Tuesday - 242nd

I had half hoped for a peaceful transition: from the strange almost summer like weather of the past week, to the usual settling in of what should come now -- winter. No such thing. A violent storm erupted in the afternoon and for a while we were smack in the middle of a tornado watch. I had never before heard of a tornado watch in November.

Typically, this is a transition month in the upper Midwest. We use it to push away thoughts of gardens and growing things and color and light and accept the reality of winter. But this year, of course, we were tricked. Promises of endless sunshine and balmy breezes, enough to make you believe that winter is unnecessary. That maybe we can get away without it. We deserve a break, no? 

No. Wisconsin has four seasons and cheating your way until summer gives superficial pleasure, but if it lasts too long, that disturbance ripples through the natural world in ways that cause more harm than good.

 

It's not quite November cold today, but we're moving in that direction. 

 

 

 

(A quick morning walk in a light drizzle. The five cats look like they're ganging up on poor old Tomato, but it's just not so. The cats and cheepers all give each other plenty of space.)

Still, we manage to carve out a porch breakfast one last time.

And the rains pause long enough for me to climb out on the porch roof once more, to sweep away the maple leaves that would mound on top if left alone through the rains and the snows that are sure to come. (The roof is at its loveliest if it is cleared of spring pollen, fall leaves, and deep winter snows, though of course, you can do nothing and it will still carry on, like a brave if battered soldier, never for a minute giving up the good fight against the elements.)

And then we settle in and take up our various indoor tasks, waiting for the storms to pass and for the cooler air to take over in the next day or two.

Of course, my step tally suffers. I'd managed to maintain my "10 thou" daily goal since October 1st (is this a brag? I suppose so. Sorry!), but dismal wet days do nothing for my count. It's back to the treadmill. With my kindle. I can handle that!

In the evening I cook up a pot of soup. My CSA brought in bunches of kale and I have enough onions to last me nearly all winter. Add some other veggies and Cannellini beans, squirt a lemon, sprinkle with grated Parmesan and you've got yourself a warm meal! With a salad, because, well, that's our other habit: always the salad, these days with the radishes and carrots and cukes and avocado that inevitably crowd the veggies drawers of our fridge.

As the soup simmers, I have this very welcome interlude! (Primrose, too, is eating soup. With a sandwich.)

Storms do pass. They always do. You're grateful when there's no damage, when you come out of it all head still on shoulders, house still standing.

Then you pop that corn, light that candle and... well, you know the rest.

With love...

Monday - 241th

Narcissus Baby Boomer, Tulip Pink Impression, Snowdrops. The remaining bulbs for planting. Two dozen Dutch Master daffodils still to arrive, but I think I can handle putting in that amount, even in freezing weather. And we will get freezing weather. Just not today.

I can give you some numbers which would impress you about how rare it is to have five November days in a row where the temperature climbs above 70F (21C), but I'm sure you get it even without the data: Wisconsin doesn't do this kind of stuff. November is typically bone chilling and drab. This year, we were being soothed. Our spirits needed a boost. We surely got it with our brilliant string of warm days.

Good morning, farmette lands!

Probably the last porch breakfast. We linger for an extra long time.

We have a grocery delivery then and it still takes me about an hour to wash stash and sort through foods that come in, but immediately after, Ed and I head out for a hike along our favorite trail in the local county park up the road. 

Bare trees never looked so grand!

 

Yes, shorts and a t-shirt weather. I could have gotten away with that as well, though I'm too attached to pants that I suppose could be called lounge wear, with a touch of stretch. Worn all my waking hours.

Back in time to put in my bulbs. The cheepers try hard to undermine my effort (they scratch up all places where I plant the bulbs), but I fend them off with bread crumbs. I think about spring and how beautiful it's likely to be.

In the afternoon, I drive over to my daughter's, where I have a last warm weather meet up (outdoors, distanced, with masks) with Snowdrop.

(the fruit of the season: the pear) 

The girl has her own clothes style these days: tucked it everything! And oh my, can she swing herself high!

 

 

Drive home at sunset: bare trees are stealing the show!

 

 

Or maybe it's that we're having spectacular sunsets lately?

So grateful for a whole string of uplifting days. So very very grateful.

Sunday - 240th

I imagine this is what November would be like if we lived, say, in Georgia. Warm, but not hot, plenty of sunshine. We're getting an insight into southern living without having to travel. Yes, once again, we're in for a beautiful day. Slated to climb up to 74F (23C) -- an unheard of reading for this date. Our average high is in the 40sF. Do the math -- we're off by some thirty degrees.

(A very pleasant morning walk, checking on the animals, then assessing what needs to be done out in the flower fields.)

Cold October nights did away with the last blooms. But you can still find secret survivors!

(Breakfast, with a couple of cats, on the porch.)

Whatever work I do in the garden now can be subtracted from my tasks come next spring. But one can't be overzealous. Some texture in the flower beds needs to remain in place for the winter. I snip away, but without drive, without great ambition. Just a little in each bed.

(And the sun plays on the last pockets of color, such as the peach tree with its golden leaves...)

 

In the afternoon, Ed and I search for nearby places to hike. Someplace where there aren't hunters with guns or bows and arrows. We try out Camrock Park, perhaps a half hour's drive to the east. I don't remember ever walking there, but of course, today any place is going to look stunning.

The trails aren't empty, and if it were up to me, I'd slap masks on most everyone we pass, but still, it's a sweet little walk.

And on the drive home: that fabulous Wisconsin sky.

As is now my routine, toward evening I cook up a dinner for the young family.

(Knock knock! Foods's at your doorstep!)

 

(The masked bandits!)

 

 

I cannot emphasize enough how peaceful the world had become for us here, at the farmhouse. The tumult, the counting, waiting, to say nothing of the even longer period of waiting as the campaigns unfolded -- it all ended this week. 

I'll light a candle, Ed will pop corn -- an evening seemingly like so many others. But not at all like the others. Not even close. 

Saturday - 239th

What a day! Unforgettable! And that's an understatement. The weather, the election, the kids, their families, the walks, the sunset. All stunning.

It's very late. I have many photos to sort through and they're important. They include the young family whom I haven't seen since... July.

Today was all about meeting up in the new reality of the pandemic. I was up early, I fed the animals, Ed came down for breakfast...

 

... and then I drove down to Raven Glen, a forest preserve just south of the Wisconsin - Illinois border. Illinois residents cannot travel to Wisconsin without having to quarantine afterwards, but I surely can go there for an outdoor, distanced, masked meetup with the younger family. A couple of hours in the car and I am with them again.

(On the drive down, I hear the election call. Calm restored!)

The rest of the day can be told in photos. Lots of them, because I see the little girl so rarely now! She should command today's space on Ocean. And she does.

 (A game of soccer...)

 

 

 

(The hike)

(The lake)

(The picnic)

 

(A day of unicorns...)

 

(And eventually, of distanced hugs)

 

(Last wave good bye...)

Sigh...

Typically, I spend Saturday afternoons reading outside with Snowdrop, but today I arrive late and only for a few minutes...

(A good zoom lens is my photographic best friend these days... No mask required for the minutes that we are outdoors, some twenty feet apart)

 

 

 (Anything closer and the mask goes on...)

 

(It's late and so I only stay a short while. Long enough to give my eager listeners an account of how Primrose is faring...)

  

By the time I drive home, the sun has almost set.

 

 

 

Still, as I pull in, I find an Ed, ready for an early evening walk. To count steps, sure, but mostly to review everything. To exhale, with gratitude for this most beautiful day. 

With love...

Friday - 238th

We listened, we watched, we did our own number crunching until 3 a.m., when it seemed no longer necessary to do so. Up at 7, looking elsewhere on the election map to crunch some more and then it was no longer necessary to do that either. But of course, by then, it was time to be up, with the animals, with the sunshine.

 

 With breakfast on the porch. 

So much will be said and written about the elections! I wont add anything to that discussion here. We survived, us two! And you did too, I hope. One big exhale and a return to calm. We so do love calm. What, you say it's not over? For us, it's over. Now please, can we get on with solving the mega problems that have overtaken our lives? We'll celebrate when we've made inroads. But no wine glass raised by our next president. He shares this with the current occupant of the White House: both claim they have never had a potent drink in their lives.

Excuse me while I get up and pour myself a glass of wine and digest that trivial fact.

Returning to my day now, let me just say that, despite the lack of sleep and the tiredness that follows nights like the ones I've been having, I did manage to work outside for most of the daylight hours, digging upwards of 100 holes to plant spring bulbs and move perennials around.

It was evening before I put the shovel down.

I will still have some planting to do next week. And clipping, if I feel like it. But the garden is almost winter ready. These drop dead gorgeous days have made outside work a total joy. It clears the mind and repairs any tears in the soul. You emerge satisfied and content. 

Tomorrow is another beautiful day. Unbelievable! So many in a row! I promise, I'll do something new and different with it!

Until then, with love...

Thursday - 237th

It's like we are stuck: weather's great, there are no election results, Covid stubbornly keeps up the climb to record numbers. In other words, Tuesday looks like Wednesday looks like Thursday.

The world has plenty of very patient people in it. I am not one of them. If I can avoid a passive wait, I will.  I tend to rush to fix problems and get rid of nuisances. I switch courses, I try something new, I'll cajole, I'll compromise, all with the hope of moving on.

But, my hands are tied. Can't change anything, can't move away from the impasse. These are not easy days for the non-waiters among us!

But hey, the weather! We're setting records! Warmest November 5th here ever. 72F (22C). How can you not love a November day that is as warm as the first day of summer?

I don't take many photos. I'm breaking in a camera slowly and the old one is feeling a little funky these days.  Besides, we are in our trance, our waiting bubble and so photography takes a back seat to... waiting.

Over breakfast, on the porch...

 

Afterwards, we return to our path building. Out front, by the entrance to the farmhouse, where the yellow maple leaves are as pretty as a field of daffodils. Well, almost.

And I do start in on my annual bulb planting! Most have arrived by now. In go the English bluebells, the Fosteriana and Aveyron tulips (please, animals, stay away from them!), the Erlicheer and Butterfly daffodils. Tomorrow, I'll do the rest -- a massive digging in of more daffodils, more tulips, snowdrops, crocuses and allium. 

 (Ed, shouting out updates...)

 

 

By late afternoon, I put away my shovel and my garden gloves and return to our living room cocoon, where Ed and I patiently wait.

Wednesday - 236th

When did night end and the day begin? And while I'm at it, when did the day end and sleep take hold? 

It's been a confusing set of hours. Many of us kept an eye on election results late into the night, or into early morning, going strong until we just gave up, because sleep is too powerful to fend off, except then night turned into morning light and suddenly we're all wide awake, wanting to know what happened?!

Dare I say this -- none of the past 24 hours was out of the blue, unexpected. Not the trickling results, not the waiting at night and waiting again today (and maybe the next day), not the tiredness on the day after. Like an ordinary election moment.

Even though, of course, it was anything but ordinary.

And here is something else that is unusual to the core: we have another splendid day of sunshine and warmth before us. How can the weather be this un-Novemberish!

I'll take it!

Morning walk, half awake, sort of...

 

(Dance follows me...)

And breakfast, again on the porch, just because we can!

 

And then Ed and I go out to work together on the project of building a quirky path toward the new farmhouse front entrance. It's Ed's idea and our joint execution.

 

We'll finish it tomorrow because guess what -- we are to be given another sublime day of good, very good weather!

This afternoon, Ed returns to his Wednesday night biking (in November, in Wisconsin!) and I take a short walk, thinking calm thoughts, wondering if we really are entering a new era of less in your face politics, or if we haven't yet reached our fill...

I'm hoping that it's the former.

(Dance, still playing the dog, as she follows me.  From back to front, then back again...)

 

Supper, at home, with a candle burning, and a smile on my face.

With love.