Sunday - 72nd

The days can surprise us. And they do surprise us. You think: storms and rain. You get: partly cloudy skies and lovely, warm temperatures. A high of 82F (nearly 28C)!

Ed says -- close the windows! Let's keep it cool inside! 
We've barely kept the furnace from coming on and already he wants to keep the heat out? What is with people and temperature control?!
Don't you ever believe in fresh air?
It's nice to come back to a cool house.

I should be more empathetic. He has been working solo on finishing up the tomato planting. This, after baking a batch of cookies. He is hot. Me, I've been house cleaning and lawn mowing (more accurately -- mowing a path through the tall grasses). And I love this late spring air!

(Morning stroll to get the animals to their feeding stations...)






I open the windows surreptitiously. I have enough Polishness in me to understand that fresh air in the house is the best way to chase away winter horrors out of your home.

Breakfast on the porch of course. We talk about butter.






Ed had been meaning to bake cookies yesterday. He had left out a stick of butter. He did not bake yesterday and in the middle of the night, I reminded him of the butter. I said -- don't use it if it's rancid.

Hours of internet research followed. Turns out, of course, that butter does well outside of your fridge, especially if it's covered. For several days, in fact. There is no health concern. And there is a wealth of information about how you can improve the taste of butter by "aging" it in this way. Ed is always eager to share any wealth of information on a topic where I have taken a conservative (freshness wise) stance. And so we talk about the aging of butter. (To concerned future houseguests: we do not intend to age butter. We speak in hypotheticals. But did you know, for instance, that properly aged butter tastes like a wonderful combination of parmesan, blue cheese, and baby vomit? It's all a matter of light and oxygen exposure.)



In the evening, the young family is here for dinner. And on a day like this, no one wants to stay inside.






No one.





















Dinner on the porch!











It feels like summer today. How quickly we scooted from looking out on a wintry mix, to rolling up the pants and putting away any and all sweaters!

(They both want to watch Ed plant tomatoes late into the evening...)







(A final hug on the picnic bench...)





They leave, I retreat to the farmhouse.


... Always remembering that not everyone had the luck on this day of quiet skies overhead, of good food on the table, of family -- whether close by or far away. Thinking of this, of peaceful farmhouse days and nights, of time, of age, of luck, of love.

Good night all. Sleep well.

Saturday - 71st

Well, that's it for hiking for us. For me. At least -- hiking in our local county park up the road. This year. Especially when I have my phone in my pocket and issues on my mind. Skip the trails through the prairie and into the woods. I'll get my exercise walking up and down the emergent development to the west, north and east of farmette lands, like the good urban sprawl gods intended.


It was an early day. I saw a sliver of sunshine when I woke up and since that sunshine is as precious as toilet paper right now, I decided to zip outside while the going's good.






A pretty day indeed! But it is the beginning of the end of the crab blooms. I see the dusting of white petals on the ground. We'll lose the flowers in a a handful of days, especially if the storms and rains mess with us tonight. So, enjoy this feast today, for tomorrow it may be nearly over.

(In its full glory...)






(Though I like it best, at the edge, where it creates a tunnel of white flowers over the path to the barn...)






(The lilac still has a few more good days ahead of her. Clipping the spent buds last year helped. There is a dense canopy of purple this year!)






Breakfast is on the porch. However messy the day gets, it at least stays pleasantly warm.






Then things get tricky. Ed wants to make progress on the tomatoes. He's still discouraged (the soil did not improve overnight and some audacious animal has actually decapitated at least three planted tomatoes), but we have these cups of healthy seedlings and they need a more permanent solution. Me, I want my walk. But there are issues. First, cat issues. Calico and Cutie had run away from the teenagers and their return today has me scurrying to feed them. Ed distracts the big cats and the cheepers.  When she sees the commotion, Calico, in her usual fearful way, runs all the way up the huge willow and now is crying her head off, because she cannot get down.






Ed says she will eventually make it on her own, but we can't stave off the other animals forever and so I slowly coax her down, showing her the best path. She cries the whole time, but does manage to get to the dish before the invasion of the other beasts.

Okay. I drive off to the park. The small parking lot is full. I go to the big one, meant for cars with boat hauls. Good enough. I head out on the trail.






It's lovely of course, though I'm seeing baby mosquitoes. And I'm seeing other hikers. Not a lot by any means, but in the woods the path is narrow and just ahead, there are children who tend not to walk in a straight line. I turn back. Good bye narrow forest path. See you when this is all over.





Add to my social distancing woes, there's the matter of my phone: it's ringing. And so I lose myself for an hour of calls and follow up calls concerning my mom and courses of treatment for back issues. There is a lot to discuss with her, with docs, with the world. It takes time. My hike consists of pacing the parking lot, phone in hand. As I finally get in the car, I see a note stuck to my windshield. It's a whole page of printed reprimands for parking in the area apparently reserved for cars with boats. Even though there are plenty of spaces, someone felt compelled to write out a volume on this subject. And I have to leave it there under the windshield wipers, because I'm thinking the person was probably angry and possibly contaminated with CoVid and perhaps thought that leaving a virus packed note would serve me right.

Oh, and to fully seal the deal for me -- I carry home a tick. Which I do not notice until I feel its crawly little paws on my neck. (At the farmette, the cheepers seem to have sunk the tick population to historic lows. We've not brought in any ticks for years. We love our cheepers!)

Well, no matter. I wont rush to the park again.

Next stop -- pick up my CSA box. The phone is ringing again. And again. I can't do phone and veggie pick up at the same time. I need to glove my hands and not touch stuff. I need to unpack the box. I need to check off lists. I need to concentrate!

So I park once more in a lot, focus on the phone discussions and eventually (well, much much later), I pick up our veggies.

And they are lovely today! Finally! That early spring stuff -- interesting that it was -- is behind me. Every single item in today's box is fun to work with! Lettuce heads. Baby arugula. Green garlic. Baby spinach. Sorrel. Two types of radishes. Asparagus. Chives (okay, I dont need chives... I have my own). And a big bag of sautee mix. I mean -- heaven!






And a bonus six-pack of herbs to plant in the garden. Double heaven.

Ed continues to work with the tomatoes and I want to help him, really I do, but I need a recovery moment. I need lotion on my over-washed hands. I need a pause on the porch. Fine, I give him a quick assist...










... and then to the porch!

Just as the rains come down. And this is no small drizzle. There is thunder, there is a tornado watch, there is drama in the skies!






I don't linger. Time to retreat inside.

Ah well, there is a certain beauty to the lilac after a heavy rain. It becomes like a bulging wisteria, with blooms drooping under the weight of petals and water.


 



(It's also a reminder that I'll need to do a heavy prune after the flowers are done, or else the blooms will grow to be far above eye level in years to come. Lilacs can get very very tall.)






Dinner is early. Rain makes me hungry! I reheat for last week's green soup, but with it I make up a salad of all the wonderful fresh greens. Ed boils a few cheeper eggs. We're are set.

It truly is the season of greens. Many stunning eye popping shades of greens.






But just to be different, I'll end with orange. There are very few early spring perennials that bloom in shades of orange. This is one of them.





With love.

Friday - 70th

Well, I think we are all keeping soap companies afloat! Or even making them the modern superstars, as necessary to our existence as electricity and indoor plumbing. I am so grateful to Meyers Honeysuckle scented hand soap for making my life pleasantly fragrant forty or fifty times a day (I'm also grateful for electricity and indoor plumbing).

Note that I did not start the post with a review of the weather. That's because it's cloudy once again and yes, there was rain, and yet it's all tame compared to what's coming tomorrow and indeed all next week. (Storms.)

So, forget about the weather. Let's find some beauty in the garden even on a cloudy day. It's not hard.






Ed agrees to breakfast on the porch. He knows how much I love it. Still, I do miss the morning dapple of sunlight on his face...





The morning -- well, there's the food sorting and washing, but you don't want to hear about that. All household tasks are completed by noon, leaving me with an hour or so of leisure time.

Which I waste.

I do remember wanting so much to go for a walk today (especially since we are in for some more wet weather going forward), but the idea of doing nothing so appeals to me (do you ever get that craving? To do not much of anything?), that I make up many (credible!) excuses to abandon the walk and stay indoors.  After all, everything is so wet! And one hour -- that surely is too little time! I pluck a few weeds, take a few photos...






(I think I know every single flower I ever planted. But this one escapes me. What is it??)










... and return to a handful of minutes of doing nothing. Dolce far niente. Sweet doing nothing... So lovely!


In the afternoon, Snowdrop is at the farmhouse.







All smiles and full of her own plans on how to fill the time.






We do read a lot. She wants to return to chapter books. We go through one at a single sitting.


On the way back to the car, we pause to take in the now very profound scent of lilac. It's everywhere! I encourage her to pick a flower clump to take home...






... home, where Sparrow waits to see what his sister is up to.






And at the farmette, Ed returns to the tomato planting... The sun comes out for just a  very brief handful of minutes. The cats keep him company.






Me, I get that sweet FaceTime call from Primrose!






And the lilac blooms and the birds sing their warbly tunes...






The day ends quietly. Leftover frittata, asparagus on the side, a glass of Burgundy white. Our new British crime drama of choice, DCI Banks is now into the second season and I do believe there is an emerging love interest, which thrills me and makes Ed roll his eyes.

We laugh loudly at the comedy show that follows. This is a new thing for both of us: mirth is no longer a small chuckle, it's a bellow! Try it if you can. It feels good!

May we weather the storms before us and come out healthy and happy at the end of it all!

With love.

Thursday - 69th

A friend asked me today -- do I always wake up in a good mood? Don't I occasionally feel pissed at the world?

The thing is -- I do typically wake up in a good mood and I rarely feel pissed at the world (though upon occasion, I do fume at individuals in it). Oh sure, at times of crises, the day gets complicated very quickly and I can't say that I remain happy throughout. But those are extreme days. I rarely have them.

You'll challenge me, telling me it's fake, I'm pretending, it's an act. Call it that if you wish. I do know that it's deliberate. I've been at it for a long, long time. And if I understand yesterday's NPR story correctly, where a scientist talked of her research on optimism, some people are predisposed to it and some (not all, but a good many) can get to that same state by training themselves to reject ideas of infinite and inevitable calamity and accept, instead, the notion that this too shall pass and indeed, you do have some control over a better outcome.

So here we go -- morning at the farmette and as usual, I begin the day in my hope-filled mood. (And aside from those dismal moments spent reading news reports and then reviewing them with Ed, whose optimistic bone sometimes can appear to be very well hidden, I stay with hope and of course, with hope comes good cheer.)

Breakfast.






And soon after, Snowdrop and Sparrow are here. Their dad drops them off. Both kids are in high spirits.






A brief chat with Happy, the rooster.






This whole cheeper exchange just tickles the little guy no end.






Inside, Snowdrop initiates a pillow fight with Ed. At least I think it's she who initiates it.






There is a numbers puzzle that I uncover and bring out. Sort of easy, even for him. But Snowdrop surprises me by showing how high you can make the numbers go by joining them together. And if you turn 8 sideways, you've got infinity!






I notice that Sparrow's hair is rather long, so we play this game. He brings me a book, I'm allowed to trim a side of his hair. And then he brings me another book. I trim some more.






And eventually, they do art.






And there's more. Outside again, the kids indulge me. Go by the crab apple! I tell them. They do so and wait to see what's next.






Can I have a small branch? -- Snowdrop asks.
Flowers to the nose.
Heaven.

I drive them home with clippings from the crab.






In the late afternoon, I'm back at the farmette, with the lilac, the crab, the garden work.






It's a big day for us: Ed and I think it's warm enough to put the tomatoes in the ground.

The cats and cheepers follow us and observe.  (This is how tall the grass is right now!)










It's not a rewarding job. Ed had covered the field with a black sheet of plastic. Wood chips had been poured in various places. And still, the weed roots are plentiful and the soil is awful. Solid clay. Even with our added improvements (buckets of compost, of chicken manure, of better soil), we see that we're dealing with a tough growing situation.

We only plant some three dozen tomatoes -- a third of what we have. We'll do more tomorrow. But honestly, this may be a poor growing season for the tomatoes. We should have prepped the bed earlier (like last fall) and more thoroughly.

One more glance at the crabs...





And then I retreat to work on dinner. Lots of asparagus, pieces of fish, smothered with dill, lemon, garlic. You could not have a more season-appropriate meal.



So I start the day with that spring in my step. And then I take in all that happens in this world and most of the news is not good and that spring gets a little wobbly. Nonetheless, those of us who are doing nothing more grand than sheltering in place, whose family and friends are well, who still have an income of sorts -- it seems that waking up again, the next day, with renewed energy and a mega bounce is doable. So that becomes the goal. Deliberate optimism.

But the late evening is reserved for quiet contemplation. Because there really is a lot to think about. The quiet of the night is good for this. You're winding down. You have no more work or chores to do. Focus now on the enormity of tasks facing others. So many others...

Sending you and all those countless others who work so hard love.