it's for this...

Ed has never had children and has never wanted them. He makes no secret of it and would announce it to the world if asked. At the same time, he cares deeply for my kids and grandkids. His level of concern and interest in their lives is about as high as it gets and when they ask him to do something, he'll oblige, whether or not it's convenient. I'll never forget the days when Snowdrop was a wee little thing and she would ask him to be a pretend groom as she played the bride and "marched down the aisle" with him. Nothing about that scene aligns with Ed's take on life and yet every time she asked, he was there, by her side. 

Ed's antipathy toward being a parent is understandable. As a child, he had a rough go of it with his sibs. And, a population explosion worries him (he cares about the planet way more than the average person). Too, he cannot understand why someone would want to burden her or his life with the monumental job of rearing a child. "It's so much work!" -- he marvels as I chase a kid, fix a meal for her, or clean up yet another mess, all the while telling the culprit to tone it down with the noise level. Why would anyone fill their lives with all this additional work and worry? 

Why indeed...

In the last few days, I had the answer before me, as clear as could be: as I sat across the table from my younger daughter over lunch last Friday, listening to her daughter chatter away about her Camp experience, and then today, as I sat with my older daughter over breakfast, while her son munched on a brownie and gave me a wickedly sweet smile, I thought -- it's for this. You do it for this. For a chance at this perfect moment when your kids are grown, maybe (but not necessarily) with kids of their own, sharing a few moments over a meal or a coffee with you, in the full bloom of their adulthood, beautiful in every way, while you sit back in a state of total happiness. Akin to childbirth only without the pain! 

 

In other news, the lily snipping count did go down today to a mere 615. This is good news. It's not that I want the lily season to be over, but I have too many mosquito bites to be happy about snipping away for hours on end every morning. At the level of today's count, I am content. The lilies are radiant, and the cleanup job isn't overwhelming. 

("for this is Flora's holiday... whilst you express your jollity, nymphs and shepherds come away!")

("when are you going to feed me??")

 

 

(you are so pretty! don't hide!) 

 

 

 

 

(a lily, a frog, and a clematis) 

 

 

(a lily and a frog, without the clematis) 

 

 

From snipping, I went straight to breakfast with my daughter and Sparrow. He had had a doc's appointment and they needed a ride back home (their car is in the shop). I got a lovely few minutes at a cafe with them for my efforts!

From there, I went to Madison Sourdough. Strange to be picking up breakfast treats after breakfast, right? But the fact is, I am slated to be on a low fiber diet this week (old people's stuff) and so I said to myself -- well that's good news! I can chomp away at all those croissants and cinnamon rolls guilt free! Load 'em up please! 

 

(no, no bread today; though it sure looks pretty!) 

 

 

There is nothing so decadent as having a croissant for lunch. With milky coffee. I tell you, life is so good at the moment. 

To keep up my spirits I have cut back on news reading/watching.  For a while I told myself -- I need to know. Ignorance is not going to get me through a tough period. But the level of anxiety that comes with reading the details of news stories as they appear in mainstream media is too high. If I'm going to go down, I'll do it in blissful ignorance. Just the basics, please. Keep those gory details for the history books, so that future generations can learn what foolishness lead us to where we are today.

I return to my flower fields in the afternoon. A few weeds to pick, yes, always that, but mostly to just look. Why clean the beds if I never give myself time to admire them in their best dress? 

 

(deeply pink with a hint of lavender and a yellow throat) 

 

 

(ruffled butter for sure, in a double lily!) 

 

 

 (it's called a spider lily for a reason)

 

 

It is nothing short of a miracle to have a lily bloom so perfectly, with petals that are pert and so pretty, and stamens that beg pollinators to come calling -- only to disappear overnight. Most everyone associates a fading wilted flower with demise, sorrow, loss, even death. I can't think of a single poem that finds beauty in a day lily that wilts after just a few daylight hours. But to me, the "take turns" nature of a day lily is nothing short of awesome. Spotlight is on you! show us your best face! And the next day, her sister takes to the stage. And of course, the memory of each beautiful lily remains.

 

(peachy melon, or maybe a rosy apricot?) 

 

 

(a lemon tart, maybe with cream at the edges) 

 

 

(watermelon in golden sunshine) 

 

 

 with so much love...

a clean garden but...

... a messy house? Who, me?

Yeah, me. At least it hasn't yet reached its minimalist goals. Can I blame the kids? Okay -- I blame the kids.

It really got out of control during Grandma Camp. The kids found sticker pads that I put aside. They made toy arrangements that they swear cannot be touched for eternity. And the fairy gardens? Well, they loved doing them but what happens next? They are big. The Chicago household already nixed the idea of one traveling back with Primrose to their home. And there are craft materials thrown into an Amazon box along with... lollipops for air travel, rubber duckies from wading pool days, magnets, and very tangled threads for friendship bracelets.

I know craft people who have these little drawers with neatly organized supplies. Everything has a place. I admire that amount of care given to random pieces of plastic, paper and fabric, but as I've said before, I have never loved creating stuff out of paper straws and pipe cleaners and if I bring in such materials for a kid project (which is so rare that the kids associate it only with camp), I haven't a clue as to what to do with them once the project is behind us. Same goes for random small nothings accumulated for kid use over the years.

Well, today I attacked those boxes and made Goodwill piles that are impressive! I'm not done and I'm not really motivated to do a whole playroom overhaul, but I have to say, few things give me more pleasure than clearing out old stuff. And so count this morning as being almost joyful.

Of course, first, I did clean up the flower beds. The air quality was not great (those Canadian fires again), and the mosquitoes were spiteful, but I kept at it. 859 today, but judging by today's flower display, I'd say that tomorrow I should start going down in my count. Which will be a relief.

In the meantime, here are the lilies of today. With their flower (and froggie) friends:

 

(early morning light) 

 

("you're not going to snip this one, are you?")

(hiding under the petal)

(my "nymphs," in full bloom)

(beautiful color)

(In bright sunshine)

(lemon yellow, next to a sweat pea)

(Big Bed colors)

(Big Bed from the middle, looking toward the farmhouse)

(a true lily that did not get eaten up by lily leaf bugs)

(By the porch: lilies, phlox and... garlic.)

The day disappeared for me. One appointment, many errands, and all those cleanups!  

But of course, there was breakfast. With Ed and Dance. I'd just baked fresh granola. And, too, we still have two weeks of peaches coming our way.

 

 

Lunch and dinner were far less exciting.

I have a string of days before me where the most important thing I'm likely to do is bake granola and snip lilies. I can think of worse ways to spend a summer week.

with love... 

 

 

 

lily lie lay, lily lie loh..

 What a mess!

 

 

(Are you going to feed us, or snip lilies first?)

 

 

Sigh... I'll feed you. But what a mess!

 

 

 

In the end it was 2217. That is the snipped lily count this morning. Ed comments: that's a lot of lilies and that's an awful lot of counting! Of course, he is correct. But the burden is in snipping along with mosquitoes and, too, giving that much time to it when time is scarce. It's not in the counting. I like the rhythm of numbering them. It's very meditative. I'd even call it soothing and relaxing were it not for the bugs. 

Naturally, that tally is inflated because I did not snip lilies yesterday and only did a third of them the day before. Nonetheless, it does tell me that we are still in the high numbers -- close to a thousand per day. 

It's been a really great day lily season! (The true lilies, on the other hand, have suffered. Many gardeners have complained about the lily leaf beetle invasion and sure enough, the beetles have hit my orientals. You can spray them weekly to ward off the pests but I'm not going to do that. I'll just avoid them in future plantings.)

Cleaned up flower fields:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 (that's better!)

 

  

 

 

So many lilies! So why are you putting in more? -- Ed asks. 

Well, these lilies arrived in the mail and they wont do anything this year but they will fill in some bare spots next year. We dug out a bush -- a bare spot was created! I am spineless when my favorite lily company sends me tempting emails with sales and very pretty new colors.  So, I have as a goal to plant my last plantings for the summer: 7 more lilies.

But first, breakfast.

And that snipping, which I had interrupted because I so needed my cup of coffee! And finally, planting.

 

The young family is here for dinner tonight and I just have to get some fresh corn. Our farmer down the road is late this year so I high tail it over to Eugster' s, where Primrose and I last shopped for corn. You may well ask me -- why not stock up then? Wouldn't Friday's corn be good for a Sunday dinner? Well no. When you live in the middle of corn country, you really get hooked on the Stradivarius of corns. Two day old corn, even from a fine corn grower is like settling for a Tonarelli when you can have a Stradivarius. Really, corn picked the same day is at height of excellence. None can compare.

Here they come.

Dinner, outside...

And then I am spent. I haven't yet caught up on rest and of course, garden work is... work. So yes, tired, but very very content. Happy. Grateful.

with so much love... 

camp ends

The familiarity of summer sleep-away camp is an American thing. Most people I know here have had some camp experience. Even Ed went to camp and indeed was a camp counselor. Most and perhaps all of my Polish friends never went to camp when they were kids. Many stayed with grandparents or other distant family members during summer.s Me, I went to camp three times in my six childhood years living in New York. The other summers I stayed with my grandparents in Poland. My youth was clearly a mix of Polishness and Americanisms.

Polish people do not understand the significance of a camp experience: typically, it's your first time away from family. A time of meeting new kids, and living under the loose supervision of a staff barely older than you. A time to take responsibility over your belongings, your whole self, in fact, as you learn to make choices that teach you a lot about how to best navigate all that's out there.

My Grandma Camp is nothing like that. I am nearly three times the age of all three campers (my three oldest grandchildren) combined. Everyone knows each other. I give some choice, but also have planned activities. Food is the old reliable stuff. Nothing new and disgusting (I learned about "bug juice" in one camp, and "eggplant caviar" in another -- the Russian one).

And yet, my Grandma Camp this year pulled all three kids away from their homes and their parents for a handful of days. They let loose here, at the farmette. Really let loose. Didn't Stephen Colbert recently say that laughter conquers fear? That you can't both laugh and be afraid? There was a lot of laughter at my camp. No one was afraid. Well, except when a movie turned scary: both Primrose and Sparrow would hide for a few seconds in the "art room."

The other day Primrose told me what her least favorite moment of camp was this one: we were at the dairy farm and I was so busy looking at, and photographing baby calves that I didn't notice the manure ditch that ran the length of the barn. I tripped over it and fell. The farmer was terribly concerned over my bruises, my age, my fall. I think Primrose was concerned that I had fallen into cow poop! Since looking at a photo possibility has given me bruises before (think: head wound at a French train station that required a visit to the ER), once I saw that no ER trip was required, I shrugged and brushed it off (and lucky break for me -- they had sanitizers and wipes everywhere!). Still, if that was Primrose's worst moment, that tells me a lot about how well she handled all the other challenges of a 24/7 camp with cousins!

 

This morning, I gave myself an extra half hour in bed in my hotel room. And I walked with a leisurely pace to the younger family's home, pausing at a coffee shop along the way.

I carried my drink with me to their house and ate granola and watched the kids play and read and go about their normal routines.

(post-shower)

It was a beautiful morning!

 

We walked over to Pompette's for a late brunch. They know how much I love this last meal out in Chicago!

(my Chicago girls!)

 

 

Unfortunately, the rains came down while we were eating and they continued... 

 

 

... including on my drive back to Madison. The road heading northwest was bumper to bumper traffic out of the city and in later stretches I passed three major car crashes. I have to think the weather contributed to those. Me, I was in no hurry and by the time I came to Wisconsin, the skies had mostly cleared and the highway had more or less emptied out. It was easy to fall into a dreamy state of reflection, recollection, and gratitude. Three hours later I pulled into the driveway.

 

(what a mess...) 

 

Hi Ed, I'm home! 

Yep, I walked right in, ignoring the lilies. I have no intention of snipping a single flower. There will be time for that. Just not today. I'm exhaling!

with a smile and so much love...