round and round and round we go

It feels like the wheels of time are spinning in many directions. Forward -- Snowdrop grows and grows, developing the skills of a toddler and now a little girl. Then back I go to a time when I'm with  a babe -- Primrose -- who is just now sitting by herself. Forward again, while Snowdrop regales us with stories, then a back slide, to a three month old's (Sparrow's) gurgles and grins and baby naps. I feel this swing in time especially today because we're officially starting our fall schedule (stalled by my travels) where Sparrow comes to spend his Monday, from morning til evening, here at the farmette. It's like caring for Snowdrop all over again, only ever so slightly different.

It's a beautiful day once more, a day with those brilliant skies and pleasant early fall temperatures.  The young family is in a morning rush. One child dropped here, the other at school. For now, I am just with Sparrow. Welcome, little lobster man! Do you know about grandma's magic camera?






Ed and I are just getting our breakfast routine going. He joins us. On the porch!






I'm wondering if he needs a sweater... Snowdrop wont mind if I share her pink one!






But, the air warms and in the end we set out for an introduction to farmette life. He is somewhat shocked to see the chickens. They are more ho hum about his presence. Another baby? Oh, ok!






Sparrow, like Snowdrop, like Primrose, is a smiling happy child. Perhaps all babies who are well fed and well loved are that way. My eyes, are of course, so focused on the three grandbabes.






In the afternoon, we pick up Snowdrop at school. The girl is very excited about having her brother join us at the farmhouse. These are chickens, baby Sparrow!






It's cool how these same chickens offer arithmetic lesson opportunities. Ed is forever asking -- how many new ones did we bring into the coop this year? And how many old ones are there? And how many eggs did we get today? So now how many do we have? (Ed, the answer is that we have too many! We get on the average five eggs each day!)






(She finds my Polish chocolates. Okay, Snowdrop. Just one!)






A snack, one book reading moment, and then she is off and spinning tales! (Yes, that's Ed playing a part in it. We all do. She assigns the roles.)







Ed is trying to work out some techie problem via the TV screen (something about linking screens in a remote communications scheme). Snowdrop sees that he can project multiple images of any one of us on the screen. She is fascinated by it all.






And now this too is part of her story.






While the lobster guy looks on.






 Evening. Kids are home, one hopes in bed, perhaps even asleep. The farmhouse reels back to a state of utter quiet. I'm thinking about an Ocean post, Ed is thinking about an ocean sail. But for now, we are here, feeling lucky, feeling utterly content and at peace.

Sunday

So what did you do today?? -- my daughters will ask me. Their lives are so busy, so full. I think my typical Sunday must look completely tame by comparison. (That's a nice way of saying boring.)

Well, so be it. Sundays are meant to be quiet days. My day today was quiet.

(Morning farmette walk...)






(So obviously autumn...)






(The surprise day lily...)






(Breakfast!)






In the afternoon we do what was once so typical for us, but what had to give because of the demands of this summer: Ed and I play frisbee golf, among prairie flowers and grasses of early fall.







Ed is still walking about barefoot. I admire that. He tells me it would take only a week to toughen my feet. I look at the thistle in the prairie fields -- nah. I'll keep my shoes on.






(So beautiful!)






(Selfie!)






In the evening, the young family is here for dinner. I tell Snowdrop we have to pick nasturtium for the salad. She is happy to help!






Sparrow, who is just 3.5 months, is too young to offer credible assistance.






It's warm enough to eat dinner on the porch. Oh, we will miss this lovely place to gather in the months to come!






(Snowdrop demonstrates a pout. She wants to show us how a little girl might feel when told she has to wait for dessert.)






And what am I offering for an after dinner sweet? Treats from my Polish friends: cookies with cherries, exquisite chocolates...






The pout doesn't last long.






Sparrow takes it in, from the lap of the big guy.






So, a quiet day, don't you think? Wonderfully uneventful. Yeah.

seasons

I do not think it was intentional, but it happened that my daughters were married on the cusps of new seasons -- my younger girl on the first day of summer and my older one -- well, on this day, so on the first day of fall. I have always loved this symmetry and, too, the nod toward the parade of seasons, toward the change that comes with them and they joy each one brings you. At least that's how it all appears to me.






When I was in Paris, I thought I'd pick up a card for this particular day. I was tempted to just get the standard birthday one with the greeting "joyeux anniversaire" or "bon anniversaire" but I thought to ask if it's appropriate for a wedding anniversary. The sales clerks shook their heads. Well then what? You could go with "felicitation," they said. A card with the generic "congratulations." Fine then, but it sounds so... removed from a wedding. Well, I do as the French do: I write my own message inside.






It's a gorgeous day! Cool, true, there is that, but brilliantly sunny and very fallish. A happy day indeed, especially since everyone for once got a good night of sleep. We are a well rested bunch!






Breakfast? Oh, definitely in the kitchen, with the door to the porch closed against the morning chill. It's barely 50F (10C) out there. Brrr!






Later in the morning, I meet my daughter and Snowdrop for the Saturday farmers market.


(Coming out of the car with a story...)






(She always begins our Saturday market walk with a croissant, for a second breakfast...)






(She is enchanted with the Badger Band, especially when they play a polka!)






(it's a beautiful day to be out with a little one...)






Well, I suppose it's a beautiful day to be out, period. At the market I buy 50 more pounds of tomatoes for our winter loot, and, too, several ears of corn from a farmer who really knows how to push the season! There is so much more that I could load into a shopping bag, but the fact is, we Madisonians tend to treat this Saturday market differently than say a person shopping at a local farmers market in France. Most people who come to this one don't walk with a shopping list for the week. More often, we buy something that looks especially good -- better than you would find at the grocery store. This happens in part because the market is so colorful, so pretty to look at, that it has become a real magnet for visitors. By midmorning, it is hugely crowded and hard to navigate if you're just there to buy your produce for the week. Still, many of the vendors do sell out. Perhaps not potatoes or onions, but those moonglow pears that you wont find at the grocery store. Or fresh oyster mushrooms harvested just in the last day. Or corn, or asparagus, or eggplant in all shapes and sizes. We buy these and worry about fitting them into our bags and strollers and walk away feeling that we've brought a little of a farmer's best bounty with us to our kitchen tables.


(farmette fall: an abundance of nasturtium blooms!)






(cheepers come a visitin'!)






(when I walk the farmette lands, they follow)







Late in the afternoon, Ed and I decide that this weather just cannot be wasted: we go back to our old hidden tennis court among the pines and play a robust game all the way into the early evening.

Happy fall to all of you! Here, at the farmette, we're off to a grand start to the new season!

Friday

It is one of those Fridays where Ed has a techie meeting on the other side of town. Our morning schedule is focused on that, since for once, one of us has to be somewhere at an early-ish hour. If yesterday was damp then hot, today is windy and cool.







Still, we eat breakfast on the porch. I tell Ed that we should enjoy the last porch meals. He's not convinced that warm air is behind us. There is always a return of summer in autumn, he reminds me.





And then he goes off on his motorcycle, which he'll ride until a frost or a snowfall will ice the roads and make it difficult for him to stay upright.


In the afternoon I pick up a sleepy Snowdrop. You could say that the bracing air revives her.






(Cheepers we don't have anything for you!)






(Lets play store. But first I have to write a few things...)






Sleep is a funny thing: it runs along its own track. In the morning, I always get up before Ed. I tiptoe about but even so, almost always I wake him.  Snowdrop, too is a light sleeper at night. A storm, even one far away inevitably will wake her. Me, I'm a light sleeper all the time, except in the evening when we're watching TV. Its booming sound has no impact on me: I sleep.

When I pick up Snowdrop at school today, she is just ending a nap. And  despite the tumult, she naps right there on the floor with kids running around, grownups talking, chairs banging. When we come back to the farmhouse, we find a tired Ed. By late afternoon, despite Snowdrop's boisterous play in the same room, he is sound asleep, waking up later to ask -- where is the little girl? Did she leave?







(Loud and happy)






In the evening, I make chili. Ed comments -- it's been such a long time since you've made it! 
Well of course. Who eats chili in the heat of summer! Tonight, on the eve of fall, we dig in.

Thursday

Well, the bugs are everywhere. The farmette is still tolerable (those garlic and peppermint mists do have an impact), but we're getting our small share too. It's just a reminder that summer has its tricky sides. Or, to put it more broadly -- every season brings with it its own challenges.

Of course, Autumnal Exquinox is this Saturday. We should be moving on to "crisp" and "brilliant" and "colorful." We're not doing that. We are a little stuck in the inbetween: the worst of summer stays on and the glory of Fall hasn't quite arrived.

In the early morning, I step outside to a hoard of hungry girls. Okay, okay, okay! Calm down! I'll get you your grub!






They're never satisfied though. When Stop Sign comes calling for his cat chow, they insist on sharing. Audacious chickens! A cat can swipe your silly noses in a flash!
But he doesn't do that. The truth is, he's a little intimidated by them.






In the garden, I find the occasional day lily. I want to tell them -- you don't have to perform now. Get some rest and come back full of blooming energy next summer!






Breakfast. We're supposed to have a bubble of very warm air, but curiously, it doesn't come until late afternoon and it leaves soon after, in the late evening. The morning is cool. We eat indoors.






Afterwards, we have some work to do at my Mom's place. She has been amazingly independent, especially the week I was away, but she is stuck on some things that we can help move along and so we do that today.






And of course, in the afternoon, there is Snowdrop.





She hasn't had a solid period of play at the farmhouse in a while and so she gets right to it. I watch, adding mostly irrelevant comments to her story. I'm impressed with her dexterity! How can a three year old's hand have the patience to arrange these tiny Lego bits and pieces?






Very quickly she ropes Ed into her games. Here, she tells him she is running a machine shop. She has "constructed" three machines that will make "so many things!"





She can keep going for a long time like this, adding props, adjusting her story.

Toward evening, her parents and Sparrow come to pick her up. Oh, it's been a while since I've seen the little guy! Snowdrop, too, is always very happy to have him near her. Can I hold him standing up? -- she asks. I don't think so, little one. Not yet.






He is a smiling, laughing child. But at 3.5 months, well, he's just working on sitting up!






(Hey, I'm no slouch!)






Then someone suggests that we just pick up a pizza and make a farmhouse supper of it.
You mean we can have a pizza party? At the farmhouse? Tonight? Snowdrop is overjoyed.





We linger (with Sparrow) on the porch. It's suddenly very very warm outside. As if summer decided it wasn't ready to hightail it out of here yet. Snowdrop follows Ed inside and we can hear her dealing with her troublesome babies. She comes back to the porch then and tells us to please talk in whispers as we're keeping her kids up.





Ed goes out to put the cheepers away. Can I come? Can I come??
Of course. 
The two of them set out toward the barn.
So why does she love this nighttime routine? What does she do when you put each of the hens in the coop? 
Oh, she just likes to watch. Sometimes she'll pet them a little. Or play with the flashlight. On the walk back, she'll take a raspberry leaf and put it over the light to make it green. Or she'll ask to pick a purple aster.





Farmette stuff. Lovely evening serenade to the end of summer.