Saturday

Grandma Camp begins (with a soft start) this weekend.

What does this mean, Ocean-wise? It means short sentences, few thoughts, many activities, documented, for the most part, with visuals rather than words. There simply isn't the time for more. (Camp goes from today, sort of kind of, through Thursday, sort of kind of. Grandma Camp accommodates all circumstances that arise. Rules are adjusted to meet the moment.)

Wake up, work the garden, feed the animals, tidy up this room, that room, water the tubs...

 

Breakfast, with Ed. It's going to be a hot set of days. This morning, however, is refreshingly cool.

The Camp participants -- the ones traveling from afar, meet me downtown at the Farmers Market.

 

We go inside the Capitol for a quick look and this is where we meet up with two of the remaining campers.

Market fun:

Brunch with the out-of-towners at Merchant. A lovely place just off the Square.

 

And then the Chicago fam comes to the farmhouse, where the youngest naps and the older ones head out with me to look in on my mother.

More play at the farmhouse and a meetup with most of the others at the Thirsty Goat for dinner.

And now I take the two little girls back to the farmhouse for an overnight with me... Wait, do I have any credible dessert for them at home? Better stop at Tati's first!

Alright, farmhouse now. Just the girls and me.

Tomorrow, Juniper, the littlest, will return home with her parents, while her sister stays here, with me.

The days promise to be very hot and very busy and I'm hoping loads of fun!

with love...

a pleasant crunch

You know how that is: sometimes you get really busy doing stuff you find dreadfully tedious and downright unpleasant. Chores that are somewhere between a root canal and a chicken coop clean out. (In case you don't know this, a chicken coop is one gross enclosure after the hens are done huddling in there for a night or two or three.) On the other hand, other tasks can zap your energies, leave you breathless, in need of a nap maybe, but you love them (or the end result) to pieces and you can't imagine life without them. From lily snipping at the low end of things, to grandkid visits and getting ready for them on the other -- the high end. 

I'm in that latter camp right now: more grandkids are coming this weekend and I must be ready. Which is easier said than done. I also have a friend visiting from out of town today, a mother who is very high maintenance at the moment, Steffi's House to look in on as the lawn there seems to be dying and no one is around (except for me) to water it,  and the usual afternoon kid care at the farmhouse. So things are rather tightly would up right now, even as I am looking forward to a week that I would describe as having a very pleasing crunch to it: lots to do, amply rewarding, totally time zapping. 

Let's start with this morning, when farmette fields are still asleep. With some flowers really letting me know that this is it for them, others (purple phloxes come to mind) hanging on to that pre-fall burst of light bloom.

(The tubs will carry the color into early fall...)

Breakfast is with my visiting friend. Downtown, at Madison Sourdough.

 

And then I get on that treadmill of tasks before it's time to pick up these two... It's their last day of summer camp and so a celebratory ice cream is on order.

When they leave, I return to the tasks, wondering to myself -- did I forget something? Oh yes! House cleaning. Shouldn't have I scrubbed the place clean before visitors descend this weekend? Shhh! Don't tell anyone. I bet they wont notice. (One can hope.)

Late night for me. But I am ready (more or less) for that pleasant crunch, starting early tomorrow! 

with love...

Thursday

A transition day. In between the time I was away along with the days I used to recover from being away, and the time I will focus extensively and almost exclusively on my family as Ed packs up and takes off (not yet but soon) on an adventure (which could last anywhere from one day to many weeks). It's still sunny and mild, I'm still tickled by the way August is unfolding here in south central Wisconsin, and I'm still enjoying the calm after the chaos, but increasingly I'm thinking about and getting ready for family stuff.

Of course, cleaning the garden is always the first task of the day. Today's photos reflect the obvious: the flowers are fading, autumnal crispness is setting in. 

(the best view for me right now is the one that I get when I first step outside...)

(lilies that are repeat bloomers are a real prize now!)

(find the froggie!)

(hungry girls want their breakfast)

(so beautiful in the morning sun...)

Breakfast -- on the porch of course.

And then I do a big time mowing job on many of the overgrown paths and on some of the areas that we dont usually mow at all at the height of the season. It's always a toss up. The tractor mower makes the job fairly easy but it's bumpy and I spin the machine around enough that I can really make myself sick out there. And the question is -- how much to mow? Three times each year (in spring, during summer, and once at the end of fall) I do a pretty extensive run through the farmette lands. I'm aware of the fact that I am disturbing the peace that reigns in the tall grasses among the insect and reptile population, but to promote a healthy meadow or prairie, you really need to cut back some of the mess every once in a while.  So, I'm thinking today is a good day for the summer clearing. No way do I like anything about mowing down tall grasses, which forces a restarting the darn machine again and again, as it stalls over the excessive load, but I always feel better once it's done. I leave enough for the bugs and froggies, but I also clear away spaces that are sprouting mountain-sized thistles and burdock and honey locust saplings.

And in the afternoon, Snowdrop comes over.

(she wants to check on the watermelon growing in our veggie field)

It's Thursday, so... local farmers market day! Snowdrop loves everything about it: the size, the foods, the familiar faces. She talks us into a cherry pie, a bag of cheese curds, and a pint of small tomatoes. (She devours all the tomatoes in the five minute ride home. You'd think I hadn't already given her her afternoon snack!)

Evening. I drop the girl off and return to a garden touched by that gentle light that comes only in the very early hours and again just before sunset.

 

 

The garden is ready to call it quits for sure, but the process of winding down for the season is slow. There will be weeks of blooms still. Perhaps not as lush or abundant. But if you look carefully, you will continue to see flowers somewhere in the farmette fields. Until the first frost, when it all shuts down for the year. (In Madison, the first frost usually comes in the first days of October.)

Light supper tonight, last day of Convention streaming, making me feel even more like we really are transitioning to early fall already. People are posting fist day of school photos! Wow. Wasn't the longest day of the year just yesterday? Amazing!

dinners to plan, dinnsers to cook

Add one more stunning day to the string of gorgeous weather days.

Good morning, farmette flowers and plants and chickens and cats and bugs and birds! And lilies. Because there are still some to be found (In fact, I snipped nearly 100 spent ones this morning, though most were from just two late blooming plants.)

Brilliant day for breakfast on the porch. Oatmeal begone! A return to croissants...

And then Ed and I sit down and plan out menus. He's set to go adventuring with his buddies next week and it is clear as anything that the guy needs help menu planning. (They're taking their own food.) Predicting what three clueless guys will eat is a bit of a challenge, but I do my best and by the end of the morning, the list is done. (Yes, it took that long.) 

And I face my own dinner plans for tonight. We've moved Sunday family dinner to this day because my daughter's good friend is in town and tradition has it that he should come for a farmhouse meal and it should include shrimp and we should eat on the porch. We all consider this guy to be part of the family by now  and what a welcome addition! One should always be so lucky as to rope in someone who is funny and smart and kind, all in one fell swoop. So I set to work on getting the basics done, before the kids come for the afternoon. 

Because yes, the kids are here today, in this last week of morning summer camp.

And yes, today is the promised ice cream day.

In the early evening, the gang arrives for dinner. Hi Sandpiper!

(all but Ed, who is off biking, as is his habit on Wednesdays: we ate corn from Stonemans Farm, eggs from the cheepers, green beans and tomatoes from the market and Krowki fudge candy from Poland; the seafood came from... the sea.)

If you think this is an abbreviated post, you just wait until next week when all hell will break loose and my days will be so full that you will be lucky to get a sentence out of me to let you know I have survived! (I exaggerate. When is the last time you have read a post here that is only one sentence long...)

I should mention that in the evenings, I tune into the historic Chicago convention. Call me sentimental, but I sure loved hearing the candidate spouse extol the virtues of his wife, and the dynamic super couple (our 44th and his wife) use their best oratorical skills to tell us why and how we should vote come November. So yes, it's been fun to watch and that is not something I could have said about days spent watching the counterpart to this convention back in July. Anger and hatred just doesn't appeal to me for evening TV viewing. I'm more of a hope and hard work kind of a person. Optimistic with a realistic slant!

And now it's time to exhale. With contentment. And love...

farmette days

Slowly, I am returning to a summer routine. Lots of work outside, kids in my afternoon, little tasks, but also little pleasures sprinkled throughout.

The weather is still perfect, the mosquitoes are low in number in the morning, medium in the afternoon and evening. That may not be great for those who come around later, but for me, it's great. My work in the flower fields is almost always heavily concentrated to the mornings. Today's images from my weeding and pruning:

 

(lilies that don't recognize the end of the lily season)

(the new orchard: apples and a flowering meadow...)

(the six girls)

(oh, hello more lilies)

(pathway to the door)

And I return to the bakery to pick up breakfast treats and cookies for Sparrow. 

After breakfast, Ed is preoccupied with work calls and I do not want to devote the rest of my living days to weed pulling, so I head out for a walk. Just along the bike path which weaves to the back of the farmette lands. I've always loved looking at the "rear end" of the farmette -- there's something gloriously wild about it since you dont see any of the structures in the season of dense foliage.

I dont often worry about how long I will keep on living there or whether Ed will lose the strength that we need to keep the place going (mine is less important: I can always let go of gardening, allowing the flower fields to sink into some dense jungle of weeds. It would be painful to watch, but we would survive, whereas without his engineering knowhow and physical stamina, we would not thrive there for long. All this is not usually on my mind. I've always believed that if we, if I had to take a radical turn in life, I would manage. But in the meantime, I remind myself that I cannot take all this for granted. It's easy to just accept waking up to a farmette day, to look outside and see all that is expansive and beautiful, seasonally exciting, to feel the calm, to believe that it will forever be this way.  

And maybe it will be and maybe it wont. But for each day that is exactly like this one, we really are grateful. And I suppose ignoring the possibility (indeed, likelihood) of change in the coming years is a good way to live with affection for the present. I need only look to my mother to know that you can snuff out and destroy all seeds of joy if you're sure nothing good will ever come your way again. Her favorite home has always, always been the one she just left behind.  And so I remind myself each day -- this is what good luck looks like. This field of golden and purple flowers, this porch breakfast, this walk on a brilliant late summer day.

 

After, I get ready for the kids. Fruits in their fruit bowls, cookie for the cookie guy, a croissant split between them.

I'm at their pick up point on the nose at 2:15. And I ask them: should we get corn at Stoneman's today and get ice cream tomorrow, or the other way around?

Guess which of two won for this day?

(she loves the friendly cat at Stoneman's)

(he likes to feed Rosie the goat)

(Boo the sheep is not hungry)

(at the farmette now...)

(cherry doubles...)

Surely what you'd recognize as a fantastic day. An noble day. Weeds pulled, steps taken, kids fed and happy. Summer at her best.