with my Chicago girls

It is a day to stay inside. The bitter cold has settled in and we'll have a whole week of temperatures that chill you to the bone. On some of the days, we'll not climb out of negative numbers (Fahrenheit) in Madison (meaning we'll stay well below -18C). To me, that's cold. Is it a question of not being used to something so fierce? We do not often get this frigid. Would I mind it less if it happened more often? A few days ago, I was watching a documentary on the wild horses of Siberia (the Yakut): these animals have adapted to temperatures that regularly reach the -90sF (that's -70C). There was an interview with a family who lives in these same regions. They ride the Yakutian horses and rejoice when the temps rise to -40F (also -40C!).

Chicago, where I am right now, is a tad warmer, but it's surely not good weather for a stroll. Not by a long shot. My granddaughter Primrose (who is my charge today) and I stay put!


(Hungry girl!)






(She's not one to sit still. Tossing all the toys out of the toy basket thrills her!)






Eventually, like any child, she tires. Her nap time is my breakfast time.






On the move again! Primrose can now walk, so long as she can hold on to something.






Little one, can we take a pause? For Spot flip books, she'll take a pause.






But then she eyes something equally enticing: grown up books! (Deliberating on the choices.)






She likes this one! There is a suggestion in her gaze: might we bring this cake to life?






Not today, Primrose. Not today.

Can I interest you in a cracker snack instead?

(Easily mollified.)






I have turned my daytime waking hours over to this splendid young child. I can give her that much (not enough! Chicago is so far!).

But late in the evening, when Primrose is asleep, I turn my attentions to my daughter: she and I go out to dinner (her husband babysits). Call it a birthday meal, call it a rare moment when that now grownup daughter, that supremely busy adult person can be your child again, indulging you and your stories over some very good Basque food, as if we were traveling to those corners of the world once more. And maybe just tonight, we are.

(At the Bar Biscay)





So cold outside! For once, tonight, I don't give it a second thought.

to Chicago

With temperatures plummeting, I suppose it's time to head south! And it is true that Chicago, just 140 miles to the south east of us, has temperatures that are warmer: for example, next Wednesday, Madison is expecting a high of -9F (that's -23C). Chicago will climb all the way to a toasty -4F (-20C).

We are entering a very chilly week. I suppose I could complain: what good is the snow if it's too cold to play in it? On the other hand, I feel a bit like a toy held together right now by staples and glue, so I suppose it's fortuitous that there is no temptation to cavort outside.

Besides, I'm on my way to Chicago.

I was to go for a visit after my usual Snowdrop care after her school day, but it turns out Primrose, my Chicago grandgirl, is just a bit under the weather and so the parents could use earlier help. Off I go, immediately after a rather early breakfast.






Chicago has the snow, too, and underneath it, there is ice. This is what happens when you're just a bit warmer than Wisconsin: stuff melts, then comes the Arctic blast, and now you're stuck with a thick, frozen layer of mush that's solid ice. It wont go away until the next thaw.

Pulling my little case is a challenge. Indeed, getting it down from the L station to that frozen sidewalk is also a challenge, but I look old or feeble or desperate enough that a young man quickly comes to my rescue. I tell him heaven will sprinkle rewards on him one day.

I have my (chunky) new camera with me, but predictably, I'm reluctant to take it out on the walk from the L train to the young family's home. Eh, everyone's seen my Chicago clips in previous posts -- I tell myself. There is just a touch of regret. But just a touch. I'm so focused on keeping warm and not straining any of the metaphorical glue or staples, that taking pictures is right now not a priority.

Of course, seeing Primrose changes that. It's not just that I love the preciousness of my grandchild (no surprise there, we all love the preciousness of our grandkids), but, too, watching her reminds me yet again how beautiful a child's world can be. She is Primrose and in addition she is a window to the simple goodness of life. Eat, play, sleep, love. Watch, listen. Learn to move forward in a complicated world. Do we really need that much more to feel content? And so I reach for my camera in the way that I always do when something important happens. Like breakfast at the farmhouse. Or when a rainbow hued leaning tower of Pisa is about to fall.






Or when she munches victoriously on the rice cracker I hand to her.






Primrose seemed to always have fun when I set the camera (a new one, so it's a test for me!) for  our pseudo-selfies. Turns out she still has fun with them.






Eventually the parents return and the usual joy of a family reunion takes place. Primrose is happy as a lark with her extended network of kin and teachers and important people in her life. But her grin is especially rich with meaning at the end of the day, when she can fold into the arms of her parents. She is ready to tell them all about her day! Not with words yet, but with her own singularly beautiful expressions.





 
After she is asleep, the big people eat, catch up, exhale. I stretch my back. Things are looking good! And yes, I said thank you to the furnace many, many times today!

snow day

Doesn't everyone remember their school snow days? The joy of waking up and not having to get out of bed, not immediately anyway, because there is this great big snowfall and now school is closed?

Madison doesn't often shut down for reasons of snow, but the storm that dumped snow on us came later than expected and stayed later than you'd want if you had to drive your kids to school (or have them stand outside waiting for the bus).

Closed schools aren't necessarily good news for working parents, who then have to come up with clever solutions for childcare. Over at the farmhouse, in the middle of the night, while the snow was quietly but steadily falling, I realized that I had whacked my back out once more. Too much lugging and shoveling. Or, as Ed will point out -- these things happen, sometimes out of the blue and for no good reason. Eventually the back will snap back into its normal functional mode and life will go on. But it takes time. Certainly this morning was a throw away for me. I  was stuck. And lifting anything at all was not possible.

In the end, the young parents juggled the kids while I stayed home and did stretches and all those other things you do to get yourself out of a back spasm. By afternoon, I am 90% back on track. Hoping for 99% by tomorrow. It pays to have a cooperative back.

So what pictures can I offer you? Well, of snow, of course! Farmette snow!

(Ed, returning from feeding the cheepers)






(The farmhouse, under siege...)






Cold, windy, slippery.






I left the shoveling to Ed who claims he takes better care of his back than I do.
You don't stretch yours nearly enough! -- he'll tell me somewhat regularly. And he's right. But I will! Going forward!

Breakfast.






By the afternoon, I get bolder. I even manage to get in the car (thanks, Ed, for clearing it of snow for me!) and head out to pick up my new glasses (I can see you now!) and our supply of CSA spinach!

And here's where I really grow bold (and perhaps just a bit too untethered and disoriented without the kids to anchor my day for me): my spinach pickup is right next door to the zoo. Maybe I could take an easy stroll and see a few animals braving the sudden onset of winter? Snowdrop has been on me to tell her stories about zoo trips (of her favorite pretend characters) during our car rides. I could pick up fodder for those tales!

So I walk over to a well plowed (if slippery) space. There is maybe one other visitor. And a zoo person. And that's it. I ask the zoo person -- where are the penguins? It's their best season!
No, our penguins are the African ones. They wouldn't be out in this weather.
African penguins? There are African penguins??
Well who's out then?
He thinks awhile: Bison. And the tiger!

I looked over at the bison. They seem a little out of their element. Dazed by the absence of a vast expanse of the prairie.

But the tiger! Oh, the tiger is not  going to give up his daily constitutional merely because of the snow and cold. So oddly enough, on this cold and snowy day, you get this addition to my Ocean post:





A handsome fellow, if a bit frightening in his assuredness, as if telling me by his deliberate stride -- I will prevail! I may be in a zoo today, but we aren't done with that discussion yet. (I assured him that his captivity was not my fault and spring would come and things would look better again and then I skedaddled out of there in case he really started to assert himself more forcefully. That fencing didn't look that sturdy to me!)

At home again, all is calm.





Well, mostly calm. I come upon two cats eating out of the cat dish and honestly, I don't think either is Stop Sign, though perhaps they are her closest kin.


Oh, winter in Wisconsin! So full of challenges! But when it snows -- so very beautiful!

noises

Storm warnings, coming at a fast and furious pace lead me to reconfigure the day: why mess with irrelevant errands when the roads are supposed to turn slick and then slicker? Instead, Ed asks (from the warmth of our bedroom) -- want to test your hearing?

If there is a self help video/program/protocol that will assist in anything and everything in a given day, Ed will find it.
Well, he tells me, after having had me listen to a range of frequencies at very low pitches, your left ear's good. Within normal range. Hearing in your right is less than perfect.

I shall, going forward, listen to the finer tones of dialogue with my left.

Before the storm hits hard, I go off to feed the cheepers and he goes out to fix the belly of my car. Some protective piece of aluminum has come loose and the noise it makes when it drags over anything on the road is... disturbing. He comes in, warms up, goes out, comes in, I dust him off of both snow and salt (your car is one big salt mine!) and we sit down to breakfast. It'll do for now. Just don't go over great mounds of snow!

(mr. tough guy next to the kitchen flowers)





You know, he continues, we now have a second, even smaller cat hanging out with Stop Sign. They are both in the garage. Maybe it's her daughter/son.

Two prowling cats? And a hawk? And we still have mice visiting the farmhouse? What's with these animals?! I go out to the garage to set up an additional feeding station.

And then we wait for the skies to open up and for the snows to come down hard.

And of course, somewhere in the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop...

(At the farmhouse, she is thinking about which "vegetables" to cut up for her babies.)






(My culinary suggestions are often rejected...)






Snowstorms are unpredictable. You know one is heading your way, but "your way" is a loose idea and the severity of the storm depends on too many factors that are as yet too hard to pin down. Our own snow event did not come at 1, as had been announced. It did not come at 11, as those same weather people quickly sought to correct. Nor did it come at 3 or 4. It began just as I set out to drive Snowdrop home.

By the time I was back at the farmhouse, we were in the thick of it: the storm had made its way to the farmette lands. All was terribly subdued but for the steadily falling snow.

It is amazing how in winter, a storm can be so quiet.

holiday

When I had picked up Snowdrop at school on Friday, I told her she had before her a three day weekend.
There's no school on Monday, I said.
I know, she replied. Martin Luther King!
Surprised to hear her on this, I asked what she had learned at school about this forthcoming Martin Luther King Jr Day.
She piped up without hesitation -- banks are closed!

Perhaps this was volunteered by one of the kids in class. I don't know that Snowdrop fully knows what a bank is. In any case, I pressed on and did learn that my explanation of the man pretty much did match what she had learned about him in school. I added one additional fact and it turned out to be as significant as all the rest, because yesterday, at the dinner table, she turned to my daughter and said:
Mommy, did you know that Gaga was actually alive when Martin Luther King lived??



Ed and I wake up late today. We'd been working with software snafus in the wee hours of the night, so sprinting out of bed at daybreak would have been painful. Thank goodness that this isn't our usual busy Monday. Not only are we tired, but, too, it's really cold. -11F (-24C) at dawn. These are the Wisconsin winter days where you want to say "thank you" to your furnace every time it comes on to heat your comfy living space.

The cheepers huddle, Stop Sign catches bits of sunshine to keep herself warm.






Did I mention that at least this morning, we have streams of lovely sunshine?






Breakfast, in the south facing front room.





In the afternoon, the kids and their mom come over for a visit. I'm trying out my new camera and liking it quite a lot. It hasn't the price tag nor the bulk of an SLR and importantly, it does a pretty good job at tracking a moving subject even in lower light situations. In other words, it is a much improved small-ish camera over the Sony I had "loved" for so many years. Ed says -- it's not small, it's kind of large. He's right, it's bigger than my (currently malfunctioning) Sony but it is still a compact little thing in my eyes. So far, I am a fan. May it be my friend for a long long time!

(Snowdrop wants to perform fairy magic...)






(And Sparrow? Not unhappy!)






(Oh, that young child's dance! So full of heart!)






Happiness is...






... a pile of Sophie and Mercy books!





When the farmhouse grows quiet, I return to my camera work. I've read that quite a few people leave their beloved brands (Nikon, Cannon, in my case  -- Sony) to take on Fuji and for most of us, it's a huge shift. Fuji does things just that much differently. Not understanding the reasons behind the madness is foolish. Why spend precious (retirement!) resources on something you don't fully know how to use?

So I read. And in the quiet of the winter evening, I take small breaks and pauses and I remind myself about why pictures matter. Why stories, told visually or with the help of words are important.

I don't often read poetry, but  I do have a favorite writer - someone whose poems are as sublime as the best photo you'll ever see of a landscape on a cold winter's day.  Mary Oliver. She died last week and an Ocean friend sent me the lines of one of her poems that I'll reprint here for you. That, followed by a poem about, well, the moon. Can you see how one theme weaves its way into the next? That's life, no? So much that falters, so many punches. And still, if we can find it in ourselves to look out at that moon, at the flowers that bend their faces to her light, well, then maybe we can pause, take a deep breath, eek out a smile and share it with those we love... 

Ocean

by Mary Oliver

I am in love with Ocean
lifting her thousands of white hats
in the chop of the storm,
or lying smooth and blue, the
loveliest bed in the world.
In the personal life, there is

always grief more than enough,
a heart-load for each of us
on the dusty road. I suppose
there is a reason for this, so I will be
patient, acquiescent. But I will live
nowhere except here, by Ocean, trusting
equally in all the blast and welcome
of her sorrowless, salt self.

Patience

by Mary Oliver

What is the good life now? Why,
look here, consider
the moon’s white crescent

rounding, slowly, over the half month to still another
perfect circle —

the shining eye
that lightens the hills,
that lays down the shadows

of the branches of the trees,
the summons the flowers
to open their sleepy faces and look up

into the heavens.
I used to hurry everywhere,
and leaped over the running creaks.

There wasn’t
time enough for all the wonderful things
I could think of to do

in a single day.  Patience
comes to the bones
before it takes root in the heart

as another good idea.
I say this
as I stand in the woods

and study the patterns
of the moon shadows,
or stroll down into the waters

that now, late summer, have also
caught the fever, and hardly move
from one eternity to another.

Mary Oliver was beloved by everyone except those who took pride in criticizing her uncomplicated verse. Those critics, they missed the point, didn't they? In simplicity lie the more complicated and profoundly beautiful truths. At least, that is my belief.

dazzled

It was one of those white winter nights: nearly a full moon against a cover of snow. You could read a book by its dazzling light!






Of course, it was bitter cold. And it remaines cold all day today. I may have been tempted to stay under a quilt for a long time, but Ed had a nibble on his Craigslist "for sale" posting and the guy was supposed to come over to look at said item, so rather reluctantly, I throw back the covers and go downstairs to fix breakfast. In sunshine!






What Ed had posted was actually a rerun of an ad he had run this past summer. There was only one interested taker then, but he never showed up, and eventually Ed forgot about the whole thing. Until yesterday. He reposted and boom! He has a taker.

How much do you want for it? -- this from a very happy Zach (the taker).
Actually, nothing. When you make stuff out of it, you can give us one of the items. A bowl, or a cheese board... That's Ed's response.

The item up for sale is a tree. Ed had cut down a couple of box elders last summer and noticed then that they had an unusual coloring to it. It struck him as artistically significant. Something a wood worker would appreciate. He had sawed the trees into logs large enough to work with, but small enough to haul onto a truck.

Zach was bedazzled by this find. He wanted to take at least some of the logs home right away and so the two of them set to work in 0F (-18C), to load the logs onto the truck.





Hey, at least it's sunny!





After several loads, Zach bails. I'll return for the rest another time! 
You sure? This from the big old guy who may sleep away good chunks of the day, but when put to the test -- has the stamina of a marathon man.

That sunshine -- it can push aside thoughts of how really cold it is. It lures you outside. Ed asks me -- do you want to go skiing? We glance at the thermometer (3F, or -16C) and he answers for me, for the both of us -- maybe it's too cold to fuss with skis.
I suggest a walk. He picks the Arboretum. We head out.






And in fact, you could fool yourself into thinking that it's not so bad! If you walk in the direction of the sun, you begin to feel energized and strong. Full of Vitamin D again!






We don't push it though. I'm just reemerging from couch hibernation.






And Ed? Well, you never know if he is emerging or just testing the waters of a new normal. For all the predictability in our day to day, my once occasional travel companion and now stay forever in the farmhouse guy is in some ways very unpredictable.


In the evening, the young family is here for dinner. Mom just got back from her trip, dad surely is happy to share the load. Forget the bugs, viruses, pesky winter aggravations! The kids are thriving. Life is so good.

(Mommy's lap!)






(my, what a funny chinny chin chin you have....)






(if you sit at a table together, all's good with this world...)






(Snowdrop will tell you so...)






Late. So late. Did you know that there was a Super Blood Moon eclipse tonight? It would be a good time to test a new camera. But it's cold! So very cold! Still, imagine, a moon so bright, so orange, so beautiful, moving into a crescent shape before your eyes!

I take a picture of it with my Fuji camera. I'm not even sure if I used the proper settings. The camera is new, the technology is unfamiliar. Indeed, Ed and I spend fifty hours trying to understand the software that would allow me to download the picture into my photo folder. At midnight, we are laughing too hard at the impossibility of this small task. No dazzling moon photo for you today. Who knows, maybe in a day, a month, a year, we will have figured it out!

P. S. Sometime after midnight, Ed and I have a breakthrough moment and finally, as if finally liberated, the photos from the new Fuji begin to download into my Lightroom photo work space. I go outside to try a new camera setting. By now, the moon is fully in the process of cycling through its eclipse. I could not possibly capture that bit of dazzling magic with my little lens, but I'll at least post this much -- a moon that a few minutes ago was brilliantly full, suddenly appearing as just a sliver of its former self. Click. Download. Crop. Post. Magic!





And now -- goodnight!

January days

In many ways, having a January birthday is a good thing: when winter seems long and holiday merriment has fizzled, you have this day that's all yours to look forward to! If you're Wisconsin's child, you probably have some story of horror to tell -- born on the slickest, coldest day ever! (That was my younger daughter's tale... until Snowdrop was born and then she had competition.) But, too, you are forever at the mercy of nature's grip. Today, for example, a snow storm continues to rage in Chicago where my daughter, the one with a birthday today, lives. You learn to shrug your shoulders and say -- see what I have to put up with? -- and then continue with your celebrations.

May your celebrations be joyful and grand, little girl of mine! And save some merriment for when I next see you in the windy city! (Soon!)

Here, at the farmette, the big snow all fell last night. It wasn't a monster snow, but enough for Ed to take out the power blower today. I shovel the little paths, he goes after the grand stuff, including the rather long driveway.

But before we start in on snow removal, I head out to the barn to check on the cheepers. They are, of course, all locked up still. And somewhat huddled. The imprint of losing one to a predator stays with the survivors for a while, we've learnt. Too, it's cold out there!

I fill their dishes, check on the water and then turn my attention to snow matters. (So pretty in the early morning light!)






I have an unusual day before me. First of all, Ed volunteers, on his own, to go to the clinic to check on his hearing (which has sort of disappeared in some significant fashion in the last few weeks). Now, you'd think this was a real about face for him: a visit to the clinic! But it isn't really. It's almost a preventive step to keep his hearing in tact. You go in, your ear gets examined, you leave with instructions. It tells you nothing abut the state of your health. (Which, again, is perfect, according to him.) I volunteer to drive him over and so after breakfast...






... we set out. It's a tricky juggling act, because I am also on my way to see Snowdrop (assuming, correctly, that Sparrow is napping). Their mom is out of town and I want to give the dad a break from watching the two kids round the clock for several days now.

(bath time, play time, and outdoor time -- we can fit it all!)
















As I tell her I have to go retrieve Ed, she asks if she can go to lunch with us. Where? The farmhouse! What? Pancakes! And why not....






Afterward, Ed rests, she and I continue to play.


 


It's good to spend this quiet time with her at the farmette. She is still not 100% out of the woods with a hovering bug and we can slow down and read (and read and read) when she shows signs of wearing out.

The sun is lovely... oh so good to have its splendid brightness in her play spaces!






In the late afternoon I drive Snowdrop home...


(hey! Sparrow is up! How are you, little guy? Happy? I'm not surprised!)


 



... and I think about how clever we, humans have been in creating warm spaces for ourselves in these coldest months. How resilient and forward looking. How nonchalant now in the face of raging storms and plummeting temperatures. I look around me and see nothing but pretty, nonthreatening winter landscapes. It really is a beautiful day, birthday, winter day, January 19th kind of day here in our wintry Upper Midwest!

(farmette at midday)