Monday pleasures

If you have a sunny and warm day in November -- you feel it's a gift. But what if you have one after another, just like that? Truly, for us upper Midwesterners -- it's over the top.

We eat breakfast in the front room, though honestly, there isn't a room in the farmhouse that does not benefit from all this sunshine.






I work for an hour or two on clearing the flower beds (with greater finesse than during my previous efforts). But you can't proceed blindly with clearing and removing spent stems, when there is still so much out there that hasn't quite faded to the degree you'd expect by November.






(At least the crab apple leaves have mostly fallen...)






Oh, but what a glorious day it is! Blue skies, gentle breezes. Short sleeves for Snowdrop as she leaves school.






(Protectively, I push her to wear her jeans jacket. She's fine with that.)

At the farmette, I ask her if she wants to help me water the front flower bed. (I'd put in some bulbs and they've not seen rain yet, nor is there rain in the forecast.). She considers it, but ultimately sticks with her definitive "no."






But tumbling in leaves? Now that gets a big "yes!"






After, as we walk toward the farmhouse, I point out the kayaks that came back with us yesterday. Ed hadn't yet stored them in the garage and so they stand out in the courtyard.

Snowdrop is intrigued. Oftentimes, she is hesitant to try out something completely new. Not so with the boats.






She loves climbing in and out, directing ahah where he should sit...






In and out, in and out. Endlessly. Enthusiastically.






Then with Ed, working the paddle. Loving every bit of it.






Look out world! Here we come!






It's hard to get her inside. Finally. With a pause by the flowers.






I tell her I need to throw a sheet of cookies in the oven. Her energy returns and she is there, moving the chair to help me.

Here's her classic request for "just one more raisin" (or one more of anything).






Keep mixing, Snowdrop!






After her nap, she wants to be outside again, this time with her wagon. Very quickly, she scrambles to get out. I steer us toward the farmed fields where it's safe to let her loose. She wants to be in charge. No, gaga! I push it!





It's tough going and sometimes it's just impossible for her to move the wagon without my assistance, but she does not give up.






"Just one more time!"






At home now. She takes to a stack of books.  She is so beautifully sensitive to the mood of the house (quiet now in the early evening) that it's hard to remember that she is just 22 months old.






She goes home. The house grows quiet. A stack of books remains on the couch, a few puzzle pieces are scattered on the floor. I smile and turn my attention toward preparing dinner.

Sunday photo album

What a day! Stunningly warm and beautiful in the most unexpected places. I'll offer you few words, but very many photos. To make things easier, I've split things into three chapters:

I  Morning with Snowdrop

You'll remember that the little girl was with us for the night. She wakes up at her normal  time -- around 7. Except that our clocks are pushed back, so it's really 6.

That's okay, I'm ready for it. And she is my willing partner in the routines of the early day.Want to go out with me and open the chicken coop? Yes!

In the last weeks, as she asks me to read one of her favorite books about weather (I know -- kids have such singular tastes!), I have had a hard time explaining to her what fog is. Today, I have my chance, as the morning horizons are touched by wisps of heavy mist. Put on your jacket, Snowdrop, we're going to look at fog!




She's surprised. Probably she doesn't fully appreciate the concept. Things feel wet and unwelcoming to her. She is happy to get back to the farmhouse.

After a long warm bath, she is raring to go. Breakfast with gaga and ahah? Yeah! Pancakes!






Love that maple syrup!






(But she also tastes and loves my oatmeal with fruit and honey.)

After breakfast -- morning play. With trains. With trucks. With characters.






Do you want to go outside now?
Yes!






We go to the front yard, where we have the prettiest golden maple leaves. I'm thinking she'll enjoy playing in them.

She does!






The cheepers come down to see what we're up to.






The air is getting warmer by the minute. It's an exhilarating time to be outside!






Snowdrop loves walking through my front flower bed. There are a few blooms left -- I let her pick whatever she wants. In mid November, you quit worrying about preserving flowers.

Lavender!






Nasturtium!






Gaura (aka whirling butterflies)!






Hydrangea!






And now it's time for me to take her home.


II Paddling


Ed has been proposing a kayak run for us for quite a while. Recently, he discovered a paddling trail that is about as close to home as you can get: the idea is to load the truck with kayaks and bikes, drop off the bikes at lake Waubesa and then take the kayaks to the put in point at one of the streams that feeds the lake. The total paddling time is estimated at about 4 hours, but we run into some snafus!

At first -- narrow, but navigable.





But then, the stream goes underground! We have to get out and walk our kayaks through muddy marshy land. Okay, we manage! We persevere!

And here comes my least favorite part: paddling underneath the superhighway. It's long. It's dark. It's shallow. We cannot paddle. We have to use our hands to push away against the highway underbelly. You have to do it -- it's not as if you can turn back...






Phew! Done!

The stream then becomes quite pleasant.


 



Very pleasant indeed...






Until we come across a total blockade of fallen logs.

We struggle here. At one point, I get out to move some timbers (I'm more nimble at getting in and out of a kayak in tricky situations). Ed heaves. We push our boats.






Success! We continue.






Finally, Lake Waubesa. Are we almost there Ed? (My arm muscles are feeling the workout!)





A couple more hours and we're at the place where we left our bikes.



III Sunday Dinner


We are home just in time for me to begin dinner preparations. It's Sunday and so the young family is here for our evening meal. Snowdrop is terrifically excited! And I am too!






The dinner ends. Ed settles in to watch an evening talk show. Snowdrop loves to keep him company.






Day is done. Yes, fuller than full. In the best of ways.

the last market day

Just as Madison's first outdoor market heralds the arrival of spring in April, so, too, the last market -- always at the beginning of November (today!) -- tells us that Fall is rapidly changing gears and moving toward a frosty wintry period. It doesn't help that we switch clocks on this same weekend, so that tomorrow I'll be fixing dinner long after sunset.

And yet, if you were to go outside today (and who wouldn't?), you'd think that we are stuck in the warmth of late summer.

Ed and I eat breakfast in the sunniest room of the farmhouse...






... and when I go outside, I notice that the iris plant just wont give up!





True, there is at least initially, a nip in the air and when I go to Snowdrop's home for our final walk (with her mom) to the downtown market, I suggest a cap.






But it turns out to be a ridiculous idea! In fact, within minutes, even the jacket is too much. It's a sunny, warm, and brilliant day to be outside!





As we do our shopping (and I buy, among other things, twenty pounds of tomatoes because we think we haven't enough of our own to last us all winter), my daughter and I reflect on how much Snowdrop has changed in these last months. She looks forward to our market outings now  and knows what to expect. At times she helps push the stroller...




At other times, she nibbles on market samples (favorites today: little tomatoes and cheese curds!) and toward the end, she loves to romp on the green grass of the Capitol Square.

(She watches another child climb a tree. Yesterday, I showed her one climbable fir at the farmette. I can see her one day sitting on a branch...)






But she is still the little girl who every now and then loves just to be held...

(Toy store? Yes, Snowdrop -- we can visit the toy shop.)







At home, I take stock of the tomatoes...





...and decide they need a day or two of further ripening. The rest of the daylight hours I spend outside, working the yard from one end to the next -- pruning, snipping, cutting, trimming.

It's a beautiful time! Backbreaking work never felt so good.






Evening. It's a weekend where Snowdrop is an overnight guest at the farmhouse. She arrives bubbly and happy: there'll be pizza. There'll be a new toy from the toy shop.


 


But mostly, there'll be two attentive people -- gaga and ahah -- enjoying her antics, her conversation, her sweet and cheerful disposition.

Pizza night with her is special in that we do not sit around the kitchen table. We take our slices to the living room and turn on the TV! Unpardonable? No, actually great fun. True, she doesn't quite follow the PBS News hour, but maybe that's a good thing!






Perhaps the most beautiful moment comes when I ask her is she wants to go out with us to put away the cheepers. Of course she does!

It's dark now, but there is a sliver of a moon. Snowdrop looks up, acknowledges the moon ("there's moon!"), then tells me, excitedly, "two stars!"

Yes, there are two stars. Possibly more than that, but at the very least -- two stars.

beautiful November!

I'm used to gorgeous autumnal weather in September. Wisconsin nearly always delivers a string of bright, brisk days then that just make you sing! But this year, that string was knotted and punctuated too often by long spells of wet, humid weather. The bugs were happy. Me -- well, it wasn't what it should have been.

But November thus far has been glorious. Oh sure, there'll be the rain now and then, but there appear to be many many days of pure sunshine. Crisp, yes, but in the most pleasant of ways.

We're on a more normal schedule and we eat breakfast by the light of the day. This is as we like it. It in itself is reason to smile.






I have appointments that mess a little with my Friday grocery store routines, but on the upside, I drive past Madison's Owen Woods and I catch that last bit of brilliant autumnal color.






And when I show up to pick up Snowdrop, her teachers have her bundled up for the outdoors, which I can understand...






It was cool this morning. But the sunshine now does away with the late autumn (yes, it is late autumn!) chill...

("That's gaga car!")





And I quickly put away her coat for the rest of the day.


At the farmhouse, she spies the baguette, freshly purchased this morning.

The girl loves baguette bread. I mean, really loves it. I'll give her a piece, she'll beg for "one more baguette!" I'll smile and agree to "just one more," knowing quite well that I'll get a grin and a plea for "one more!" with one finger lifted up in earnest.






It's always interesting to watch Snowdrop (or any child for that matter) rediscover an old toy and give it another, a more sophisticated go around. Snowdrop loses herself in this for a while...






And then I play music, to get her in a quiet, restful mood, but she still has a spring to her step and she dances...






... and dances...





Until I say -- okay, Snowdrop. Time to rest.


In the late afternoon, Ed returns from work and she is tickled pink to see him again (and he her). It's been a while!






Snowdrop's mom is here too and the little girl shows off her balance beam skills.















The light fades. This weekend we'll go through what Poland went through a week ago -- a shift in time. For now, it still feels like we're in the grip of a very golden Fall. Warm sun on our backs, the occasional flower still throwing out a blossom.





Such a beautiful day! Just ask Snowdrop.