and now it's January 3rd

No one is more attuned to the cyclical patterns in life, the seasonal shifts and the progression of calendar months more than the gardener. And after decades of devotion to perennial flowers, I am, for better or worse, a full fledged gardener. Not a pro, just a very serious amateur. (Anyone who devotes a huge amount of time to a craft can call herself a serious amateur, but for Pete's sake, be serious about it or you'll fall down to the status of a mere dabbler!)

Right about this time -- oh, maybe the third day into the New Year, something happens to spark your enthusiasm for working in the yard again. For me, it's the arrival of the White Flower Farms catalogue of flowers. I order very little from it: I can find most perennials locally these days so that it makes little sense to spend money on shipping stuff here from Connecticut. Still, these plants people were my first friends some thirty years ago when I began to grow my own day lilies and phloxes, irises and blue bells, wild indigo and delicate coral bells. (Oh, even spelling out a few flower names puts me in the mood!)  In sentimental appreciation, I pick up the catalogue and look for some small plant that surely should be added to my (already very full) garden.

That catalogue came yesterday. Our days are deceptively warm this month (just at freezing in January? How can that be??) and so you could almost imagine that spring is indeed in the works for us -- it's there, next in line, waiting to surprise us with her grandness once again!

No one, absolutely no one loves the coming of spring more than a gardener living in Wisconsin. Don't even try to talk me down on that one.

But for now, let's enjoy the utter beauty of a sunny, not too chilly January day.

(A little bit of red, a lot of white, and a touch of blue...)






("Please, can I have some more? I'm extra hungry on sunny days!")






(When everything sparkles!)






Breakfast. ("Sunshine makes me sleepy...")






And in the afternoon, Snowdrop, the original queen of winter sunshine and snow, comes here to play. I can divide her afternoon at the farmette into two: the indoor hours and time spent outdoors. Sure, minute for minute, I admit that indoor time ruled. Photo-wise -- that's another story. It was just so beautiful to romp with her in the fading light of a winter afternoon! Of course the camera worked on overtime!

When she comes here after school, Snowdrop needs time to revamp her energies. But on these vacation days, she is ready to go! Today, she picks up on her Antarctica voyage.







Not for long though. We're back to restaurant work. And construction brouhahas. [I've set up a construction site next to her dollhouse. Toy trucks are heaving dirt and bringing in timber. The construction workers -- especially Josephine the cement truck operator and Benjamin, the plumber -- are working around the clock to put up a house extension by Saturday. A new family is moving in. All the way from Japan! That's the set up. Hey, we've just finished with Christmas and boom! -- the little girl has a birthday the day after tomorrow! I have to be clever in creating something fresh for her for that day!]


(Creative cooking: she is making pepperoni snaps!)






(A moment of hunger: she finds the loaf of Challah!)






The artsy hour!






And now, finally, she is ready for the great outdoors. It's after three and the sun is low, but not completely out of range. It's just a touch above freezing, but the snow is solidly in place. Sled time!  I worry that my knee isn't up for it. Ed has a resurgence of the sniffles so it's just me and Snowdrop. We head out!






Well, we're never really alone. The cheepers hurry to keep up with us!






The perfect snow angel...






And again the snowball throwing championships are on!...






We're by the great spruces and she finds her hidden castle within their fold.






And then I coax her into the wider world beyond. Why not step out into the field of snow just to the east, where construction crews have been digging and leveling the ground for months on end? It's beautiful pristine snow -- a magnificent playfield!












Foot prints and long shadows...






Let's hold shadow hands!






She is a bird with hawk-like wings!






(Tracks...)






We may have stayed in that field of snow far longer, but, with every minute, the sun is less warm and the cheepers grow hungrier. Time to head back...

(Can I give them their corn? Of course...)







Toward evening, I drive the little girl home. In the car, we sing songs from the Muppets Christmas Carol and watch the sky pick up the golden pink colors of a setting sun.



For all your notes and emails yesterday -- thank you! So much!

Ocean 15

Yes, it's been fifteen years. The first Ocean post went up on January 2, 2004, when I was 50 years old! A mere babe, playing with technology, shunning a chunk of privacy in favor of writing and eventually writing aided by photography. (Or is it photography aided by writing? It depends on the day!)

It's not true that everyone was on board from the get go. (Nor is it true that everyone is on board with the effort now: just ask some of my Polish friends!) But my daughters and then Ed (who burst into my life one and a half years into the blogging effort) were solid: this is what you do. It's your "art," your quirky habit. We will stand by you.

Without that, Ocean would have died. As it is, I plunge forward, despite the early technical difficulties (try posting ten years ago when you're camping in the Rockies, hiking the Appalachian Trail, crossing Scotland on foot), despite the late nights when the eyes wont stay open and the closing sentence in a post eludes me. Go to sleep, Gorgeous. I'm not done! I'm stuck!

But why? Why does she write, every single day, even when nothing happens to warrant our attention? Why always the breakfast photo? (Here's today's!)





Why all these grandmother thoughts and images of happy kids? (You'll see them today.)

Why carry a camera on every walk through Paris? Why write about skilled waiters in faraway restaurants, about loyal friends no reader has ever met, about a farmette life where we don't really farm the land we live on? Why write at all, why can't you just enjoy the moment?

There are a thousand reasons I could offer you and still the list would be incomplete. And so I'll just offer one: do you see our awkward yet bold Peach navigating the path to the barn, going at it alone, even though some would say she should stay put in the safe shelter of the barn? She walks the path, because she can. She hopes for a good outcome at the end of it all. She can't be sure, but she tries.





I write because I can. Decades of fussing with writing (I've been pulling stories from the day since I was eleven) has made me a careful storyteller. Surely not a great storyteller, but a careful one! I write for me and you, looking for a line that will make clear something that may or may not be obvious. Something that speaks to the gentler side of life, because that's where I like to put all my eggs at the end of the day.


And what would I pick from this day for an Ocean post? The snow, the girl, the playfulness of the afternoon.

(School is still not in session. I bring Snowdrop home for some solid playtime here. It's a cold day, but she does not want or need a jacket for the brief saunter to the farmhouse door. Ed is quite like her: note the shorts and the absence of even socks.)






(Story time!)










(Outdoor time! She wants her baby sled.)






(Angels!)






(Snowball fight! Hers is a gentle battle.)














(Challah: mmm, good!)






(Hot chocolate: Snowdrop loves it in principle.)






I join her in a snack. Gogs, she tells me, don't eat while you're talking!

We both laugh. I'm often Gogs now. I can almost see the beginning of an eye roll. But not yet. Instead, she pulls up a storage basket, sits herself in it and announces that we're all sailing for Antarctica!






Onward, Snowdrop! Onward, Sparrow and Primrose! Onward Ed and Gogs and farmette life! Onward, Ocean, too. Happy sailing indeed!

the New Year

Welcome, 2019!

As I open the farmhouse door to the world outside, I see the gentle and exquisitely beautiful side of a Wisconsin winter.






The air is still. Every flake that fell last night is resting in its place: on a branch, on a twinkling holiday light...






The cheepers hear me. Out they march, braving the snow, plodding forward to where I am.






Slowly.






Stop Sign appears as well. Everyone wants their breakfast! They know I will deliver. And still, they all follow me, just in case it should slip my mind.






(Beloved farmhouse, nearly hidden in the snow)






(All fresh, all beautiful.)






Animals, fed, I step into a hot shower (nothing is as luxurious as a hot shower after a cold morning walk), then start in on breakfast. I change things around a bit: Whole Foods had a big sign yesterday stating that they make the best Challah in town! I bought it.





How well I know the Polish Chałka! It's a common bread there, though I'm guessing the Polish version does not follow the Jewish kosher rules that would keep butter out of the recipe (the real Challah is made with oil). The Challah tastes a little like a French brioche, but the latter, of course, is oozing with butter. A Polish Chałka is probably somewhere between a Challah and a brioche, with added poppy seeds on top, because, well, Poles like to sprinkle poppy seeds on many baked goods. 

I cut up some fruits, scramble an egg (Cupcake and Henny are still laying every other day, so we have a row of brown eggs -- Cupcake's, and one of green eggs -- Henny's), and warm up the Challah.

Ready!







And now the sun comes out and the farmette is at her winter prettiest!






(Cheepers wanting so much to come along on an adventure! Sorry, girls. This one's just for us.)







We set out for a walk. Just a fifteen minute loop in our local county park. I can't push it. But, oh is it worth the effort!







(On a timed release...)
















Afternoon. The sun is with us still. Ed comments -- I wonder what Snowdrop is up to! He knows the girl loves snow. But she is already getting to an age where we do not track her every movement. As she grows more independent and develops friendships and interests in and around her own home, I recognize this remarkable paradox: we pride ourselves at teaching our kids and grandkids to do more for themselves, but what we are really doing is slowly pushing them out of our lives, so that they can stand alone. And then, of course, we groan about our uselessness! About how quickly, maybe just a bit too quickly the kids have learned to go solo!

The grandparent (or parent for that matter) who groans too loudly, who gets stuck on the brutality of the progression of time, misses an important truth:  the emotional connection is a forever thing. Needs shift, but they do not disappear. And kids do not forget their grandparents. They especially do not forget them if the parents keep the grandmas and grandpas solidly rooted in the storybook of family life. Hey, remember when grandma spent ten dollars to get violet sugar here in time for Christmas to bake pink cookies with you and you didn't like them one bit?  Remember the trip to the corn farm? To the Luxembourg Gardens? To the cow show? All those quirky traits of the older generation, all those daring deeds, the meals cooked, all those adventures retold, each time with appropriate embellishment ("she had that sugar rushed by special air freight service from Chicago!"), all those endless hugs and radiant smiles that came from delighted grandparents who never failed to recognize how brave and beautiful and clever the little ones are! They are part of a child's life forever.


My own pack of brave and beautiful and clever ones -- at least those living in town -- comes over for a New Year's Day dinner. 






(A French green bean, a cob of corn and perhaps a loose shrimp floating around her plate -- that is Snowdrop's idea of the perfect dinner.)






(Sparrow? He just likes a smiling face to match his own smiling face.)






(After dinner story...)






So, 2019, eh? We'll do the best we can with you! Just please don't throw us any mean surprises!

Hogmanay

In Poland, it's Sylwester, in France -- Saint-Sylvestre, or more typically, réveillon du nouvel an. In Scotland it's Hogmanay. New Year's Eve.

Ed tells me that it doesn't make sense to celebrate (or even take note of) the turning of a calendar page, that it would have been more authentic to stay with Winter Solstice as a significant point of change, indeed of transformation as we start adding minutes to the length of the day. But in fact, all these December revelries grew out of our appreciation for winter Solstice. We've added religious significance, we've embellished the story by crafting a Rudolph and a Santa, we've dropped a ball, lit torches (that would be Hogmanay) and popped champagne corks over the centuries, but in truth, in one way or another, we are all celebrating light, renewal, birth, a fresh start, a push for something better than our usual old dour selves. We're doing it with food and drink, often (if we're lucky) in the company of others. Sometimes, as in New York Times Square, in the company of millions of others.

As I wake up to my 66th New Year's Eve (I am 65), I stay in bed a while thinking where I've spent my previous December 31sts. In order of repeat performance rather than chronology:
Madison wins at 21!
New York City - 8 times.
Chicago - 8 times.
farmette - 6 times (if I count this year).
Warsaw - 5 times.
Polish village in the middle of nowhere -- 4.
Polish Tatra mountains - 3.
Florida - 3.
Paris - 2.
Finally, somewhere in Vermont, Pittsburgh, Taxco, Istanbul, Seville and Bayfield Wisconsin -- all come in at 1 each.

It's an interesting exercise: the concentration of Madison Eves reflects the stay at home years when the kids were small and money was tighter than tight. If I'm still kicking in a decade or two, the farmette years will forge ahead, toward the top of the list. I am glued to the little yellow house on the three acres of land just outside Madison as we flip the page to a New Year. I do not want to be anywhere else tonight.






Still, it's not an insignificant day for me. You may like to party, or watch movies late into the night. Perhaps you gather with friends. Or you're one of those who loves crowds. All good! But me -- I like to revel quietly. 2018 was so full of goodness: two children were born, no one was very sick, no one died. I am nothing but joyous at the recollections!

Eventually, I'll cook something very simple but very special for the two of us here, at the farmette. We'll watch a movie. One of us will doze off. The other will give a nudge at midnight. Happy New Year indeed!


But first, the morning chores.






And the lovely breakfast routines.






And then I hop out to my daughter's home, to help with the taking down of their Christmas tree.


(One last ring of a holiday bell...)






(That's just so funny!)






As I swing by the grocery store on my way home, the rain changes to snow. We all rush between cars and store to avoid the wettest of wet flakes. I smile as a dad hurries his two little girls indoors. He glares at me -- what, you think this is funny?! Clearly he is not having a good day!

At the farmette, the landscape is turning into something very pretty indeed!





Time to throw in those wee lobster tails into a pot, to roast some potatoes and steam the corn. May 2019 bring us all many reasons to smile, to feel grateful, to feel loved!

Happy New Year!

sunshine!

I have always loved our Upper Midwest winter sunshine. Melting snow (what little we have) drips from your roof, hens plod their way through slushy terrain. Delicate light that fills your house with a warm glow.

We wake up to this sunshine. It's a late morning for us, compensating for a late night, as Ed streamed videos about damaged knees to make me laugh at my own discomfort (for some reason the knee likes to act up at night).

Ed helps with animal care, possibly to keep an eye on my movements. I'm careful today!






Breakfast in the sunny front room!






As we eat our beautifully leisurely meal, I look around Snowdrop's play space. It really needs a good tidying job. Am I up for it?

I have to be. We're starting a new year, Snowdrop's birthday is around the corner (I have ideas for that!) -- the play space begs for an update!

By mid afternoon, I've exhausted my knee's good will. I rest, watching the path of the sun as it moves across the farmette landscape.






The young family arrives for dinner just as darkness sets in. Winter Sunday dinners are always after nightfall.






I make tacos for them. Shrimp tacos, because Ed wont eat beef and Snowdrop prefers shrimp to any meat out there. Well, perhaps bacon and prosciutto are equally high on her list, but I just don't think those are a good fit with a taco shell. (Yes, I do the shell rather than the tortilla. I thought she'd like to crunch her way through dinner. She does.)






So long as our species populates the planet, there will be family dinners -- I'm sure of it. People will gather at the table and forget for a while all the ills of the world, enjoying the food and the warmth of each others presence.






Oh all the things I have done in my life, I would argue that none are more important than cooking meals for the people I love.