Sunday

Who shops early on a Sunday morning? Who is pushing a cart minutes after sunrise? Well, me for one. At least today. I pinned this day as the one where I restock the croissant supply for the week. As long as I have to drive out to the bakery before breakfast (so that I can also pick up a treat for today's morning meal), I might as well use this outing as one where I also grocery shop. And I start with that, because it would be very difficult to first pick up croissants and to then have them in a box next to me as I drive to the grocery store. The temptation to break off a piece of one, or indeed, to chomp the whole thing down would be strong.

But first, the walk to the barn. It's misty cold. Not much to say for it except that the snow is almost completely gone, which is either a good thing (old dirty snow is unattractive) or a bad thing (a barren landscape in February is... unremarkable), depending on your mood.

Then the grocery store. A few dads with very young children who obviously dont care that it's Sunday and are bouncing around as if on a supercharge. Some older people who probably wish they could sleep in late but that ship has sailed and so they grocery shop instead. Me. Admiring fruits and vegetables and feeling so very hungry at the sight of ripe cherries that I nearly snitch one, except I'm feeling antsy about germs and besides, I'm too old to engage in petty theft, or any theft for that matter. (I write this because I do carry the weight of knowing that I had snitched two or maybe even three times a piece of hard candy from a Woolworth candy bin in New York, and an occasional potato from a farmer's potato field in Poland when I was very young and very stupid. I have no idea what lead me to do it. Youthful brain cells not working properly. Thankfully, I did not thereafter embark on a life of crime.)

Shopping done, I drive to the heavenly scents of the bakery.

Needless to say, breakfast is rather late. 

Our walk on this pretty day is also a bit late. But, oh, is it ever nice! True, it's March weather. March bright skies, March breezes, March mud. We dont deserve this in February. Still, you cant help but love it, just a tiny bit, in the way you love sinfully rich cookies even though you know you're not supposed to, because they're not good for you.

Fixing dinner for the family is also a little bit rushed. But ready when they arrive!

(D'Affinois cheese loving kids...)

(Well, Snowdrop prefers a sharp cheddar.)

(Appeased by a photo book and the sudden magical appearance of a Hook's cheddar.)

(Dinner at last)

(Post dinner special: "let's climb all over Ed!")

And afterwards? Well, my free run of Apple TV ended today so we are back to searching for other streaming services that are new for us and that may offer good short term sign on bonuses. In the meantime? I have to say, after years of not caring about the Grammy Awards, I tune in tonight. The elements of pop and folk and the presence of so many female vocalists is, even for this 70 year old, exciting. 

With a chocolate and a snuggle on the couch. What could be better?!

Saturday

Here's a funny thing about food: unless you were born into unfortunate circumstances, with food deprivation and poverty nipping at your heels all your childhood years, chances are high that you have very sweet and warm childhood food recollections. You remember with utter clarity and wistfulness the special baked goods that occasionally made it to your home. You love the scent, the texture of very specific treats, whether baked in your kitchen, or admired in the shop window, or savored at the local cafe or diner. I dont care if it's key lime pie with a glass of milk, or peach cobbler with a wallop of ice cream, or a slice of Sacher torte with hot chocolate, or Polish paczki from your favorite Polish pastry shop -- if you had them in your childhood, even in an otherwise miserable or indifferent childhood, you're going to think back one day and say -- oh, that was so good! I could just taste the flakiness/creaminess/deliciousness of it all!

I feel that way about Polish baked goods -- not ones from my home, since no one baked anything in our kitchen (my grandma baked, but that's a whole 'nother story), but ones from any number of local bakeries. I have exquisite memories of poppy seed cakes, cheese cakes, cream filled pastries, and of course -- of paczki. Polish doughnuts.

In this country, Christians celebrate Fat Tuesday as the day before Ash Wednesday which starts Lent, right? So you go all out in your indulgences on Fat Tuesday, which this year falls on February 12th. Poles give themselves a few more days to go hog wild. They celebrate Fat Thursday, a whole week before Ash Wednesday. Fat Thursday happens to fall on February 8th this year. Thus on this coming Thursday, there will be long lines before bakeries, as Poles stock up on fresh paczki (Polish doughnuts) and faworki (which are sweet fried twists of pastry, sprinkled with powdered sugar). 

I have never found a bakery here that does paczki well. Or at least in the way that would satisfy a Pole. But today, my daughter sent me a link to one in Chicago and I spent a wonderful hour studying its offerings, all the while feeling myself to be in a Proustian trance as I remembered the comforting delicious pastries of my Polish adolescent years.

But first, I did the morning chores...

("who are you callin' "chores?!")

And shared breakfast with our Breakfast Cat (she never comes "to the table" except for breakfast!)...

 

Unfriendly. That's what we initially called her when she appeared in the litter of another stray (remember Stop Sign? The mother cat that brought us nearly all the cats that live now on farmette lands?). She ran away from us, from everything, and everyone. The name stuck. But do you see how stately and regal she is? I swear she has noble blood pulsating in her veins. Too, such perfect posture! And yet, she is an outlier. She has been banished by her sibs from the sheep shed (where five of the cats hang out). Who knows why. She doesn't even try anymore. At the same time, Dance, the grande dame of them all (and her half sib) adores her and her alone. Unfriendly is skittish. She is so skittish! Lift your hand suddenly and she runs! And yet. She fights intruders like no other. Poor Pancake, the newest interloper, has wounds from battles with her. And of course, she loves us. Tentatively, hesitantly, because we're humans and humans terrify her. But she comes in and especially at breakfast time but not only, she purrs with contentment if we rub her cheeks just so.

 

Next: I take Blue Moon to be serviced at the local Subaru dealer.

They were short staffed. It took forever just to check the car in. But, the Subaru service center is not unlike the Trek e-bike service center -- they pride themselves at being "your friend" and doing right by you, so the gracious rep gave me a loaner for the weekend -- same model, the CrossTreck, but a brand new version of it. (My "new" car is now three years old.)

I was stunned at how much had been updated in this newer model. No more nobs. It's all screen now. And on the one hand I'm thinking -- wow, this technology burst is impressive, and on the other hand I'm thinking -- so this is where we put our efforts. Into cars. We could have impressive trains improving on their technology every year. We dont have that. But we do have the cars... Food for thought. Not paczki food, just regular old nourishment...

It's sunny outside. The kind of February day that fills you with energetic joy. We go out and bike. (Do you see that sky??)

I can't say that we leap to it. There is still something magically comfy at home. The sun streams in, the fridge hums. Had we a ticking clock, it would tick rhythmically, we would doze. Well, Ed dozes anyway. Half the time I look up his eyes are closed. 

But we do eventually rouse ourselves and yes, it is beautiful outside. About 40F (nearly 5C), but what a difference a ray of sunshine makes!

Totally splendid to ride those paths and rural roads.

As always, we pause by Lake Waubesa. It's mostly frozen, but if you watch carefully, you see those who tread out far are treading through slush. It seems so unsafe, and yet, there they are...

It amazes me that people can enjoy spending many hours just sitting on ice. I come home from a silly bike ride, with only scant patches of snow to my side, and it takes me a while to get the chill out of my legs. I think of myself as winter hardy, but these fisher people are way in a different league of Wisconsin hardiness.

At home, I think about concocting an aperitivo of Campari (from Milan), Sirene Bitter (from the Lake Garda region), Torino Vermouth, and Prosecco. A Northern Italian sort of Negroni Sbagliato. I earned it, don't you think? Followed by a very full bowl of chili. Winter perfection!

With love...

Our own groundhog...

Our own groundhog? Never showed up for his big moment. Still sleeping, I'm sure. And we're not about to poke him in his abode. Nonetheless, if I can speak on his snoring behalf -- we're getting the spring season soon here. Cloudy as anything out there this morning.

I don't know about you, but for me, a cloudy day always stirs up a craving for a something sweet or yeasty for breakfast. I dig out cinnamon rolls from the freezer. That'll do!

And this is when I remember that too sweet is worse than not sweet enough. Most cinnamon rolls are extravagantly sweet. Why do these things always come to mind after you've done your dastardly deed?

The guilt. Oh, the guilt. 

February is a slow month here on the farmette. This isn't necessarily a bad thing -- savoring a retired day could well be the goal for any of us. Doing so slowly allows you to take gentle steps rather than rushing head first without paying attention to anything at all. Slow eating, slow shifting of priorities. Slow planning, or no planning at all. I have to wonder though -- if you decelerate the pace, does everything, absolutely everything slow down for you? January, February -- they're a crop farmer's resting months, but for those of us who are not farmers and whose physical labor is limited to chasing kids around or planting flowers and fruit trees, do we really need to slow down? And if we do take measured steps now, in the winter, do our minds also slacken? Fall off the treadmill? Turn out thoughts and ideas that just a decade ago we'd have considered... inconsequential, to put it mildly?

So on the one hand, I like the idea of slowing down. On the other, I want to put in spurs, right around mid February. Something to kick me forward at a faster pace. For the physical challenge, but, too for the mental one that is its counterpart. 

The easiest way for me to do this is to hop over to a new destination. Put myself in strange surroundings.  Because a winter slow down, while heavenly, also sounds a warning bell: dont get used to it! Stay sharp, stay focused!

In the afternoon I have my not-very-slow kid pick up. Today's the day I shuffle them off to their various lessons. I think I said "hurry up!" one too many times. Oh well. They are forgiving children.

And in the evening I cook chili. Slowly. With food, slow is always good!

February 1st

Now that January is over and done, with all the good, the interesting, the long, the gray, the adventurous, the wonderful moments that make up each day of that very wintry month, I expect to coast! Yes, I would love more snow. It cannot be that I will have skied only twice this whole winter! (Ed did better, since he skied in the week I was away.) But, too, I would love more of that cornflower sky that February typically brings us. Lily, my Massachusetts artist friend who unfortunately passed away recently, left behind a trail of wisdom and stardust and she always admonished me when I grumbled about February days. Look at the sky, she'd tell me. Just look at that faintly blue sky.

Perhaps in honor of Lily (who also liked to picnic outside on February 1st, every year, no matter what, well into her octogenarian age), February started off for us like this:

The misty blue sky came and went, all day, playing around with a cloud cover, as if in a contest as to who had more might, but I saw enough of the good stuff to remind me that gloomy days are fleeting.

And my basket of tulip bulbs kept on blooming...

As I did my usual read through the various news sources, I had to smile at an article appearing in the NYTimes today. The author suggested that it's worth spending 36 hours in a city that is often passed over by travelers. It was one of those times where in travel, someone out there is following my thought pattern because in fact, it is exactly where I am going soon, and for 36 hours no less! So I spent quite a bit of time thinking about it and reading more about this place that I in fact have never before visited.

The rest of the morning was spent on Zoom. Ed with his bon ami, me with mine.

And the kids came after school, and the sun came out again and the afternoon moved forward as if on autopilot.

There is no guilt to staying indoors on a sunny day. You still feel the same exuberance, the joy of watching the transformation outside from bleak to brilliant, without getting your shoes muddied in the melting slush in the process. 

It was, indeed, a very lovely day for us all.

Wednesday

A day of waiting. Rumor had it that there would be sunshine. Buoyed by this, I planned on picking up Alpine Blue (my e-bike) from the bike shop (some dozen plus miles away, on the other side of town) and riding it home. Ed would tag along for the adventure of it. 

But, the morning began like this:

Breakfast with Ed, still in the gloom of yet another foggy day.

(Hey wait a minute! you're not Ed!)

(that's more like it)

And so we waited. 

We should go anyway. It's warm enough -- this from Ed. He regards 37F (not even 3C) as warm enough. I would agree if the sun would be out. Not so much on a gray morning. Maybe we can have it delivered... There is a slight charge for carting the bike over to your place, but I'm beginning to think it's worth it.

We dawdle and pause and resist. By 11:30 I ask -- what do you think? it's now or never. Google estimates the ride back to be 1 hour and 15 minutes, but it's a complicated routing. Half of it is through the outskirts of Madison, half along snippets of a bike path. I have kids to pick up today and so we have to be back in time for me to head out for them.

Let's do it! Ed's up. Somewhat reluctantly I take a scarf, a jacket, my warmer gloves and we drive over to the bike shop, with Ed's bike on the car rack, so that he can ride back with me.

In fact, by the time I've settled the paper work at the shop (new wheel! updated bike! cleaned up and adjusted! all under warranty), it's just past noon, and the sun does come out in patches. But the wind! No one told me about the wind!

Still, it's a great ride for me, exactly because it is a challenge. My face and hands are icy red, but it is sort of special -- to be biking away on the last day of January. In Wisconsin. They said it would be a warmer winter. They were so right.

 

 

We park our bikes at home, I drive Ed back to the shop so that he can reclaim his car, and from there it's a hop skip to the kids' school. 

 

 

 

One word to describe the two older ones today: absorbed. Sparrow spends the entire afternoon lost in a game with the toys in the playroom. Snowdrop is completely mesmerized by the book we're reading together. She wants nothing else but to make progress with it.

 

 

 

And in the evening I drop them off at the pick up point and here's the thing -- it's just dusk then. The sun barely set, the sky is not yet dark. A month ago, I'd be doing this in inky black light. Today? We are marching straight toward spring.

with love...

Tuesday

I'm not the first who'll say that the best conversations with a kid happen in the car. A captive audience: she has got your attention, you've got hers. Nonetheless, yesterday, we hit the big topics while at the farmhouse. Snowdrop and I had just finished a book that had quite the serious World War II content and she told me that coincidentally, her third grade teacher started in on a book (for reading to the class) that also hit that same topic of the war. She tells me -- I saw a picture of Hitler. Not much one can say to that, except that World War II is a topic I talk about with a sense of not only history, but personal history. At 70, I obviously wasn't a child of the war, but I was a postwar baby in a country utterly destroyed by the Nazis and so I treat the passing down of facts and reflections on that topic seriously. I tell her -- Hitler was such a cruel despot, that when you want to emphasize someone's terrible use of power, you often say he (she) was like Hitler. 

A little later, Snowdrop asks -- was Hitler like the devil?

This stumps me a little. Snowdrop has a very devout friend who has been sharing her church related thoughts and beliefs freely and I don't want to tread on that exchange. So I ask -- you mean, like what we feel the devil stands for? Utter meanness?

Gaga, don't you believe in the devil?

As in a force that propels all of us to do bad things sometimes? That's too whimsical for her. No, like the devil acting for Satan.

So, the devil is just a team player and the Satan is the leader? I figure it's best to ask. Those who have read Like a Swallow certainly know this about me: my religious education is, for better or worse, very... scant.

Yeah, I guess. 

So, he's like at the head of a table and gives orders to devils, who follow through?

She laughs. But she wont give up. "Do you believe in..." is not an infrequent question for her. Well, do you? So I ask back -- you mean, not as a force of evil but as a red figure, maybe with a tail? She laughs again, but she pushes forward -- yeah, sort of. 

No, I tell her. I do not. You know that Ed (she has a nickname for him, but we'll leave that for the files) and I believe in the world that we feel and see before us. Animals, nature, people. As I say this, I sense how imperfect my explanation really is. I mean, we don't see or feel the entirety of the universe and yet, we don't doubt its existence. Lucky break for me -- we are in the car and approaching our drop off point and she is resolutely using my phone to text her parents, firing questions about the devil. Offloaded to parental insight!

I think about how we like to have kids figure things out for themselves, but of course, we can't pretend that they're not listening to what we say to them. And yet, as a grandparent, I watch myself. I'm not the one to shape their worldview in any significant fashion. I can tell them to eat their fruits and veggies and wash their hands after school, I can give them ideas about how to manage sad feelings or school playground dynamics, but I like to stay to the side of big ideas. I'm not the one tucking these kids in bed at night and reassuring them about monsters. I feel I was given a pass yesterday, and yet today, as I get going on my morning chores...

 

... I'm thinking I need to do better in the way I answer some of the trickier existential questions that the kids throw my way. After all, we spend a lot of the time in the car together!

Now, about the morning... Good morning, farmhouse sleeping cats! Ready to go out?

 

 

 

Breakfast. Oh, just fruit today...

Then coffee and sweet stuff with a friend downtown.

And since I am near commercial areas, I go on to shop. I'm on the hunt for stuff that will display my Polishness to little kids. "huh?" -- you ask. More on this toward the end of February.

Okay, Sparrow and Snowdrop pick up time.

Thankfully we stick to smaller topics today, such as whose day was better/worse, who had what friend issues and for what reason. Those aren't easy, but at least an adult response can be straightforward and predictably gentle and guiding. Less tough than discussing Hitler and the devil.

(claiming Ed's computer "just for two minutes")

(secret thoughts written daily in secret journal with secret ink)

In the evening, I exhale. I had so little free time today that I am truly happy to just have these moments on the couch, with Ed, watching a show, exchanging comments on very inconsequential topics. Perfectly calm, perfectly lovely.

 

Monday

No need to ask about the weather, right? It is what it is.

 

Feeling fitful and rested, I start in on breakfast.

Except that I did not want to wake Ed. And then boom! The phone rang for him and he was off on one of his technical calls that lasted hours. Not wanting to interrupt, I ate alone. A good thing, as he didn't get around to his granola until in the afternoon.

 

The nice man from my bike shop came. (He is from the place I had purchased Alpine Blue -- the bike, not the car, which I confused the other day; I believe my car is named Blue Moon. Alpine Blue is the e-bike.) Like the car, this pretty little thing needs periodic tune ups. Too, I had whacked the wheel out of its trueness when I swerved the other day and so it needs additional fixes. Too, they'll clean it up. After the weekend ride over wintry terrain, it is one big muddy mess.

 

I work on my computer as Ed works on his machine design and before you know it, it's time to pick up the girl.

 

Happy child. I dont ask this of my grandkids -- after all, I'm not happy all the time and neither are you. Nonetheless, Snowdrop is a smiler in life. Easily made joyful, content to do the simplest thing. 

Like reading, which is our staple. Or, on occasion, bugging Ed about his computer.

After she leaves, I return to my work, Ed returns to his machine design. We are lost to the world, to the weather (dont ask), to the demands of the day, until hunger drives us to give it up for a bit. Dinner -- reheated stuff. It's Monday, official leftover day at the farmhouse!

with love...

Sunday

I've thought of a new strategy to combat this never ending drippy, gloomy weather, without adequate snow or sunshine: ignore it. If someone asks you -- what are the temps this afternoon? -- respond with "I don't really know." Comments like "sure is nasty outside" directed to you? Look surprised and respond "I haven't actually noticed." 

I'll give it a try.

We are in a bit of slump this morning because Ed picked up a version of The Bug and if you know him, you'll know that he is never at his rational even-tempered delightful self when he is under the weather. He locks himself inside his own world and ignores pretty much everything and everyone else. Like me, he does not like to discuss his physical shortcomings and failures and so we move through the day second guessing each others issues, or ignoring them altogether, while the cats stare at us in bewilderment, wondering why the sudden stillness in the air, the silence, the lack oh human sound.

Come on, cats. Let's go out to the barn. Hens are hungry.

The best part of breakfast (not to eat, but to admire) is the basket of forced bulbs. They don't last long, but when they're in bloom, you feel like hugging the world.

After that, Ed rests, I attend to stuff. Someone has to! When was the last time I cleaned the house anyway??

 

In the evening the young family is here for dinner. Ed is dis-invited due to his potential germyness. 

It's good to see them all in one place again. I've had sightings of Sandpiper and the young parents throughout the week, but on Sundays, no one is in a rush to get anywhere and the sweet warmth and predictability of the evening are its huge charm.

(the boys are the cheese and cracker guys!)

(can she still be held??)

Later, much later, Ed claims he is feeling better but you can't tell for sure because, well, you know, we are quiet about the bothersome details of our physical well being. I thought this might be the perfect evening for me to rewatch some dopey show alone while he rests, but no! He's up for Ted Lasso. After a very bothersome night, morning and afternoon, I'd say we're back on track to being very content.

With love...

Saturday

Yes, it was misty cold and damp on my morning walk to the barn. Nothing new there.

But just a few minutes later, I had a peak at what life will be like once the cloud cover lifts and moves on and our usual brisk winter weather returns. Here, take a look out my car window as I drive to Madison Sourdough because I have an inexplicable yearning for a cinnamon roll for breakfast. Note that the cupola of the Capitol is completely lost in a foggy cloud. (And by the way, that strip of blue sky was visible today for all of.... a handful of minutes.)

It was so lovely to see that play of mist and faint sun that I almost parked the car and got out to admire it up close, by the shores of Lake Monona. But in the end I drove on. Like I said, the yearning for that breakfast roll was so strong...

(Breakfast)

I did think that even with the return of the gray skies, we could challenge ourselves today and go out for a bike ride. Yes, I know it's January. Yes, I know it's just a smidge above freezing. That the roads have slush at the sides and sudden patches of melted ice. Nonetheless, I love the challenge it presents!  Just interesting enough to lift us out of our winter lethargy.

I dress for the occasion. Ed, in shorts, asks -- are you going biking or skiing? You mean there's a difference?

In the end, it's a fabulous (if at times challenging and cold) ride.

As we pause by Lake Waubesa, I watch two brave souls go out to ice fish. There are warnings in the press about the lakes right now. People are nuts! -- I say to Ed, as we push our bikes through a slushy bit of driveway. Um, yes they/we are.

And the rest of the day? Much of it is spent reviewing my daylily situation. The chickens have substantially messed up the bed by the driveway and I need to do some replacement planting there. (And I swear, I'll butcher the whole lot of them if they go after any new planting!) (Just kidding.) Too, I check in with my best lily supplier (Oakes Daylilies) to see what's new this year. And I order some prairie plants. So yes, one foot in the garden already. Delivery scheduled for late April. That's three months from now! Can you believe it? I'll be up to my knees in mud, shovel in hand, in just three months.

In the meantime, I make soup for supper. Hot and nourishing. With collards and cannellini beans. Sprinkled with parmesan. A winter favorite. Because, well, it is still winter.