal with people at the extremes. You need say or do nothing with Ed and he wont be disappointed. You bring gifts and bake cakes for those who love birthdays and they wont be disappointed. The middle? You're always going to come in not exactly right.)

Anyway, it's her birthday and she is 100.

And it is again a day that should be spent outdoors because it's just stunning weather! 

I can plunge into planting!  But first, I bake an apple cake. This cake sounded so good for a November breakfast that I just had to whip it together. With cinnamon and walnuts. I send Ed to get cupcakes -- a more appropriate birthday treat from Batch Bake Shop for our visit with my mother this afternoon.

(Breakfast time. No, not on the porch! That ship has sailed and wont be back until May. But cosy and sweet at the kitchen table.)

And yes, I do mean our visit. Again, this is tough to figure out, because normally my mother is not keen on visitors. But I tested the waters and she seemed up for this (maybe)... 

(I'm thinking about all this during my quick and dirty bike ride, where the colors of winter grasses and of cranes blend...)

And so as soon as school is out, I pick up the two older kids, and the parents pick up the youngest guy, and Ed scoots over on his motorbike and we all meet up at my mom's place...

... for an uncelebrated but acknowledged birthday of great significance, if you're counting years, which she is not, maybe. Or maybe she is, but isn't saying.

(Ed snaps this one...)

Afterwards, I take the older two out for ice cream. There are many reasons to choose this day for it and at the top of the list is, of course, the perfect ice cream weather. And my mother's birthday, though she doesn't venture beyond her home and doctor's offices so it's just me and the kids.

From there, I take them not to the farmhouse but to their house, where I hover for a while with my books, fruits and other typical gaga paraphernalia. 

In the evening, I exhale. The day could have gone in any number of different directions but I think in the end we all agree that it went in good ones and my mom's birthday is now 364 days away and the next birthday for us, a December one, belongs to the youngest member of my family which is, well, exciting. The baby of the clan always gets extra attention because, well, she's the baby!

with love...

Tuesday

You will not hear much from me today. The bulbs have arrived, the weather is splendid, a bike ride is de rigeur, the kids need to be picked up -- in other words I have before me an unusually non-Novemberish day, filled to the brim with all that must be done before we close the door to fall and await the pleasures of a solid snowfall.

Indeed, a brisk walk in the morning (to the barn)...

... is quickly followed by a project to bring down a cracked limb on our tall honey locust tree. Ed throws the saw up high (it takes many throws to position it well) and then we each take an end of the rope and start sawing.

A quick and perfect breakfast follows...

And very shortly after, I'm out. Planting, biking. 

Interrupted, unfortunately, with a very unproductive appointment (dont ask -- there have been snafus with this for weeks, and the mistakes continue... one just has to laugh!), so that I can only put in a third of the bulbs that arrived yesterday. Still, progress was made!

Kids next.

(He always comes to the car with the same words: guess what! -- then quickly launches into a complicated story of school happenings that are sometimes deserving of that initial excitement...)

(She succeeded in stealing Ed's mouse! quite the feat -- she's been trying for a while!)

(And the indoor lights are back with us, lighting the way up our very steep staircase.)

(And the outdoor lights continue to shine light on the walkway as we leave the farmhouse...)

Reheated foods today and yet another ending to a Brit crime drama series that I loved! I always think -- we'll never find something as deliciously good to watch, but in fact, we always do.

And the cats join us for supper (they get shredded Italian cheese as a special treat), and the candle glows and the evening is so fine!

with love...