in search of snow

If it was beautiful before, in the darkness of a winter night, you suspect it’ll be utterly breathtaking in the morning.

It is utterly breathtaking in the morning.






It’s one of those times when even too few hours of sleep can’t keep me in bed. I worry that one big gust of wind will push it all to the ground. And so I go outside.

It’s so still now! Nothing moves, nothing disturbs the tranquility of this white, white morning.






I walk around the farmhouse, looking at it from all angles...






I admire the pines and the firs of course -- they’re always splendid under a snow cover.





They’re splendid from beneath the bows, too!






And let me not neglect the other trees – the willows, the walnuts, the orchard trees – they’re all decked out in unusual ways.











I award this February morning top honors. I can hardly remember a landscape this winter-pretty. Maybe not since childhood days at my grandparents’ home in the deep countryside of Poland.

Ed and I cannot decide whether to leave later this afternoon for our week-end trip north. We haven’t done much of exploring this year, outside of short drives close to home and so I want to go. On the other hand, we have snow here! Up north – they haven’t seen fresh snow in a long time!



 



In the end, we decide to go. I’ve made reservations – we don’t want to cancel out on well-meaning people. And, as the snow begins to drop down from the branches, I see that it is misleading in its depth. By the end of the week-end, it may well have disappeared.

In the afternoon, we pack our skis and point the rusty Geo due north. Not far. Neither of us enjoys spending hours on a highway. Just two hours to our first stop – Stevens Point. Population 27,000. Home to a major UW campus. CNN ranks it as the 18th in a list of best places to retire. Forbes says it's 6th best place to raise a family. Number 9 on the top ten list of "dream towns of America."

Oh, I’ve passed through Stevens Point before. I’ve taken my kids to the campus there for one middle school or high school competition or another. But I’ve never walked through the historic downtown. Never paused by the river, looked at the mural of the loggers who settled here more than a 100 years ago – Polish, many of them Polish.





This region was an important destination for Poles who came to America at the beginning of the twentieth century. My grandfather was one of them. Eventually, he abandoned logging in favor of auto engineering (only to be out of work, just as he brought his family over, in time for the Depression). This is the same grandpa who returned to the Polish village in his retirement. But his young adult days were here, in Wisconsin. Very likely with the Polish community that settled here.

We walk to the Cozy Kitchen – reputed to be the oldest eatery in this city.


 


It’s a diner – very traditional, very hearty. We eat an omelet, I drink tea... (so is it obvious that I am a mom?)











After, we continue our walk – past the Wisconsin River – still very large here, very imposing...






...and back toward the Main Street, where the murals describe a past...







 


... a past that surely has elements of the old country. My old country. Here you see Mr. Zdrojewski and his two teenage daughters, operating a bakery at this site many decades ago.






And here’s one that any Pole would recognize: it’s a mural depicting a traditionally poised set of roosters. You have to understand the art of paper cutting to see the utter Polishness of this design.






Alright. I’ve had my fill. We’re back in the car for the last thirty mile segment, still heading north and now a tad concerned about the snow. I had checked with the park where we are to ski – “good to excellent” they said a few days ago. But there really is very little snow in the fields and forests along the highway. Should we have stayed home?

No. We arrive at the park to check the conditions – they’re fine. We wont ski today – too late for that. But we should have our fill of it tomorrow.

We’re in Wausau for the night (population 38,000). I know, I know, sounds like the place I was born in, even if it’s an Ojibwa word – translated as “a far away place.”

We’re in a historic B&B – the Everest Inn. One that also has historically low rates. $59 with breakfast if you don’t mind sharing a bathroom. $89 if you want to spoil yourself with your own.





We eat in yet another historic place – the Back When Café. The building housing it is more than 100 years old and for Wisconsin, that’s significantly ancient. It’s at the end of this row of older storefronts.





Food here is a wonderful surprise. Completely fresh and honest (and we’re not eating at the town’s high-end establishments by any means). The broccolini wih garlic is terrific, the cider vinaigrette on the salad - sublime and the fish comes perfectly prepared.




What more could you want. Ambiance? Oh, it’s got that as well. An Old Room, a New Room -- take your pick. Young people, old timers -- they're all here. Mostly, I see, for the steaks and the fish. Plenty of that here, adorned with local (when possible) small farm veggies.

(In case you’re feeling homesick for Madison, Wausau also has a Dane Brewery and Pub. I don’t understand the hows and whys of it, but hey, it’s here.)


We're back in our room -- a place that has so much antiquey memorabilia that I surely feel we are plucked and placed into another era. There is a modern small touch though – a gas fireplace and I flip it on thinking that if I want to feel completely immersed in the winter aura of this north-central Wisconsin town, I should do so with a (fake) fire at the side.

At the B&B, someone downstairs baked something with cinnamon (or pretended as much). The rosy quilt is warm, the night is quiet again. Or maybe it’s that I want to hear nothing at all but the click of our keyboard and the hum of the fireplace. My personal immersion into a Wisconsin winter song.

crazy beautiful

Look outside, Ed tells me.
It’s been a long day. I can’t say that I’m fully awake, but Isis is hopping on and off the couch and his movements finally prod me to come to the mudroom door.

The snow that first was to come, then was to pass us by, appears to have made it here after all. In fact, at midnight, it’s coming down strong. Small pellets of wet snow on a still night.

Want to go skiing?
I consider it, really I do, but I worry that there isn’t enough light. Skip the skis, let's walk.





We walk alright. Up our road...


 


... turning down the Rustic Road, following it all the way to the Nature Conservancy...






There isn’t a moon – it’s snowing after all, but the night is delicately white. And very very still.






The snow muffles all sound and we hardly hear the car coming down the road, laboriously, slowly. He stops when he sees us.
You folks in trouble? Who else would be out on the roads in this weather at one in the morning.

No no, just enjoying this beautiful night.

We’ve been at it for more than an hour. Time to head back. We both have work in the morning and there was this plan to head north, even as now, the last thing you’d want to do is leave this place that has been so magically transformed.

Maybe it’ll melt quickly.

Maybe.
I hang wet pants and jackets on chairs to dry and glance outside. Still snowing. Crazy night. Crazy beautiful night.

the cat

There’s a cat on the shed roof. Isis, mouse hunting.





Hours later, he trots proudly, gray little thing dangling from his mouth. He drops it by the sheep shed door. A gift for Ed. That’s loyalty for you!



I’m at the end of the teaching week and that’s always a relief. Tomorrow, right after the last task is done, last meeting, last email, last file updated and set aside, Ed and I are heading north.

You could say that it’s a three-fold poke at my Polish roots. How so? I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. Right now I have eggs to scramble, maps to print out and a cat to reassure. Isis, for all his hunting instincts, loves a good rub more than most anything else out there.

Is it tough to live a life where your biggest challenge is to occasionally bring the gift of a mouse to your best pal? Isis might say yes.

contemplative moments

At my age, you discover reasons to go the doctor on a fairly regular basis (except for Ed – who never discovers anything and when or if he does, he deems it not MD worthy). Your thyroid bulges, your foot grows numb, you need this checked, that confirmed.

I had a bunch of such curiosities to check up on this week. That in itself is not blogworthy – not even on every-miniscule-detail-matters Ocean. But here’s what’s blogworthy: my total understanding of how lucky I am to have such fantastic, quick, smart, reactive but not overly invasive care at my fingertips.

One of these days I’ll get on Ocean and write something like -- I have six months to live and so forgive me if my posts are going to be longer and weirder. But if that point in time is later rather than earlier, I attribute it to the fresh and honest, Mister Red, and the fantastic health care available to me here in Madison. Well, too, the people in my life who keep me happy.



If I were to complain today about anything, it would be that I had too many hours of work and too few contemplative moments. But “too few” does not mean none. Leaving the hospital (test for numb foot. Verdict: it’s numb. So be it.), I scoot down to the lake. I used to bike this way...






...yes, this was once part of my everyday.





I give in to a a sentimental grin.




Then, in the hours of the late afternoon, I finally turn toward the farmhouse. Last turn, quarter of a mile more. Ah, for amber waves...






It was, in the essentials, such a good day.

for me, it’s jeudi gras and mardi blanc

Let me explain.

Just before sunrise, Isis decides he wants to stretch noisily and go forth to experience the great outdoors. Ed sleeps through it all, but I have that wakefulness that comes with raising babies and so I nudge him to let Isis out. Dutifully, like the good cat parent that he is, he rumbles downstairs to open the door.

It’s white out there, he tells me when he returns. Mardi blanc.

Darn. Not only do I wake for Isis, but not I cannot not go outside.






Here, let me give you a view of the farmhouse from an angle I rarely take. Today, for me, all views from all sides are winners.






The plants seem suspended in midsentence. Last year’s hydrangea looks like it's hiding under clumps of cauliflower.





So still! Nothing moves. Nothing at all.

I know it will be gone by evening (And it is).



At work, a student comes by with a small treat. His wife is Polish and he’d asked earlier on her behalf where you can get paczki (Polish doughnuts) in Madison. I was stumped. Today, for Mardi Gras, he brings this famous Polish doughnut. She'd found a place...





He assures me that she does not believe it to be completely authentic. Something about the absence of vodka in the batter. Still, a paczek in Madison! Not something to treat lightly (so to speak).

...even as, any Pole will tell you, the American celebration of Mardi Gras is so tame! Start partying the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday? How benign! Poles begin their celebration the Thursday before Ash Wednesday – (Tlusty Czwartek, which means Fat Thursday) giving themselves a whole week to indulge before the rigors of lent!

Still, on this white Tuesday (mardi blanc), holding on to a Fat Thursday (jeudi gras) doughnut leads me to think -- it’s time to give a nod to my Polishness.

I come home, appreciating how at 5, the sun hasn’t quite set yet....





...and I cook a huge pot of cabbage potato soup for supper.

deer

Dark, almost completely dark by the time I drive home. Cold, too. The deer are out, brave now, toward the tail end of winter. They look up, see my car, go back to eating. You can’t care about nonthreatening things. I snap a photo, then drive the last mile home.

crackers

Ed repeats over and over again – isn’t it beautiful outside? All brown!

Ed, it’s the sun. You’re reacting to the glow of a bright day.

But I know that he isn’t effusive merely because of a blue sky. He likes all seasons. A man for all of them.

At the farm, it's not hard to be that way. But, on the other hand, how can you not prefer spring and summer? The flowers, Ed! The flowers!

I bury myself in nursery catalogues, looking for early bird specials.


LATER

You can’t waste a day like this one. Want to hike the Ice Age Trail? – we ask our houseguests. One of them, this one...





...looks a bit mystified by it all. Isis took one sniff around the farmhouse and hasn’t bothered coming back. I’m happy that he likes to avoid trouble. He and I share a distaste for it.


Diane, Ed and I set out on an Ice Age segment a dozen or so miles south of here.






Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate how perfect this entire trail is – how it will always find the most beautiful way to get from one point to the next.






And still, I can’t help but look forward to the day when all this turns a lively green.







Ed stubbornly tells me about the loveliness of the landscape  and I agree. It's such a pretty day. Along the wooded stretches, the snow hasn’t quite melted yet. There are icy patches and there, the going is slow.






But on the open hills, it’s as if winter is a thing of yesterday.







Still, spring! I’m longing for it already. There is a reason why Vivaldi’s Spring is my iPhone ring. And, there is a reason why I perk up when I hear the unmistakable birdsong outside. Spring is the refresh and reboot season. The time of buds, the eve before the real thing.


LATER

Sunday dinner. My older girl and her guy are here, Diane and her guy, too and of course, Ed. Sleepy Ed. The same Ed that stayed up half the night working on some design or other and now can’t keep his eyes open.






Still, it’s a Sunday meal, the most perfect meal of the week, made so much more perfect by the presence of family and friends...






(Even as I miss my littlest one and her guy, both in Chicago...)

Nighttime. There’s work, always work on a Sunday evening. But there’s also the little face of a pooch looking at me for a handout of Back to Nature’s crispy wheat crackers.





Karma (the dog’s name) – let me tell you, there’s more to life than crackers. But not much more. Especially if you’re eating them in the company of people you love.

winter week-end

Would you want to vary your routines, even as you like what you’re doing? No? I think I'm in agreement.

So, another Saturday, another Ice Age Trail work morning. This time, restoring the oak savannah on the trail just east of us.





Aside from the trail guys, we have a handful of Hoofers helping. (For the innocent – Hoofers are UW’s outdoor club.) Volunteers come and go –  few are repeaters. Except for us. Call us the old guys. With graying hair and stiffening limbs that appreciate the regular workout. See you again, soon. Yeah.













Evening at the farmhouse. Friends (Diane and Ernest) drive down from St Paul, pausing here on their way south. I think how interesting it would be to know that this is the final week-end of wraps and long sleeves, that from now until October, the air will never again feel cold.






I tell Ed that the season of brown (March and a good part of April) up here is never pretty. He disagrees. Look around, he prods me.






Well okay, on a bright sunny day. If you can forget about the mud and clumps of wet fallen leaves.


We eat Greek foods and drink pink wine...






... and I let myself think that we are far closer to spring than we really are.

farmhouse

I have house guests arriving tomorrow and this set me thinking how I ought to print out a little guest card, explaining stuff. These guys have been at the farmhouse before, several times, in fact. It's like having family come down. But others may not remember the little idiosyncrasies of the place. There are so many!

Some things to note are just small suggestions. Like: you don’t have to pull the curtain in the bathroom. No one will see you! Enjoy the pleasure of sitting on a toilet and looking out on a vast expanse of yard and fields beyond.

Or -- if the shower doesn't produce hot water, let us know. It may be that the wind blew the flame out on the water heater. It happens. Rarely, but it happens.

Some are hints for the first-timer: please do take off your shoes inside! We have a mudroom that can take many pairs of shoes. Our floors are old and we love them, but they’re getting thin. Most people do this automatically, but still, new guests may not know our preference here.

Then, too, I want to tell about the switches that go to nowhere. The bottom switch in the bathroom? Forget it. It’s for the vent, but right now, if you turn it on, all you’ll do is blow vermiculite around in the attic.

Here’s another: our loading Internet speed is slow. I know that. Don’t be frustrated when uploading photos. Just give yourself time. Hurrying at the farmhouse is a rare event.

But there’s one little suggestion that gets stricken today: squash and flush any and all box elder beetles that you may find. This winter brought out a bunch! Harmless, but not exactly affable. They picked the farmhouse for their winter hideout; I’ve gotten used to eliminating them  – a dozen or two each day.

Not any more! We found their entry and we blocked it! The squash and flush suggestion is a thing of the past.

...but it’s replaced by a reassurance about the bathroom door handle: if it comes off, just put it back on. We bought a defective set and haven’t gotten around to fixing/replacing it.

Oh, and a couple of hints on how to make use of the full beauty of the place: if it snows, run out (even in your undies, no one will see, no one will care) and take a photo.













And if, two hours later, it all melts and the sun comes out, run out again and take another.














God, I love this place.

evening

Work is done. Home now. Groceries put away, books stashed. Outside, the sun is catching the few patches of snow – there, by the porch, just so.





It’s the night of our dinner out. At Sardine – a place just twelve minutes from where we live. We go early, to take advantage of the happy hour specials. A golden drive of winter fields and herds of deer.






And now we’re there, by the lake’s edge and the sun is nearly gone...





...and we order the oysters and the sandwiches and it’s all so not home cooked which, in this case, is perfectly wonderful.

Night. Home now, at the farmhouse. Tired, well fed, anticipating the moment when I can close my eyes and give in to...

...sleep.