Sunday

And what did you do to rest and relax this Sunday?

Ed and I took this day in our usual way -- there was overlap and there was divergence.

First, the morning: up really early! I've been trying to avoid sticking close to Ed to lessen the probability that he'll pick up whatever cold I have going right now. I know, that's a ridiculous precaution as we live and breathe in the same environment, but still, when he came up to finish the night, I went down to start the day. Early.

(peek-a-boo!)

(morning has broken...)

I took a stroll to the new orchard meadow. It's still in its early bloom stage but I like the gentle flowers and the tall grasses! 

It's going to be a hot day, but just a touch cooler than this past week. When Ed wakes up to the day, I quickly slam together breakfast before the porch heats up.

And just before noon, we walk, in our local park and the Wild Indigo and Golden Alexander are blooming and the prairie is vibrant with the breeze, swaying as if to a hula dance.

Back at the farmhouse we "part ways:" I start thinking about trips I would still like to take, and he starts researching trips he would like me to take with him, and we haven't any overlap. Not for want of trying! We'll work some more on this. If Congress could agree on the terms for raising the debt ceiling, then surely Ed and I can figure out a place to travel together, no??

In the afternoon, Snowdrop has an end of year violin recital.

(Sparrow, too, is eager to start playing soon!)

And because it is so late in the day, I cannot fix dinner for the young family afterwards and so we do something else instead: we have dinner at the Thristy Goat. I have some trepidation of being with them given my lingering cold, but I have to believe that whatever I have has passed through their house already. We eat outside and though both Ed and Sandpiper are missing at the table, still, it is a very lovely evening.

(All the photos except for the last ones are done by Snowdrop)

Later, much later, Ed and I settle in on the couch and talk some more about trips not taken together. It's a never ending back and forth. Or, maybe someday we will agree on something? Maybe!

Saturday

Somehow I have managed to catch a summer cold. A shame? Well yes, but summer colds are easier to handle in that you are never cold, just sniffly. I blame El Niño! Why not, right? That and the heat wave, which continues into the weekend.

It's early. Ed is awake, I'm awake and so he asks -- want to head out to the farmers market now?

Hold on there! Rushing is not in my calendar for this day! Still, he is correct that going early has us escape both the heat and the crowds. And it's not every week that he wants to tag along. And so I agree. We go as soon as I take care of the animals.

(morning walk)

Okay, done.

As always, I first want to pick up breakfast treats from Madison Sourdough before hitting the market. Yes, there are the croissants, breads and cinnamon rolls. Today I'm also tempted by a blueberry cornmeal cake. I add a slice to the box of treats, just to try it.

(in my opinion, the breads are always the most photogenic!)

And now we're ready for the market.

For me, walking from one stall to the next is a tiny bit social, in that I like to check in with farmers I have known for a very long time. Most importantly though, the market is my chance to shop super seasonally and locally and I always bring back a load of produce. And flowers.

Ed has no expectations, but he's been a resident of the greater Madison area since 1969 and he has done business here for many years and so he has a lot of connections, many of therefrom the days when he designed and manufactured tools for BMW motorcycles. And so inevitably, in big crowds, he will run into people he knows. As he did today.

The problem with this is that Ed has a reputation -- of a good guy, a smart guy, a his-own-person guy. A character. So that, for example, today, when I tell him that he cannot wear these farmette shorts out in public (me: they are over the top wrong! Ed: they're super fashionable; besides, you know I do not care what people think), he shrugs and wears them anyway (so predictable!). And then his guy friends at the market laugh and say things like "I wish I had the courage to do that!" He throws me a "what did I tell ya" look. 

Our walk around the market takes 45 minutes and it is wonderful.  In addition to the flowers, the mushrooms, the asparagus, the carrots (oh, the Snug Haven new carrots!), I find buckwheat honey at the Bee Charmer (it's such an acquired taste!) and I pause to chat with Dave from the Flower Factory. He no longer sells perennials from his greenhouses, but he does come to the market each week for the fun of it, always bringing a nice selection of flowers with him for anyone (like me!) who wants to continue the tradition of stocking her garden with his wonderful plants. I pick up a Salvia.

And we are done by 9:45, just as the heat and crowds begin to intensify, forming a soupy mixture that I am happy to avoid.

Breakfast, on the porch, with the fan blowing air straight at us. The blueberry cornmeal cake is great, though Id probably use less icing were I baking it.

And then we nap!

By noon the force of the flower fields is upon me: I need to give at least some of the plants extra water (yep, it is truly a terrible time to give thought to watering anything). And so I rouse myself and tiptoe out and uncoiled the very very long hose and get to work.

Go ahead, ask me if I had meditative fun, standing there in 94F (34C) degree weather, for four hours, watering imperfectly, while deer flies buzzed around my sniffling head and in swatting at them, I kept hitting my phone and mistakenly bothering my daughter with butt calls! You have to love working with plants to devote this much time and effort to them. For no one really, except maybe Ed, me, my grandkids, and you!

On the upside, while not giving all plants a good soak, I do attend to the desperation out there. Those that really needed it, got it. With moderating temps next week, they all should stay safe until that blasted rain finally reaches us after mid-June.

And, as always, there are the special moments. Some of my flowers can't be seen in the course of my daily walks to the barn and to the car. A whole blooming period may go by and I will have totally missed their beauty. But when, like today, I so minutely attend to the fields, I find them and it is in fact a moment of ecstasy to come across, for instance, these:

Evening supper? Cheeper eggs, market mushrooms, market asparagus, market carrots in a salad. It's a beautiful time to be fixing easy meals here in south-central Wisconsin!

Friday

Gardeners of the world will agree that what we have here today is totally unfair: The brief cloudburst yesterday did not give enough water to the roots of my plants to keep them healthy and strong, but it did provide enough moisture to the top layer of soil to sprout some new weeds. In vast quantities. (So guess what I did immediately after my morning walk to feed the animals?!) Too, I always hope that a thunder shower will clear the air and lower the temperatures. It did. Yesterday. For about an hour. Today, we're in the thick of the heat wave again, with another near record high in the low 90sF (so 33 or 34C) and with no sustained rainfall in sight. I hear El Niño is in part to blame. It's a tough spring season for new plants!

Here, at the farmette, we're still being hounded at night by raccoons. So far we've kept them away from the hens, but it's been dicey over there in the barn. Why this uptick in predators? Maybe it's the new development. Or maybe raccoons are well aware of the quality of Bresse chicken meat! They haven't caught any of the Bresse girls yet, but not for want of trying!

Still, these rural life tribulations notwithstanding, it is a beautiful morning.

(Unie, barely visible, using the path through the newer, the one and only sun-filled flower field!)

(I love this Meadow Rue, though I admit it's lost in the Big Bed. I feel it's more of a meadow flower, or something you'd find in a damp partly shady garden. Still, it comes back with its delicate flowers each June and it takes my breath away!)

With breakfast on the porch. We eat pie. Not my own -- it's from the bakery that gets our donations of rhubarb. Don't you think that strawberry rhubarb pie is a great breakfast indulgence?

I do go for a short walk somewhere around the horribly hot noon hour, just to keep that leg actively engaged, but I'm equally happy to do some work inside the cool old farmhouse. I did a hard pause with weeding when the deer flies came out. They're a June bug that scores high on the annoyance meter. Buzz buzz buzz bite. I dislike them even more than I dislike mosquitoes because they're expert evaders of your futilely waving hand. 

Ed says the flower fields are looking strong, so my weekend watering marathon did help. Let's hope I don't have to repeat it again later this month!

In the afternoon, Snowdrop is here. I ask her if she "cherished" her last Friday of school.

Yes! Best Friday ever! Happiest and saddest, all at the same time! (On top of it all, it was a fun "mismatch day," hence the shoe pairing.)

Later, in the car, she and I talk about how her future may play out. Already Snowdrop feels the nostalgia of a childhood speeding by, as she imagines herself to be soon in Middle School and yes, even High School. I read recently that kids of this generation aren't in a hurry to grow up. I think that's true for her as well: children have fewer worries than adults and she, like so many others, recognizes that, even without having a full understanding of all that adults worry about. Oh, may that joy of the everyday last well into her senior years! I'd wish that for every child who intuitively, at a young age, knows how to be silly and how to smile through all the inevitable disappointments. May those gifts stay forever with them, with her!

(the "secret path" from the driveway to the farmhouse door that the kids love to use and that the adults never use...)

June 1st

I begin the new month feeing technologically at ease! Late yesterday, the Fed Ex gent delivered my replacement smart phone (staring at the black screen of my once trusty phone was so depressing that I finally caved and gave up on the cracked and malfunctioning old one) and, too, my camera, which had been sent to the repair shop in New Jersey. Another software malfunction. I use my camera so extensively that I am used to the occasional breakdown. Fujifilm, my company of choice these years, has a terrific repair service, costing nothing but for the one way mailing fee. I spent the better part of the evening adjusting the camera and transferring data and apps to my new phone and now, this morning, I'm good to go! 

I have not a small amount of amazement on how dependent I am both on my phone and a good working camera. I know people complain about this next generation being glued to the devices. I'm not "glued" to either. I don't find screen time to be exciting or even much fun, but there are functions that the phone has and that the camera can perform that are to me so incredibly helpful that it's hard to imagine that there were days when I traveled and found my way in complicated cities, walked the garden, communicated with my kids, set the temperature in the house, checked the latest weather, identified birdsong, listened to music (etc etc) without the assistance of these two apparatuses. Yes, some will say to tune out of them is to tune in to your own senses. I'm of the mind that they amplify my world and make it a gentler place.

Morning walk, now with beloved camera.

I bake muffins again. Snowdrop asks me every day in the car if I baked something and I've run out of excuses! Besides, she has a haircut appointment today and I promised her a treat at a nearby coffee shop -- without checking first on my phone, which would have revealed that it closes before we can get to it. A muffin will keep her happy.

Breakfast on the porch. I am adding peonies from the garden to the vase because they are just so beautiful and so short lived: I need to prolong our enjoyment of them!

It's another hot day and so Ed and I take a walk on the early side. Before noon. To our park, to check out the prairie, the turtles.

On the one hand, is glorious. The wild indigo is terrific...

There are only two turtles out and about. Maybe the rest are waiting for a stronger sun? Or is the pond already too warm, leading them to move over to the big lake? We do not know.

On the downside, as we take the lakeside path, the stench from the algae is disappointing. We know our beautiful lakes got an earlier than ever algae bloom, but I can't recall it ever being this pungent. We live in a county that has some pretty tough rules about what goes into those waters and I do believe people have cooled their jets with all those lawn chemicals and field fertilizers, but the watershed that ultimately fills these bodies of water runs through predominantly agrarian landscapes, with few restrictions on pasture lands and crop field fertilization. Add to it our spring heatwave and we have trouble. Typically I take Snowdrop to a little beach early in the season. It's fun for her to splash around in lake waters. Not this year. Sigh...

And another disappointment: the Dame's Rocket in the park woodlands is growing out of control. It's such a pretty weed, but it spreads so rapidly that it is a real threat to native plants. I did read this interesting article about eating the leaves of it! This afternoon, Ed will canvass farmette lands and bring in some missed stalks to add to our salads!

In the afternoon I pick up Snowdrop.

In driving between the farmette, her school and the haircut place, I do hit a few clouds that deliver a few raindrops. A cloud passes, there's a little shower, then it's over. Ed later tells me that a bigger cloud passed over the farmette. Indeed, we got hail. And an inch of pounding rain. A tiny patch of heaven for our plant life!

In the course of our car shuttling, we talk about school ending. The last day is next Thursday. That means tomorrow's Friday is the last Friday of second grade for her. "I will cherish it!" -- she tells me.

The haircut is at Bang -- a place I have taken her to since she was a toddler. We have some discussion of how much she wants to cut off. Her hair is so long and the summer is so full of activities that I gently suggest a bigger trim.

She really really really wants to preserve her length. If she's willing to put up with the brushing and care that it requires, then I feel it's her decision. I suggest to the hair stylist two inches. She is satisfied, he is satisfied.

After a short hour at the farmhouse...

... I take her back home. Thursdays evenings offer a chance to catch up a little with her mom. Oh, here come the brothers! 

It's a good beginning to a beautiful month. Did I say May was stunning? Well now, June offers some stiff competition!

Wednesday

I have to note the heat and the lack of rain here, in south-central Wisconsin. Things are looking very dire out there in the agricultural fields and home gardens. People are running sprinklers on their lawns because you know how people are about their need to see perfectly green lawn. [You do not have to remind me that I water my flowers. In my defense, I need to protect the newly planted babies. Still, I gave some full grown plants a boost as well this weekend, so I can't crinkle my nose at the habits of those who get their kicks out of a carpet-green lawn.] Okay, so that's the downside of this week. Hot, dry. Parched earth, thirsty plants.

Now here's my own piece of heavenly news: I took a walk this morning. I'm not talking about the early one, to the barn, to feed the animals. That was brief and nicely cool still.

As was breakfast on the porch. We ate early enough not to be bothered by the rising temperatures.

But afterwards, I decided to give my leg a bigger workout, so I walked over to the new development to case out the place (pausing to swing on the monkey bars for a bit!).

We fought hard to not have the the land to the west, north and east of us developed. We live in the thick of sensitive wetlands. In the end, we lost the war, but won some battles along the way: there are protected green belts and ponds and draining strips to move run off away from the sensitive habitats. A prairie was planted all around us. so from a selfish point of view -- we lucked out. 

And there have been other benefits. I love the countryside, but walking along rural roads is not safe. Suddenly, I have plenty of sidewalks and bike paths, right next door. A playground went up. Squirms likes it, I like it (for the monkey bars).

But all along, I was hoping for one other sugar plum: I was hoping against hope that there would be a commercial space to which I could walk, where I could exchange a friendly greeting, sit down with a beverage and watch the world spin on its axis.

I dont like living in cities, except for this one attribute -- I love cafes that are a hop skip away from your residence. Or cafe-bars, as only the French know how to run them (coffee in the morning, wine thereafter). And country living makes this a pie in the sky kind of thing. In the Polish village where I spent almost all my childhood summers, the nearest place to get an ice cream was a solid 45 minute walk. We did it, but it wasn't a daily thing. In the Connecticut country home where I worked as a nanny for two summers you couldn't walk to anything at all anywhere. Drive a car or die. Yuk. And for all my love of farmette life, I have missed this one delight: the ability to take that walk and to sit down somewhere with a bit of humanity and enjoy the connections it brings, however superficial. Sometimes, one is really in the mood for superficial.

And today, during my neighborhood walk, I ran into someone who was moving into one of the rental spaces and he told me that not only was one building getting a bourbon-wine bar, but the other had rented space to a cafe and bakery. Cafe and bakery?? Am I dreaming?? I timed it -- 15 minutes from the farmette driveway, even at my modest post-surgical pace. Yes!!

You have to wonder why I should have this yearning for a neighborhood coffee spot. I love my own brew at home, I love to drink it on the porch, I can bake, or stock up on bakery treats, so what's the big deal? Why the attachment to something outside the confines of home?

In that space, I get to take note of life as lived by others. I love this time where my world slows down and I look in on something other than my own back yard. I love the familiar nature of a neighborhood place. When I used to pick up a very young Snowdrop in her day care by the lesser lake, she and I would often go for a coffee/cookie at the neighborhood cafe. I knew all the (very slow moving) baristas. I knew how to ask for the right strength of coffee. And now it looks like we may have something moving in right next door to us here, at the farmette. 

I could not be more excited!

(My dreams can be very small.)

In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop and bring her to the farmhouse. Too hot to play outside.

Perfectly cool on the couch with a book.

And in the evening, a cloud passes over the farmette and releases a few minutes of gentle showers. Nothing to make roots happy, but at least it bathes the leaves and comforts the petals. 

And that's a good thing.

Tuesday

If ever you need a reason to keep yourself in good shape, I'll offer this: recoveries from anything -- surgeries, illnesses, you name it -- are going to be less of a slog and a grind for you down the road when stuff starts to fall apart if your muscles and ligaments are in good working order. The caveat is that they'll be better, but they wont be the same as they were when your muscle tone and your immune response was that of a gawky adolescent. I remember when my stomach was cut up back when I was 20. I begged my doc to let me go work on a farm in Finland a month later. He shrugged and said -- sure. I would not say the same if you were 50 years older, but at your age -- go for it!

Well now I'm fifty years older and it's been a month since y knee replacement and I am still slogging along with an ice pack machine and moving around at a small percentage of my previous pace. Nonetheless, Ed reminds me today -- look how good your progress is! And I retort -- but I'm still on the ice machine and the nights are a mess and I'm not doing jumping jacks (or some such nonsense)! 

In other words -- I'm glad that it's all going well, but I can tell by this morning -- I'm not done with naps yet!

It's hot outside. We hit 91F (nearly 33C) on our shady porch. And dry, forever and ever into the future. My flower fields are okay for now, but Ed is up very early to finish planting the tomatoes -- it's too toasty warm to sit out in a sunny field at midday. 

I myself do minimal work outside. A few weeds, water for the tubs, that's it. Indeed, my big activity is a chase around the porch where one of the cats deposited a live chipmunk. My goal was to free the guy, but the cat got to him first and carried him away probably for consumption somewhere away from the mean human that is striving to rid him of his prize.

Breakfast is on the porch. I bring out the fan to cool Ed down after his work in the fields.

(Ed does not get rid of well used clothes!)

And then I work on catch up mail, on a long overdue photo book project, on napping. Inside. Until it's time to pick up Snowdrop.

She has softball practice this evening so our time together isn't long, but as always, it's splendidly lovely.

The girl has taken to loving skirts this spring and though I try to be the kind of grandparent who doesn't care about a child's appearance, it sure is lovely to see her gain confidence in her own style, her choice of colors, her determination to keep her hair "as long as possible!"

In the evening, Ed goes back to his planting, finishing up the great tomato project for now, while I take slow walks in the neighborhood. May and June evenings are so delicious, so refreshingly calm after a hot day! What's there not to love!