Monday - 73rd

Hot weather. That's right, hot. So hot that after coming out to sit on the picnic bench, Snowdrop wilted, in the way that you do when sticky, warm air zaps you of any enthusiasm for movement.

Was it only a week ago that I was missing the comforting rays of a splendid summer sun?

Really hot outside. Our blood hasn't made the heat adjustment yet and so it feels positively like we've entered the tropics. 84F (29C). Uff!

We're quickly moving from the gentle greens of early spring to a full canopy of intense, lush foliage. From nothing, just four or five weeks ago, to this:





It's a stunning transformation.

Breakfast, on the porch, with a very sleepy Ed. But I'm in a hurry! The kids are about to come over.






Oh, here they are!











There is first the catch up play: each child gravitates to whatever they missed in the days away from farmhouse toys.











Eventually, there is the "art room."






But the grip of the great big beautiful and very warm outdoors is powerful. After lunch, Snowdrop wants play outside (equipped with her water bottle a few cheddar bunnies).






And what Snowdrop wants, Sparrow wants. With his own sweet preferences thrown in for good measure. (Lifting a watering can is only half the challenge.)


 


Fortified with a snack..






...We set out on a hike around the farmette lands. The mowed path takes us to the back of the barn and then again to the courtyard.





Well, that was exhausting! Okay, maybe not exhausting, but still, anyone want to retreat to the cool farmhouse, where cold cherries and mango slices await?



After the kids leave, Ed and I set out to Natalie's Greenhouse for one last supplemental purchase (curbside pick up!) of annuals. One more pot for the porch and, too, I pick up all her remaining Mexican lophosphermum. It's a new discovery for me! It's a stunning addition to any pot or basket and guess what: neither the cheepers, the rabbits, the groundhogs nor the bunnies seem to be keen on munching off newly planted little guys.

But I don't return to actual garden work until this evening, when that delicate evening breeze pushed away the heaviness of hot air. Afternoons are meant for siestas! (Dance, our not so feral feral cat...)





Or at least a few minutes of downtime.


Evening. I return to my pots of annuals. Time to feed the bloomers. Time to rub the belly of a cat, to pull a few invasive milkweed shoots, to build some cages for the exploding peonies (next to bloom!).

And dinner? Well, I feel we ought to adhere to something resembling a calendar. On Memorial Day, grills are firing up. We don't eat burgers and we don't have a grill, but we're always happy to brown up some chicken brats on the stove. With sauerkraut and corn.


Hundreds of thousands of Americans are living with heavy hearts this holiday. I wish it weren't so. We can offer so little...

Love, there is always that: love to all who have it harder than us.

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.