if it's Tuesday

Well, some things stay the same.

Pre-breakfast flower viewing...






Breakfast (with house guests) on the porch...






A walk through very sunny gardens with Ed, with random weed pulling...



(toward the sheep shed)





(toward the garage)





(toward the farmhouse)



And now the patterns change. I go to watch Snowdrop swim with her mommy...





And then we hastily confirm to each other the details of the day.
I'll take her to the farmhouse, bathe her, feed her, play a little while, then bring her to your house.
Right. I have an hour or so at 2:30 to take a walk with both of you...
Yep, and then I'll play with her, feed her at 5 and put her down for her second nap.
...And I'll be home by 7 and I'll take it from there...
Perfect. I asked my house guests to get started chopping vegetables, so I can finish up dinner at the farmhouse when I get home.

A mother of another child listens in. Such wonderful coordination! -- she murmurs...
I smile. That's only part of the story, of course. The other coordination happens at the farmhouse these days, as we push through a new set of scheduling imperatives:
To Ed, I'll have said -- I'll be back with Snowdrop at 11:30. Your friends will meet her then...
And I'll be taking them to work with me right after; they'll wait there until I'm done with meetings...
I picked up groceries on my way home last night so everything is set for dinner prep. I'll be home by 7...


And so yes, because it's Tuesday, it must be farmette time for the little one...



(the famous Ed "I'm holding a baby!" face)





(a sweet hug)





(a playful tug at the beard)


Bathe, nap, eat, play... Wait, let's pause on the eating part. I bring her down from her nap -- we're both so pristine clean, white and fresh...





But it's time for me to encourage Snowdrop to branch out in the eating department. Out come the solids. Mushy solids. I believe this is a mixture of pears, carrots, blueberries and maybe beets (I was not the one who mixed these up! Some baby expert came up with this stellar combination!).

I sit her down in her high chair. And we begin.



(Whoa, hold on little girl! You need a bib!)





(No grandma, I don't know how half of it wound up on my arm...)





(Maybe I should take things into my own hands...)





(Oh, you mean I'm supposed to eat this stuff? How do I do that?)


Next time I'll save the (once) white jumper for after a feeding. Or, stay away from blueberries.

So, properly wiped and washed (with only a faint blueberry ring around the neckline and a slightly more pronounced fruit splash on my dress), we play.











But the shift in our daily patterns is significant. Ed takes off for his various work meetings and I pack the wee one in the car and take her back home where we walk, eat, play, nap, play play play...






...Until the magic hour of 7, when I hurry back to the farmhouse and finish off dinner preparations just as the sun leaves faint traces of gold on the western flower beds.

Monday

We continue to take each day as it comes. (As if one could do otherwise!) Take this Monday, for example. It was once an uncomplicated day of the week. But Ed and I have let go of the pretense that anything is predictable and tried and true. And so this is our Monday:

I walk the garden to clip flowers for the breakfast table. (That's predictable!)






And our house guests join us for a breakfast on the porch.






The day is warm, but gray. From Snowdrop's point of view, that's just fine. That little girl does not like a bright sun beating down on her and who can blame her!  And so I am grateful for the cloud cover because this morning, I am filling in for her mom and taking the little one to her swim class at the neighborhood pool.



(am I going swimming??)


Now, Snowdrop loves water. But the pool presents its own challenges and so you could say that she is more cautious here.

But, her teacher is friendly and encouraging...



(do I like this? I don't know...)


And slowly I get the little girl into the water...





And then over to the deeper water, where she gives a few kicks, almost imitating the bigger kids in the class. Well, almost. What she really wants is to spend more time with the plastic bucket. Sitting in shallow water and attempting to chew it is, for her, a highlight.

For me, a highlight is seeing her feel comfortable in water, but I have a second treat too -- I have a chance to meet up with someone quite dear to me -- this blogger from Denmark who takes her boys swimming to this same pool during her summer visit to Madison. It truly is grand to finally have a conversation that is not via email and Snowdrop exhibits the utmost patience after class while Regan and I catch up a bit.

We beat the rain on our walk back to Snowdrop's home, but it surely would not matter if we the rain soaked us thoroughly. We already are wet to the core.



(I need a nap now!)


For the rest of the afternoon I am with Snowdrop and that's just lovely, of course.



(Goldie, will you play with me?)
 

She displays her indomitable spirit and I am, as ever, in awe of it.



(are you doing one of those self timer things, grandma?)


In the evening, Ed comes home after a "day at the office." We make pizzas at the farmhouse. Ed's friends share in the efforts and we avoid setting the place on fire, though with pizza making, one can come awfully close...

Monday, Monday...

Sunday

It is not an idle day -- not by any stretch of the imagination. It's odd that a post from my farmette home base should be necessarily quick and brief and that posts written during a canoeing trip suffered none of the rush I feel now, but that, in fact is the reality of this week: I only have time for a few words here.

I cannot emphasize enough how peaceful the garden is now that a rooster has gone to his hen harem.









The girls seem content to keep an eye on us and the bickering I feared would seep in with Oreo's departure never happened.

Even Isie boy is coming out more often -- this morning he joined us on the porch for breakfast. In true cat like fashion, he took center stage.






Ed and I do take the time to play tennis. We've played far too few games this year and the weather -- breezy and mild -- is perfect for it.






Then comes the tedious part of surveying our veggie patch (mostly tomatoes and cukes). It is, of course, overgrown with bindweed and we spend a handful of hours pulling it out. But the crop of tomatoes looks promising and the cucumbers are already huge.






And we're getting a smattering of blueberries...






(The girls follow us to this western-most corner of the farmette. Are they bolder without their overseer, or are they simply more attached to us now?)







Then in the afternoon I play with Snowdrop.






She is, as always, full of cheer and she puts her entire being into whatever project she sets forth for herself.






Reason enough to wear down! I take her for a walk...





...but make the mistake of both raising up her stroller seat and flipping the direction of our round-the-lake walk. Poor, poor Snowdrop: surely missing her mommy (who is out of town for a couple of days) and now this! She barely holds it together until we return home.

Changes can be rough, though maybe they do teach you something. For example, Snowdrop learned that a loop can be walked in either direction. A new way to reconsider old configurations.


We have guests this week at the farmhouse -- Ed's friends from college days. We eat dinner, they recall people and places from years past, but mostly we all go back to the events of this past week. The skies turn darker, the bats fly out and do their nightly dance, the fireflies take flight as well. That and a cool breeze: the best of a summer night.

the new normal

July is so abundant! When I look at the grocery shelves, I'm in awe. So much fruit, so many veggies! How can you sample it all? And of course, when I look out on my flower fields, I have that some sense of explosive growth.

It is the month of the daylily. Such a curious flower -- bloom a day and be done. One day, that's all you get. But oh, is it a day of beauty!






Does the frog know to get off before the flower wilts and folds in, taking away his resting place?






The lilies in great masses aren't as spectacular  as some of the other flowers. For one thing, if you don't pick off the spent blooms, there's a lot of dangling nonsense from the stems.

Today, I gently force myself inside the main  bed just by the front porch and deadhead the lilies.






And I stake some of the asters and the sunflower-like heliopsis.






It is wonderful working in the yard without the threat of a rooster.






The girls follow me around (Isis is still cautious when they get too close to him)...






... and honestly, despite the stickiness of the summer heat and the occasional appearance of mosquitoes (we are having a relatively tame summer so far as far as they're concerned!), it is a most wonderful morning.

Breakfast? Yes, of course, somewhere in there we have a porch breakfast. Yes, sublime. It always is.






In the afternoon I play with Snowdrop.






Storms pass through, but we find a window for a walk.






... By our lakes. I look at them with different eyes now. A boat at the edge of a storm, a duck on the water -- the Adirondack recollections are still very fresh, very vivid.






In the evening, Ed suggests we go out for dinner. No -- it's a kind thought, but I'm very tied to the farmette right now. By the end of the day, I want to stay within her folds.

... with my flowers, hens, and popsicle loving guy. Hey, at least I made these -- watermelon popsicles, easy breezy recipe found here.

whirligig of time

Changes. They come in all shapes and with different degrees of revorberation.

This morning, I tiptoe around the farmhouse (to not disturb Snowdrop, who spends her mornings alternating between sleeping and trying to crawl, right in her crib) and prepare an early breakfast. Suddenly, unexpectedly Ed must crawl out of his beloved sheep shed and spend considerable amounts of time in an office.

We eat on the porch despite the sticky air that comes with mid July. This early, it's pleasantly warm rather than beastly hot.






Then Ed digs out his cat carrying case and after a very protracted petting session...





... he places Oreo inside. Someone at work, a woman who has 21 hens, is willing to take the rooster. Perhaps chasing so many girls will take his attention off of people. I'm not questioning the whys and wheretofores of the transfer. I am just thrilled to see him go (and somewhat scared that she'll change her mind and he'll come right back. But let's not worry in advance!)

I walk freely past my flower beds and even volunteer to clean out the coop. No pogo stick rooster will attack my ankles now. I am safe.


Eventually Snowdrop is ready to be up. As usual, her morning greeting is sublime: all smiles and dimples and chortles and coos. (Note the sheep on the P.J.'s! Yes, of course, from that country.)







She has a delightful and very splashy bath and then a warm and fuzzy feeding time.

After, I ask her to help me with the changing of linens in the bedroom upstairs. The room must always stand ready for the next visitor, whomever he or she may be.






(oops! a tumble! but a fun one!)






We go out to feed bread to the cheepers. So easy now! No lurking threat, just happy hens.






But our playtime is short. I hand her over to her dad early in the day. I have a remembrance lunch to go to at Tormach. Our days ahead will necessarily include a lot of Tormach, sometimes silently -- it's not always Ocean material after all, but insofar as Ed is drawn into the fray now, in many ways so am I.

[Thank you to all those who passed on kind messages to Ed. I deeply appreciate every one of them. There are many people affected by this tragedy, but the fact is, Ed is the one who now bears the heavy burden of putting together the bits and pieces that will move the company forward. That may get lost in the general discussion, but it's not lost on me. Of course, I know him. He'll do it carefully, wisely and with infinite attention to every detail. But it will be a drain. He lost much of his own freedom when his friend went down in the boating accident two days ago.]


And then I am with Snowdrop again. her mom is out of town and so I have a chance to be even more helpful. Oh, but how joyous it is to step into Snowdrop's world!






Storms are passing through Madison right now, but they don't linger. In the late afternoon I see that the skies are a steamy blue again. Snowdrop and I set out for a walk around the little lake.






All is still, all is calm. I smile at the recollection of paddling through similarly peaceful waters.






No, not forgotten. The peace -- still there, waiting for the right day again when it can take hold.

In the meantime, the flowers bloom, the raspberries ripen, the farmette life continues.