Tuesday

We have  a large number of humming birds passing through the farmette each day. I remember years when I'd run with my camera just to catch their crazy dance by a flower head. Not any more. They are as common as the white butterfly you see out in the meadows. Both are pretty, but their repeat presence makes you smile and move on. Is it my idleness or is that we are always in search of the unusual?

Must be idleness, because there is nothing unusual about this photo!





Of course, Ed is easier to photograph than a butterfly or a bird. But, too, though each morning photo looks like yesterday's and the one before that, and each bowl of fruit awfully resembles the other bowls of fruit you've seen here, the feel of those few minutes is never the same, never mundane, never boring.



Early in the morning I water the pots of flowers and I think how much the annuals I stick in there love the beginning and the tail end of summer. The purples haven't looked this vibrant since May!






I water the new front bed too, because it's been a while since there'd been rain and the roots are young and not yet strong. And again, the beauty of the lavender, deeply purple, wins me over.






(And of course, the minute I put down the hose, the National Service issues a severe weather bulletin for tonight: heavy rain, coming out way.)

It is a warm day. Warm enough for the AC to come back on (we set it at 75). Warm enough that when I bring Snowdrop here from school, I only stay out with her for a handful of minutes.






Of course, the cheepers are excited to see her arrive.

 Scotch, she doesn't have anything for you...






We don't believe you...
It's true. She's admiring the flowers, that's all.
Flowers? Is she eating them? Should we eat them?






Cheepers, you're hopeless. But pretty in your own spoiled way. Alright, wait here, I'll get you some bread.






Meanwhile, Snowdrop runs off with her own piece of bread. (Well she might: when Scotch sees her holding bread she looks for opportunities to snatch it away.)






And she practices walking backwards with it. (It's very hard to photograph the act of someone walking backwards.)







Inside again, she wants to play with ah-ah (grandpa Ed). He tosses her the moose she's had since early infancy. She catches it. He's very impressed! They do this again and again and of course she gets better at it, much to her own delight.






After her nap, I tell her it's time to bake some cookies for ah-ah. Our trips to the coffee shop have dwindled and there isn't a grocery store oatmeal raisin cookie that he likes.
Ed, 1140 people reviewed this recipe online and it gets a rousing 5 stars. If you kvetch, you'll be going against a tsunami of approval. (Ed is very fussy about his cookies.)


Put on the aprons and get to work.

(I should note that she is a pro at this: not only has she baked before at the farmhouse, but, too, she's mixed up cookie dough at home.)

 She knows her ingredients. Egg! She tells me and proceeds to put it (all of it) into the batter.
I explain we have to crack it open first. She's agreeable. I dump it into the little cup, she dumps it into the batter.







I use the handmixer. We move it around together. (Ed takes a picture.)






Happy? Yes.






When the cookies are baked, she is delighted. (As is Ed: delicious, he tells us.)  Snowdrop likes the cookie, yes, but, too, she loves the fact that I've eliminated her high chair tray and pulled her up to the grown up table.






That, and drinking from her big girl cups: her happiness runneth over. (As do dribbles of milk and water.)






And then there is a brief cloudburst, followed by a hot blue sky and I wonder if there might be a rainbow. We'd talked about rainbows, read about rainbows, sang songs about rainbows, but they seemed rather imaginary. Sort of like sheep in a jeep and cats that get their shoes wet.

But in fact, today there was a rainbow.






I don't know that she recognizes it. Maybe she does. I do.

Labor Day

I set a task for myself: today I'll provide balance to my recent run of purchases. [Through Pani Karolina, I have been acquiring all the necessities for my Warsaw apartment. Though I've kept it to a minimum -- one pot, one frying pan, one set of sheets, etc -- nonetheless, I've felt very consummerish lately.]  I'll clean out, delete, flush out, get rid of stuff here at the farmhouse.

And after breakfast...


 


...that's exactly what I do. I reduce my supply of books yet again, by at least a third, I eliminate most anything I haven't worn recently, and I empty a year's worth of photos from my photoshop folder. (Okay, that's sort of a cheat as it takes no room to store stuff on a computer, except I'm straining the capacity on my very ancient MacBook, so this is not an insignificant endeavor!)

It feels grand. It always feels grand to downsize, to minimize, to declutter your environment. Indeed, I want to do even more, but I think I'm getting a little bit reckless and besides, there is dinner to prepare.

But first, we haul bags and crates of stuff to Goodwill. Uff!

Everything around me now feels lighter and brighter, even though I am sure it's more in my mind. Ed points out -- you hardly made a dent, to which I retort -- maybe you could get rid of some of the moldy road maps from the  1960s in the basement, even though I know I'm going to get something like -- they're of historic value! from him, and I do.

The younger family comes for a Labor Day cook out and I cheat heavily, because I cook the chicken brats and the corn indoors (easier!). I'm hoping they won't notice. Snowdrop usually distracts us from such details.

(Here, she devours my predinner snack of roasted beets...)






(A moment of respite for the mom...)






Finally, dinner. Lovely, calm, beloved by Snowdrop. Chicken brats? yes!! corn? yes!! garden tomatoes? yes!!)






Strawberry ice cream? Yes!!






I can do this!!
(A flurry of polka dots!))





Yes you can.

The Labor Day weekend draws to a close. Oh, but it was such a good weekend!

Sunday

Kindness deserves a reciprocal kindness. Reward for reward. A good act for someone elses generous impulse.

These are my thoughts as I go out in the near dark to chase the cheepers into the coop. It's Ed's task, but he did me the favor of opening the coop in the morning (far easier, though with the downside of having to be up before you want to be up) and so I offered to be the one to shut the cheepers up for the night.

Java, the big black hen, is always in the coop by nightfall. The rest? Sprinkled around, high in trees, dozing, but not asleep.

I can't reach you, you dumb hens! Can't you come down a bit???

Eventually I get them inside and I latch the latches and I think -- you are one pampered set of cheepers!

You'll know from this story that I was not the one to open the coop this morning. I thought about it, worried about it, woke up for it, but then, miraculously, Ed took on the task and I stayed in bed until 10:30 in the morning, which is possibly the latest I have stayed under covers since I had the flu forty plus years ago in grade school.

Hey Ed, are you ready for breakfast?  -- I ask at an hour that dangerously threatens to put us into the afternoon.






Morning flowers to admire? Annuals!






I do a quick run to Snowdrop's home after. It's a pick up/drop off kind of trip, but it does give me a few minutes with the little one.

She is in an intense mood.






Dreamy at times...






Ultimately, as always, playful.






I tell her -- your mommy is cooking lunch for you. She's off!






Are my cheese tortellini bathed in pesto sauce ready yet?






Lunch over, energy level restored.






Totally.






And now I'm back at the farmette, assessing what work I need to do once the mosquitoes disappears, taking mental notes, liking this, wanting to adjust that., appreciating the totality...






In the late, late afternoon, Ed and I admit to each other that we are lazy. Or at least that we can be lax. Or perhaps that we are slow to move on something.

We had promised each other that we would hike today, but as the hours pass, our reluctance to set out becomes obvious. In the end, rather than giving in to our slothlike inclinations, we set out for the county park that's just five minutes down the road from us.

It's buggy out there! We are amazed that there could be a place that has a higher concentration of mosquitoes than that at the farmette, but there you have it -- the park trumps us in this regard!

But here's something new: the small silo (standing at the entrance to the park) has been completely revamped. There is now a set of steps inside and you can climb up to catch the view.






And it is a wonderful and bug free view. The golden prairie below takes your breath away!






And this recalls an idea Ed has had for a while: might not we be able to convert our tall, really tall silo to an observation deck?

Ed studies the construction.





I could do this... he mumbles.

I know those words. It does not necessarily mean "I will do this" and it certainly does not mean "I will embark on this project in the near future."  Many of our crazy ideas have come and disappeared. But others have hatched and come to fruition.

Time will tell if some day we will have an observation deck at the top of the farmette's old silo. Right now, we've simply shifted this project a little. From the "wild and crazy" to the "I can do this."


Our walk in the park is brisk. Before the breeze kicks in, the mosquitoes are dancing! We walk as if in training for a marathon.






And it is a beautiful walk, full of prairie flowers and swooping swallows. (This is the place where we most often ski if there's snow. I cross my fingers for that event. We've had pretty tame snows last year and the year before. It would surely be nice to have a solid snow cover this coming winter.)






(Prairie flowers and forest trails -- is there a better balm for our stress filled life styles?)






Dinner is late. And that's just fine. It simply means that we were lost in projects and adventures. Big or small, projects and adventures keep us alert to the possibilities. And that's such a good thing!

Saturday

If you are routinely up at dawn, you come to appreciate that the sun never rises in exactly the same place. You tell yourself -- how wonderful that you can see this! What a privilege to be up this early! (But you know that it's just talk. You know you'd really love to be dozing in bed and that even though you'll try to get yourself into that dozy state again, the last bit of sleep has been shaken out of you and so like it or not, the day is up and running.)






(A repeat bloomer that is so fresh and springlike in color that it's like a bit magic at this late part of summer.)






Breakfast. It's beginning to feel cool outside at this hour and I wonder home many more of our morning meals I'll want to eat outside. Don't pay attention to Ed's short sleeves. He only has two possible attires in the course of the year: shirt, or shirt with jacket.






It's going to be a glorious day! Sunny and not too warm.

And how is the garden fairing? Oh, I have no complaints! Here's the large flower field, looking toward the sheep shed...






And here it is looking toward the farmhouse.






It's a perfect day for walking and normally, I would go with Snowdrop and her mom to the downtown market, but the first weekend of September is reserved for an event downtown that ousts the market to other locations. The three of us (Snowdrop, her mom, myself) decide to take a different walk -- one around the lesser lake. We'd done it a thousand times when the girl was just a babe. Will she still put up with the lengthy stroller ride?

She does. She is of course older and so she looks at the world differently. For example, she surely is more aware of the magnificence of seeing fall coots out on the water...





We pass the coffee shop where Snowdrop and I have spent many a wonderful moment. We pause for a refreshment. It's so familiar to her!
Should we sit down? -- she wants to know.







I think we need a high chair...
I'm on it!






And yet, there are changes. Today, there is no way you can hold a glass of water for her. She needs to do it by herself. She is so good at pushing your helping hand away when she wants to take charge of her own world!






I'm a school girl now, grandma! Don't you forget it!



 


Back at her house, I linger just for a little while. We play ball.

Watching her attempt to dribble is possibly the cutest sight on the planet, but I have farmette plans for the day and so I leave her to her antics.






I'm on Rosie (the moped) and I take the longer way home, just to breathe in the loveliness of this early September day. (These fields are just to the east of us. Will they disappear next year when the planned development that has finally won approval moves forward?)






(Here's a tiny piece of the long flower bed that is now at the front of our farmette land.)






I could call it quits for the day. I've had a lovely walk. Ed has finally done some grass cutting. We've paid our dues. But we promised ourselves an outing for this weekend and this afternoon seems perfect for it. We want to do a bike ride -- one that tracks the path he rode by himself earlier this summer. You'll like it! Not at all too hilly! -- he promises.

He and I used to do many such rides together, but over the years, I've backed away. He's a much strong rider and I feel I hold him back. But today he wants to go at my speed. And it feels so good to be pulled back to those years when we navigated these rural roads together!

It's always best to go toward late afternoon or evening. The air is cooler. The colors are at their loveliest.

True, the golds and purples are not necessarily something you want to celebrate. The goldenrod flower is for us what heather would be to the hills of Scotland, but our own purple is oftentimes loosestrife -- an invasive that threatens many of the wetlands. I'm not sure if it's the culprit here, but I really do find the entire pastoral route to be breathtakingly stunning!






(Another view -- mainly of the goldenrod...)






(A parade of our beautiful sandhill cranes...)






It is, of course, mostly agricultural land.





And without doubt, corn dominates.






But, too, we ride past the old tobacco barns. (These days, Wisconsin tobacco is used mainly for cigar wraps.)






Sometimes, Ed pedals ahead...






But mostly, we ride side by side, pausing now and then to appreciate the beauty of all that we see around us.















We end alongside the Yahara River and yes, the colors are definitely those of early fall.






We had left our car in Stoughton -- a village just to the southeast of where we live. Ed proposes supper here, but I'm reluctant. I'm not a great fan of bar food of the old fashioned kind (fried foods, grilled meats). Still, as we walk up and down the short one or two blocks of "downtown," we see that things are changing, at least in this village (a mere half hour from downtown Madison). There are two restaurants that easily could satisfy the fussy "fresh and honest" eater and we pick the casual one -- Wendigo .

And it's lovely! Ed has a tomato po'boy and I have some mussles and eggplant fires and we walk away happy and satisfied.

Pull over! It's a beautiful sunset!

And he does.





And it is.