August first

Could it be August already? The first of the month? Such a memorable day for gaga nina! Let me get right to it:

In the very early morning I am in a bit of a hurry. I spend hardly any time on my flowers. Snip off a few dozen spent lilies. That's it. (Still, I pause to take in the Big Field.)






(And I make sure the flowers by the porch are looking at their gorgeous best.)






And then I go inside and, early that it is, I nonetheless get  a start on dinner.

Once I have something going in the oven, Ed and I sit down to breakfast.






And because it's Monday, well, you know -- here comes Snowdrop!





Or should I say -- here comes the birthday girl?

That would not be incorrect. It is my older daughter's 35th birthday today.

I tell Snowdrop -- we must prepare! The cake is baked, but it needs to be frosted. The risotto tomatoes have to be diced. Presents need a final touch, tables and chairs have to be arranged outside -- come on, little one, there's lots to do!

But can't I first say hi to the cheepers?

Of course.






And smell the flowers? And visit ah-ah in the sheep shed? And pick a tomato? A blueberry? One final raspberry?

Of course.












Though in fact, I'm not keen on staying out too long, not only because of the preparations, but because we are in a bug swell right now. Sure, lotion helps, but I hover around Snowdrop nonetheless to make sure nothing lands on her and she is very tough to hover over.












Back at the farmhouse, we get to our tasks. And of course, she must try everything. Tomatoes!






Sweet girl, we must make orange sauce for the cake!
Sauce? She remembers the word from our pizza making. Yes!

I give her a little dish of it and she dips a cookie bit for a taste. She approves.






I realize, though, that it may be tough to get the cake frosted with her eager hand reaching for everything. I distract her with mommy's presents. For a while.






Ah-ah comes in. Another happy distraction. For a while.






Finally I suggest an early lunch. With a favorite side dish.






But in fact, Snowdrop is an easy and delightful co-conspirator. She'll help at times, or she'll be off gathering all her stuffies -- she knows every last animal and if one is missing, there must be a search! Then there'll be a long snuggle.






...Eventually she settles in to "read" to them, with her most amazing vocal inflections which, I swear, mimic mine with that book!





In all, she is a joy to have by my side.

During her nap, I finish off the cake.






And in the evening, the whole gang is over at the farmhouse -- the young family of course, but in addition, three of my daughter's best college friends who live on the coasts, but who have come to Madison to celebrate their friendship.






We eat out on the porch at grouped together tables. The evening is lovely -- really perfect for an outdoor meal.

(The young couple.)






(Friends.)






(Farmhouse reliables.)






Cake. Birthday wishes. Oh, do we all wish her well!






(Snowdrop has chosen this day to say the word "happy," again and again.)






And so ends a beautiful day. Good night Snowdrop, good night birthday girl, and good night to my other little one up north! (Wish so much you were here with us...)

And now onto August.

Sunday

If I had no family nearby, if Ed were not by my side (or if he were to be always preoccupied from morning til dawn with a project -- like he is now), all Sundays would look like this: I would be up fairly early, I would work outside, snipping, watering, I would clean the house, I would eat a breakfast (a very solitary breakfast) and then I would either work on some writing project, or I would read, or, like today, I would catch up on computer work.

I would post photos only of my garden (not that I do not love my garden). I would give not much thought to dinner (salads were invented for people who want to throw a dinner into one big bowl). I would think about the week ahead and look carefully at my budget to make sure I could afford another toy for my grandchild (that lived far away, because remember -- I'm imagining living alone, far from family...).

My normal Sunday does not look like this, but today was not normal and indeed, the above describes it most perfectly. Ed is intensely preoccupied with bringing his machine to market (though he insisted on vacuuming -- which is his job in farmhouse-clean up and which I graciously left to him, even though I knew that in his state of tiredness and preoccupation, he would gloss over surfaces and I would have to pick up all he left behind). And the young family is coming to dinner tomorrow, not today (for reasons that I will explain tomorrow). And so I was today (nearly) alone with my flowers.

And that's pretty much all you get, so you better like flowers.

(Some colors only work well together in nature...)






(I do a lot of maintenance work at the roadside bed...)






(The girls follow, to see where I'm working and what I'm up to. )






(By the driveway: frilly things, still going strong.)






(A far corner of the Great Bed...)






There is a precious and quite wonderful breakfast with Ed on the porch.






... and that's it! Dinner is -- well, you know: as described above. The salad, a couple of cheeper eggs, left over corn from the corn farmers and oyster mushrooms from the market. And tomatoes from our garden! (Here's Ed, bringing in today's haul.)






Yes, Ed did join me for dinner. I was grateful that he could stay awake. He is one tired guy.


I'll end with the flowers. Because on the last day of July, it's still all about the flowers around here.

Saturday

A weekend post. Just a handful of words, because honestly, weekend days are almost always too full to allow for careful writing. But I do have photos for you. I can sit quietly and let them pick up the story of a day. They'll speak of colors and changes and outings and romps with arms flying. Let's begin!

First, the flowers. Two side beds to start us off. They're thriving and I'm not surprised: it's been a good year for flowers.












Breakfast. With table flowers. I have to admit that these are rarely from our flowers beds. I can only cut down stalks that have fallen. I cannot get myself to tamper with fields in bloom.






One look toward the sheep shed...





... and I'm off. To Snowdrop's home. Hey, little girl, let's go go go! To the market. Gaga, mommy and you!

Okay okay, okay!






On the Square now, waiting for mommy to pick up baked treats to munch on.











A spice girl for the little one today.






At the market itself, I pick up my usual oyster mushrooms. And I add to this stalks of flowers -- they're everywhere today and indeed, many of them are grown in the fields just to the east of us. One of my favorite vendors lets me pick out my own stems and charges hardly anything for the bunch I put together. And she offers Snowdrop some extras.











At another stall, I pick up sweet Door County cherries...






I rarely come with a list on these Saturday outings. I treat these purchases as extras, supplementing what I have back home.

And at the end of our spin around the Square, Snowdrop comes out of her stroller and  she and her mom engage in a chase that makes me smile each time I witness it.






It's joyous and proud...






... and full of love.






I return to the farmette with my purchases.






And now it's time for Ed and I to set out. Ours is not a big outing, but it's one we both like quite a bit: to the east, where we stop by a nursery to see if they still have some annual plants that they're trying to offload at rock bottom prices. I'm a tad late. Most of the stock is gone, but I do pick up a couple of wilted pots that I'll happily restore in one of my beds.

We're close to our favorite chocolate shop and so we stop there as well. And finally, we swing by the corn farm for a few cobs for supper. (The family of farmers also raise long horn cattle. Ed thinks I'm neglecting them here on Ocean. I'm amused at his insistence that I stop and take a picture. They're just cattle. They're long horns!  I give in. Here's a pic of the mom scratching her own back while the little calf looks on.






Home again. Beautiful, bountiful, colorful home. I spend the rest of the afternoon trimming beds, planting the vulnerable newcommers and watering all the ones that I think need water.






The day had beautiful weather, which in turn made even the most ordinary scene look spectacular. You just need to step outside -- how easy is that?!

Friday

Let's start with the flowers. I'm in a hurry and so I trim only a scant handful. Yet, I'm satisfied with the way the farmette fields present themselves right now. It could be that until the last bloom fades, I will always be satisfied. (The key is not to look at a bed with the same expectations as you may have had say in June.)






Breakfast. Ed is exhausted. Launching his machining project has been incredibly taxing, but he never complains. In all my years with him, I've never heard him grumble about anything. He just forges on.






I go over to be with Snowdrop and guess what? She wants to go outside. Right away. Forever and ever.






There's an unusual twist to this day, as I have a prearranged meet up with my closest of friends in town. Snowdrop is happy to find in her a kindred soul.






We spend a few good minutes on the playground before a rain sets in.







Towards evening, Snowdrop comes to the farmette. The place of yellows and golds, in my eyes.






The little one is delighted to see Ed as he returns from his weekly engineering meetings. She'll not know that he's had some trying times with his project. He would never impose that on her, on me, on anyone.






I make pizza, in part because I know Snowdrop loves both the process and the end result. Here, she's questioning the necessity of baking anything at all. The cheese was good, the marinara sauce? Superb straight out of the jar.






As the pizza bakes, I ask Ed why a mechanical toy of Snowdrop's has ceased to work. He fixes it for her and she insists on helping him with this job. Only now do I realize that this girl already has helped me weed her mommy's flower bed, helped me make the pizza, and now is hell bent on helping Ed fix her toy. (Ah-ah, use this screwdriver!)






After dinner, she again wants to be outside. I gently rub some miraculous ointment on her -- miraculous, in that it claims to be wonderfully natural, at the same time that it promises to keep all insects at a mile's radius away from you. Or some such nonsense. Ah well -- we haven't a terrible bug problem at the moment, thank goodness.

I tell her I want to deadhead some spent flowers. You wont be surprised to learn that she wants to help.

And she does help, pulling out stuff that... well, wont be hurt by her enthusiastic gardening tactics.






Snowdrop does not shy away from tough jobs.






That's the lesson for this day: kids are born with a desire to contribute. To do more than their fair share. To be independent and capable, humorous and kind. Oh, but to keep those impulses alive and going strong in all of them, in all of us!

We can but try.