Sunday

Camp schedule (we are talking about Grandma Camp, here at the farmette) takes some getting used to. The funny thing is that because camp is relatively short in duration, by the time you click into this new routine, we pack up the bags and the kids return home.

Morning. I need to be up before the kids of course. Cats to feed, stuff to prepare. No time for garden stuff this week. One look, just after sunrise, to make sure it's still there...

 

That's it.

It took some coaxing to get the girls to stay in bed until 7. New place, new bed situation, closed doors, movements downstairs -- like I said, it takes getting used to.

Finally. Up and going! Primrose has fond memories of baking blueberry muffins with me and so this is what we do. Some scant breakfast, followed by baking.

Oh-oh, the little one discovered where I stash the baby tomatoes. Sungolds are her favorite. I have sungolds!

And because it is Sunday, I'm not yet fully in charge. The parents of the two girls come over and we all make our way to the local young family's house for brunch. With the cousins and aunts and uncles and moms and dads.

 

 

Just before noon, Snowdrop has to break away as her Girl Scout troop is taking part in the town's Good Neighbor parade. We all head out to watch, thinking it to be some small deal with local kids having fun. Turns out it's a big deal. With firetrucks and tractors and marching bands and acrobatics and local businesses sponsoring floats. And here's something I hadn't realized. Most of the parade participants hand out candy to the parade viewers. 

 

 

 

I mean, lots of candy!

(Here's our Girl Scout!)

By the time all the floats and marchers and twirlers and scouts have marched  by, the curbside kids had collected an enormous amount of candy.

(makes you want to break into a dance!)

The parade's over. The Chicago parents, along with Juniper (who is too young for a week away at camp) drive back to Chicago and I am left with the three big ones (Snowdrop, Primrose and Sparrow) to make something of this day. Well, Snowdrop is still caught up with her parade obligations so it's just me and the two dancers. They have an inspired idea that we should fill a pinada with all their collected candies. I give this some thought. I mean, why stuff a pinada with candy that's already in their sweaty little hands (did I tell you it's beastly hot today?)?

On the other hand, they are so enthused by the idea that I give in. We shop for a pinada, and I insist, too, that w stop at a Starbucks counter so that I can spark up my energies with a tall cup of coffee. Here, too, I get roped into a treat.

 

Because it is so very very hot, once we are reunited with the rest of the local young family, we decide to head straight for the neighborhood pool (where again I am told that they will all absolutely starve unless I let them have a treat)...

I do get a chance to exhale for a few minutes. The pool has a good lifeguard staff at all times and so I can sit back while the kids do their thing. And they, of course, work up an appetite, which is good, because it really is just about dinnertime.

We go downtown along with parents and Sandpiper for a supper at Butterbird. This is a new place in Madison run by the chef couple who own and manage Harvey House -- a place so posh that I have yet to set foot in it. Butterbird is all about family informality. And chicken. And fantastic veggie salads. And the Claw. And a photo booth.

I liked everything about it...

... except for the Claw. You know what that is, right? One of those machines which swallows your dollar and you get to navigate a big claw and guide it to a stuffie = your prize. Except that the thing never wraps its slippery fist around anything at all and you always walk away thinking -- well now, this is a rip off! No one ever wins at the Claw.

But the food is yummy and the kids finished off their supper here, at the bar, waiting for...

... no, not their alcoholic beverages, but for their softserve ice cream cones.

 

At the farmhouse again, Primrose, alone now, opts to play for a while, and we do also stuff the pinada, before she and I dive down into some serious pre-bedtime reading.

Tomorrow, two things of note happen. Ed takes off at dawn for his sailing adventure, at the same time that Grandma Camp swings into its full schedule of activities. It's a strange time where at once the farmhouse will be so full of children's voices and yet, I'll know it to be very empty here. Ed may be gone not long at all, or he may be gone quite a while, depending. It is so rare to be here without him. He and I are not tied at the hip. I'm away on my own a good five or six or seven weeks out of the year, when travel pulls me in all corners of the world. Ed, on the other hand, can go for many years with spending not a single night away. So when he does leave, the place is like a shell of its robust pulsating self. Cross your fingers that nothing breaks in his absence because guess what -- I wont know how to fix it!

Good night on this hot Sunday! 

with love...

Saturday

Grandma Camp begins (with a soft start) this weekend.

What does this mean, Ocean-wise? It means short sentences, few thoughts, many activities, documented, for the most part, with visuals rather than words. There simply isn't the time for more. (Camp goes from today, sort of kind of, through Thursday, sort of kind of. Grandma Camp accommodates all circumstances that arise. Rules are adjusted to meet the moment.)

Wake up, work the garden, feed the animals, tidy up this room, that room, water the tubs...

 

Breakfast, with Ed. It's going to be a hot set of days. This morning, however, is refreshingly cool.

The Camp participants -- the ones traveling from afar, meet me downtown at the Farmers Market.

 

We go inside the Capitol for a quick look and this is where we meet up with two of the remaining campers.

Market fun:

Brunch with the out-of-towners at Merchant. A lovely place just off the Square.

 

And then the Chicago fam comes to the farmhouse, where the youngest naps and the older ones head out with me to look in on my mother.

More play at the farmhouse and a meetup with most of the others at the Thirsty Goat for dinner.

And now I take the two little girls back to the farmhouse for an overnight with me... Wait, do I have any credible dessert for them at home? Better stop at Tati's first!

Alright, farmhouse now. Just the girls and me.

Tomorrow, Juniper, the littlest, will return home with her parents, while her sister stays here, with me.

The days promise to be very hot and very busy and I'm hoping loads of fun!

with love...

a pleasant crunch

You know how that is: sometimes you get really busy doing stuff you find dreadfully tedious and downright unpleasant. Chores that are somewhere between a root canal and a chicken coop clean out. (In case you don't know this, a chicken coop is one gross enclosure after the hens are done huddling in there for a night or two or three.) On the other hand, other tasks can zap your energies, leave you breathless, in need of a nap maybe, but you love them (or the end result) to pieces and you can't imagine life without them. From lily snipping at the low end of things, to grandkid visits and getting ready for them on the other -- the high end. 

I'm in that latter camp right now: more grandkids are coming this weekend and I must be ready. Which is easier said than done. I also have a friend visiting from out of town today, a mother who is very high maintenance at the moment, Steffi's House to look in on as the lawn there seems to be dying and no one is around (except for me) to water it,  and the usual afternoon kid care at the farmhouse. So things are rather tightly would up right now, even as I am looking forward to a week that I would describe as having a very pleasing crunch to it: lots to do, amply rewarding, totally time zapping. 

Let's start with this morning, when farmette fields are still asleep. With some flowers really letting me know that this is it for them, others (purple phloxes come to mind) hanging on to that pre-fall burst of light bloom.

(The tubs will carry the color into early fall...)

Breakfast is with my visiting friend. Downtown, at Madison Sourdough.

 

And then I get on that treadmill of tasks before it's time to pick up these two... It's their last day of summer camp and so a celebratory ice cream is on order.

When they leave, I return to the tasks, wondering to myself -- did I forget something? Oh yes! House cleaning. Shouldn't have I scrubbed the place clean before visitors descend this weekend? Shhh! Don't tell anyone. I bet they wont notice. (One can hope.)

Late night for me. But I am ready (more or less) for that pleasant crunch, starting early tomorrow! 

with love...

Thursday

A transition day. In between the time I was away along with the days I used to recover from being away, and the time I will focus extensively and almost exclusively on my family as Ed packs up and takes off (not yet but soon) on an adventure (which could last anywhere from one day to many weeks). It's still sunny and mild, I'm still tickled by the way August is unfolding here in south central Wisconsin, and I'm still enjoying the calm after the chaos, but increasingly I'm thinking about and getting ready for family stuff.

Of course, cleaning the garden is always the first task of the day. Today's photos reflect the obvious: the flowers are fading, autumnal crispness is setting in. 

(the best view for me right now is the one that I get when I first step outside...)

(lilies that are repeat bloomers are a real prize now!)

(find the froggie!)

(hungry girls want their breakfast)

(so beautiful in the morning sun...)

Breakfast -- on the porch of course.

And then I do a big time mowing job on many of the overgrown paths and on some of the areas that we dont usually mow at all at the height of the season. It's always a toss up. The tractor mower makes the job fairly easy but it's bumpy and I spin the machine around enough that I can really make myself sick out there. And the question is -- how much to mow? Three times each year (in spring, during summer, and once at the end of fall) I do a pretty extensive run through the farmette lands. I'm aware of the fact that I am disturbing the peace that reigns in the tall grasses among the insect and reptile population, but to promote a healthy meadow or prairie, you really need to cut back some of the mess every once in a while.  So, I'm thinking today is a good day for the summer clearing. No way do I like anything about mowing down tall grasses, which forces a restarting the darn machine again and again, as it stalls over the excessive load, but I always feel better once it's done. I leave enough for the bugs and froggies, but I also clear away spaces that are sprouting mountain-sized thistles and burdock and honey locust saplings.

And in the afternoon, Snowdrop comes over.

(she wants to check on the watermelon growing in our veggie field)

It's Thursday, so... local farmers market day! Snowdrop loves everything about it: the size, the foods, the familiar faces. She talks us into a cherry pie, a bag of cheese curds, and a pint of small tomatoes. (She devours all the tomatoes in the five minute ride home. You'd think I hadn't already given her her afternoon snack!)

Evening. I drop the girl off and return to a garden touched by that gentle light that comes only in the very early hours and again just before sunset.

 

 

The garden is ready to call it quits for sure, but the process of winding down for the season is slow. There will be weeks of blooms still. Perhaps not as lush or abundant. But if you look carefully, you will continue to see flowers somewhere in the farmette fields. Until the first frost, when it all shuts down for the year. (In Madison, the first frost usually comes in the first days of October.)

Light supper tonight, last day of Convention streaming, making me feel even more like we really are transitioning to early fall already. People are posting fist day of school photos! Wow. Wasn't the longest day of the year just yesterday? Amazing!

dinners to plan, dinnsers to cook

Add one more stunning day to the string of gorgeous weather days.

Good morning, farmette flowers and plants and chickens and cats and bugs and birds! And lilies. Because there are still some to be found (In fact, I snipped nearly 100 spent ones this morning, though most were from just two late blooming plants.)

Brilliant day for breakfast on the porch. Oatmeal begone! A return to croissants...

And then Ed and I sit down and plan out menus. He's set to go adventuring with his buddies next week and it is clear as anything that the guy needs help menu planning. (They're taking their own food.) Predicting what three clueless guys will eat is a bit of a challenge, but I do my best and by the end of the morning, the list is done. (Yes, it took that long.) 

And I face my own dinner plans for tonight. We've moved Sunday family dinner to this day because my daughter's good friend is in town and tradition has it that he should come for a farmhouse meal and it should include shrimp and we should eat on the porch. We all consider this guy to be part of the family by now  and what a welcome addition! One should always be so lucky as to rope in someone who is funny and smart and kind, all in one fell swoop. So I set to work on getting the basics done, before the kids come for the afternoon. 

Because yes, the kids are here today, in this last week of morning summer camp.

And yes, today is the promised ice cream day.

In the early evening, the gang arrives for dinner. Hi Sandpiper!

(all but Ed, who is off biking, as is his habit on Wednesdays: we ate corn from Stonemans Farm, eggs from the cheepers, green beans and tomatoes from the market and Krowki fudge candy from Poland; the seafood came from... the sea.)

If you think this is an abbreviated post, you just wait until next week when all hell will break loose and my days will be so full that you will be lucky to get a sentence out of me to let you know I have survived! (I exaggerate. When is the last time you have read a post here that is only one sentence long...)

I should mention that in the evenings, I tune into the historic Chicago convention. Call me sentimental, but I sure loved hearing the candidate spouse extol the virtues of his wife, and the dynamic super couple (our 44th and his wife) use their best oratorical skills to tell us why and how we should vote come November. So yes, it's been fun to watch and that is not something I could have said about days spent watching the counterpart to this convention back in July. Anger and hatred just doesn't appeal to me for evening TV viewing. I'm more of a hope and hard work kind of a person. Optimistic with a realistic slant!

And now it's time to exhale. With contentment. And love...