Wedensday

The rains come, the sprouts continue to push their way upward and onward. In other words, I have a lot of outdoor work to do. The beds are more or less trimmed, but the raspberries need a thorough preliminary weeding and the flowers would benefit from layers of wood chips. All back breaking work, even as this year, my back appears stronger and my resolve to keep the yard in order? Unwavering.

And so, even though it's cool and gray, immediately after breakfast...



(a plateful of raspberry madelines and chocolate chicks tempts us)


... Ed and I go out to shovel out the deep roots of weeds and to throw down a solid layer of wood chips.

There isn't much that I would photograph from our morning efforts. Well, maybe the ever lovely emerging golden girls...






... and the budding lilac.






I could also photograph the cheepers... (oh, Scotch is so adorable in her new plump state!)...





...except that Oreo and I have a run in and so he gets a time out from Ed, who is convinced that the rooster is teachable, while the hens scatter this way and that, already overfed from a bounty of bugs and worms.

In the afternoon, I am with Snowdrop. That girl! She has an expressive, playful disposition that is indescribably lovable.






Watching her giggle and bounce and clutch and concentrate on getting a good grip with her little fist is mesmerizing! And she responds especially well if you are right there, talking her through her high points and holding her closely when it all gets just a touch overwhelming.

Perhaps one role for a grandma is to help a little one find calmness even in difficult times. Grandmas (especially this grandma) know the value of calmness.






We find time, too, to take our long walk around the lake. Snowdrop's mom joins us and once again we brace for the lakeside winds and bundle Snowdrop's legs in a fleece jacket.






The girl insists on studying the fingers of her hand for the duration of the walk and so she has one very cold fist afterward, but those rosy cheeks and happy smiles (and warm feet, thank goodness) reassure us that she is a girl who adapts well to Wisconsin's weather challenges!

Oh, Snowdrop!

Tuesday

I look outside, hoping for rain. It surely is gray and cold. There was a night shower, but no gardener or farmer would be satisfied with it.

We eat breakfast in the kitchen. To me, the kitchen exudes a warmth of the best kind. It's fitting for a day like this.






Snowdrop comes to the farmhouse earlier than usual. My schedule is flexible. It tracks the needs of the young couple. They know Snowdrop is always welcome here.






Ed notes her energetic and cheerful disposition.


 



She still looks awfully tiny when he holds her!






She plays hard, but she is also more patient with books and quieter activities.



surprising




wryly amusing




shocking



And then it's lunchtime.





And we move smoothly into the afternoon. More cold weather. We're not tempted to go out for a walk, even as I remember a month ago thinking that anything above freezing was spectacular!

Snowdrop's mom comes over and lingers for a while before taking her babe onto her next set of adventures, while I make my way to a local voting place. It's an election day and I'm volunteering to be an election observer (on behalf of a local mayoral candidate). It's boring work, but somebody has to do it! I think about my garden, imagining the new flower bed that I will be creating in several weeks.

When we look forward to spring, we forget that sometimes April, at least April in Wisconsin, can be a tricky month -- full of welcome and unwelcome surprises. We're so set on loving every last bit of the renewal --  the greening of the landscape, the exploding buds --  that any stall in that process makes us impatient.

I wont be impatient. There is plenty to keep me happy now. Consider, for example, the dainty first leaves on the willow branches.





And maybe there will be rain tonight -- the kind that's so loud that we can hear it on the farmhouse roof. Spring dreams. All magnificent, all full of hope.

Monday

Yes, seize that day of good weather! Go out early, open the door of the chicken coop, let out the cheepers... Say what? Oreo! Knock it off! (Oreo, the rooster, is seizing the day alright! He is asserting his masculinity with powerful lunges and I am no longer patient with him. His days at the farmette once again appear to be numbered.)



(the girls, peering inside: hello, anybody home?)


Breakfast in the sun room. A time of peaceful reflection and a time of planning.




  
Here's something we consider: should I attack a big outdoor project this morning?

Yes! I'm up for some heavy yard work!

While Ed gets ready to change the tires of Lilly, my silver car (Lilly came with two sets of wheels and, therefore, with an obligation to do a seasonal change)...





...I take a shovel and attack the huge, overgrown terribly unattractive in my opinion, creeping and creepy rose bed. It has branched out wildly and expansively in the layer of dirt that covers a graveled surface (the farmhouse had a wide and long gravel driveway snaking around its rear). It explodes with prickly stems that leave thorns under your skin if you come anywhere near them, even as there are very few blooms.  I want to rip the horrible invasive tangle of roots and thorny branches out of there and create yet another perennial border. A big project indeed (though not nearly as horrendous as taking control of the even bigger and once weeded over raspberry patch; that project we completed last year).

And so I dig. And dig. And this is cheeper heaven! If there is such a thing as cheeper overeating, they surely are guilty of it! Turning the earth brings up the worms and any number of other bugs. The cheepers are ecstatic.








(Scotch, do you need help getting another treat?)


By noon, I am more than half done with this thorny job. Time to stop, clean up and get on Rosie, the neglected moped, and to make my way to Snowdrop's home.

I haven't visited with Snowdrop on her own turf for several weeks and she is quick to show off her accomplishments with her set of toys -- she grabs, she gurgles, she kicks -- all with the gusto and energy that is so much part of her personality.






That little girl exudes happiness.






Because it is still warm, still dry, I take Snowdrop for a walk by the lake. Yes, someone seems to have pitched a hammock in the park...






Even though to me, the lake still sends off a chilly breeze. Again I bundle Snowdrop's legs with my jacket.

We pause for a while and I watch the DNR (Dept. of Natural Resources) do its fishing operation -- they're counting the lake's fish right now.






The lake waters seem low to me. I'm not surprised. Little snow this winter and a dry spring. Again I look forward to the rains that are to sweep down on us tonight.

The walk is a long one -- Maybe 90 minutes, but Snowdrop loves these stroller expeditions!






And guess what? For the first time since the little one's birth, I come across this:






A brilliant walk! I pass a lot of "badger" paraphernalia in home yards. Not surprised. We're all about basketball right now in our state. Badger basketball. I explain to Snowdrop about competitive sports. She listens, then dozes off.  I smile. She's so little! With so much to learn!

We make our way home. She opens her eyes and gives a little grin.

Sunday

For many of us, it's Easter Sunday, so let's start off with a very Easter-ish photo:






It is the only blooming daffodil at the farmette, but it holds its head up high, as if inviting the others to take courage and follow along!

Breakfast -- sunny again, cheerfully eaten in the sun room.






We're to have a week of rain (I hope; it's terribly dry out here), so we load outdoor work onto this day: more seeds to put in cups and flats and more spent stems to snip away. I have big projects in mind as well, but they can wait a few more weeks.

The cheepers follow, happy to be part of our gardening routines again. (Oreo gets a bug up his nose and returns to some of his feisty habits, but I shoo him away with spent branches and then complain long and hard to Ed, who never fails to defend his rooster pal.)







In the afternoon, we go for a walk in our county park. You don't notice spring so much here yet...






... unless you look toward the lake. I believe the last time we were here, there were ice huts and ice fishing was in full swing.





Not anymore.


Evening at the farmhouse. It's light outside and this more than anything brings home the fact that we're in an entirely new season. My daughter and her husband haven't been here for a Sunday dinner since before the birth of Snowdrop. It is so fitting to have the three of them now come for Easter Sunday dinner.






I'm way too excited to see Snowdrop again! I am told that she elicited a lot of grins in her journey through the day. Possibly, her new love of grabbing at her skirts had something to do with it.






Or maybe it's just that when she laughs, the world wants to laugh with her.






It is, as always, a wonderful way to end the week, or begin the week, depending on your calendar habits (the European calendars start the week with Monday, while the North American ones begin with Sunday).





I do hope your weekend, too, was full of good eating and warm embraces!

on this day...

On this day, I told Isie boy that if he disturbs my sleep by meowing in my face four times during the night again, I'll banish him to the sheep shed.

We eat breakfast in the sun room because because because -- it is full of sunshine!






On this day, I work hard on clearing ALL my flower beds from spent growth and accumulated leaves. I opt for doing them all, if not very thoroughly, rather than doing just some with meticulous care.





My arms will feel the pain tomorrow, that's for sure.

On this day, too, Snowdrop comes over to the farmhouse. Oh, the things she gets into! There are the books...



("hmm, how can I put this in my mouth...")


Mousie, too, gets a very wet, slobbery kiss.






Then there's the dancing moose....






All those games, kicks and slobbery kisses... It's exhausting!






But a solid lunch puts her in a good mood once more.



("power to the little people!")


Since the sun is out (initially), I'm thinking --  it would be a good time to take her out for a longer walk. I put on her sweater. She is psyched!






But the wind picks up and the clouds take hold and suddenly I think little Snowdrop is way underdressed! I take off my fleece and wrap it around her legs. And now I have to really sprint to keep my bare arms warm.






On this day, I appreciate the fact that I've kept a spare pair of jammies at home for her. All that lunch? Well now, no diaper could contain that! Time for a clothing change. (My, but the English love flowers on their fabrics!)






In other news, on this day I drop a banana on Snowdrop's head. So now I'm going to show her off with bits of banana in her hair.

Show her off? Well yes, to my visiting friend --  and her Madison family, who are having a Passover-ish dinner tonight. I'm there and I bring Snowdrop and eventually my daughter (who has been out of town) and her husband join us and it's so terrific to eat wonderfully prepared food and to be in the company of family, even if it's not your family, but it may as well be, because I have known these people for such a very long time!






Snowdrop has had a wealth of new experiences these past few days. On this day, she is just short of three months. A rich and beautiful three months!

Friday permutations

One must make allowances for April. As we take a twenty-plus degree plunge back into the forties, I try not to compare and contrast this to yesterday's sunny and warm weather. Never mind -- a month ago I would have felt jubilant if we simply crept over the freezing point.

Breakfast is in the sun room, but the wisps of sunshine are far and few and I had to compensate by bringing in the daffodils.






But if the weather can't oblige, you can ignore it and concentrate on all the other good points to the day. For example, my wonderful friend is in town and this is just too perfect, as it's been a very long time since I could sit down, cup of tea in hand and just spill out those words that often lay dormant until you're with someone who knows you inside out.






Snowdrop offers another great opportunity for boosting the worth of a day beyond its weather coordinates.

She is at the farmhouse again...



("grandma, I'm skeptical about this story...")


...and she smiles, grabs, chortles and I do all that right back at her. (Why grab the small, when you can grab the big? Like her friend Penguin, for example?)






Ed says we look adorable chortling at each other, but I think he's just never been around a grandma chortling along with her granddaughter, so his range of comparisons is small.

I tell him he looks pretty adorable with her on his chest.






Less smooth is our daily excursion out with the stroller: I have a warm jacket for Snowdrop and I take out the blanket once more and she is so primed for that walk of ours...






But the wind is too strong and after the nth time of adjusting the blanket around her after a gust of wind causes it to fly up and away, I give up. We return home. On my way in, I introduce her again to the cheepers, who for some reason are waiting at the walkway for our return.






And here's something remarkable: I notice (though I doubt that she notices) the first blooming daffodil in the garden! That's nearly two weeks earlier than last year!






We are on schedule for a timely progression of spring weather.

Even as the rest of the afternoon and evening are spent indoors.





Snowdrop is just fine with that!