summer magic

I'll start with a bit of potty talk: We have, here at the farmhouse, the best view of the Big Bed, my largest flower field, from the bathroom window upstairs. All you have to do is sit on the toilet and you almost never want to get off. It's that good! 

And so today, engaging in my usual morning routines, I looked out... and saw a huge possum ambling over toward the barn. It was early, the chickens were still locked in the coop, but the door would be springing open for them in a couple of minutes (it's on automatic release). And there would be the possum waiting for them as they stumble out. These animals aren't fast, aren't especially smart (as compared to, say us, or a racoon), but they know how to score a win with a cornered chicken. 

Ed!

I think I woke him up. In any case, I sent him running toward the barn. (I was otherwise occupied.) Of course, by the time he got there, the possum was long gone. They don't stick around for humans. But I do have to wonder if we would have lost some hens today had I not lingered on the toilet... 

 

The air quality today is "moderate." Still not great. Ed has asthmatic symptoms (this is guess work -- he's not one to go to the doc) and even keeping windows open is irritating him, so we're slated to have another mostly indoor day. And because he is feeling the cumulative effect of a string of bad days, I don't push for a porch breakfast. We eat in the kitchen, in a meadow of blooms -- peonies from my gardens (far right), a bouquet from Natalie (center), and one from our CSA farmers.

I do go out afterwards to do spot weeding. The rain gave a boost to baby weeds. They are not such babies anymore.

This is also my first look at what's growing out there now.

 

(another Butter and Sugar Iris) 

(the next wave of Clematis flowers)

((I picked a strawberry that no animal found -- and put it on my strawberry place mat)

And soon after the noon hour, I head out to the kids' school. Way before pick up time. At about 1pm, they are holding a small celebration of the fourth graders' graduation -- from elementary school to middle school. Snowdrop starts her middle school career next year.

Grade by grade, they pour out onto the playground and form a huge circle. Here's Sparrow with his first grade classmates and teacher:

 

In the first part of the celebration, the High School seniors who attended this elementary school show up and give the little kids high fives.

And then it's the fourth graders' turn. These are the young graduates. With Snowdrop in their midst.

I had teased her yesterday: will there be long speeches? Singing and dancing? She explained -- we walk in a circle. You're supposed to clap and cry and do all that stuff you do at graduations!

I did not cry. I have five grandkids and many graduations before me. Still, Snowdrop is a very tall girl. She wears a shoe size just one under mine. She looks older than her age. It did hit me that all these kids are really growing up very fast. She may as well be going off to college next fall. She looks like she is ready for it.

 

(the graduate, with proud parents)

(and a loyal brother, who got up as she passed by his class and gave her a huge hug!)

Evening. For the young family, it's movie night and I know they are watching what was my favorite movie when I was exactly, almost to the day, Snowdrop's age -- Summer Magic, with my then favorite actress, Haley Mills. It's a musical and I loved it so much that I saved up to buy an album of its songs. That's the year I learned that if you don't buy something that has the label "original soundtrack" on it, you're likely to get a cheap knock off (no wonder it cost only $2.99!) -- in my case, a piano rendition of all the songs. No vocals at all. But, it had all the lyrics written out on the cover and I sang those songs with that piano accompaniment over and over and over again. What's more, one of them, which had the mesmerizing words "All I want to do, When the day is through, Is linger here, On the front, Porch with you...." became the song of choice for me as a grandmother, when I put any of the kids to bed in the evenings, or for a nap, or -- in Sparrow's case, on a trans-Atlantic flight in the aisle when I was trying to settle him (unsuccessfully) when he was just one. "As the hours fly, When the moon drifts by, How sweet the air, As we stare, at the sky..." How well I know the love of sitting out on a porch! 

And to prove it's (almost) summer, I give you a big fat beautiful day lily. One of thousands that will bloom in our flower fields this year. 

 

With so much love...

caution to the wind

The air quality is still not as we'd like it to be: it's unhealthy for sensitive souls, which certainly should include the vast majority of of the population, don't you think? Nonetheless, it's better than it was yesterday. We can even look up and see a faintly blue sky. I walk to the barn in the morning with sunshine streaming.

("about time you came out to feed us this morning!")

 

 

(an iris in hiding)

 

 

(morning visitor)

 

 

(Big Bed)

 

 

(Big Bed yet again)

 

 

I hate not spending the day outdoors. Spot weeding, perhaps cleaning out the bed by the shed, fixing fallen stems... So much joy out there and yet there is this haze...

Wiser people would barricade themselves once again, but Ed and I are only sometimes wise. He asks -- you want to eat breakfast outside, don't you?

Yes I do!

 

And in our usual way, we pick up a job spontaneously -- one minute we're sitting at the table, reflecting about the horrors in countries at war, the next, Ed picks up the cushions of the white Adirondack and starts cleaning them of cat hairs. And as long as he is taking care of that, I join in with a sweep and a wipe of porch surfaces. And the air is warm and we are happy.

In between cleaning and wiping I tell him about some of the articles I read this morning -- most of them terribly depressing, but one that is quite the opposite. It's about a couple who bought a second home in Litchfield Connecticut (gifted article here). I absolutely love this line of stories in the NYTimes -- where people are looking for a home at a certain price point, narrow it down to three candidates,  and then you have to pick the one you'd go with, after which you click and find out which one they chose. (I especially like it when the price range is way under a million. There's something off-putting in stories about buying decisions made by very wealthy people.)  This particular couple has quite age span (the older one is 78) and yet here they are, buying a home to "eventually" move into once the younger one (at 48 now) retires from his NYC job. Can you imagine the optimism required for that kind of a turn in life? Planning for happiness rather than for old age infirmities! I loved reading about that!

 

Immediately after our spot cleaning project, Ed goes on to find movies about people who buy/sell their homes (for example -- Mr Blandings Builds a Dream House, which we both have seen or 5 Flights Up, which neither of us has watched). I tell him this is not the time to watch movie trailers. I have things to do! Soon it will be time to pick up the kids!  He replies -- I do too! You have a nice structured existence where everything is preordained, I have to struggle with things. Ha! Ed never has to struggle with things. At least not in his attitude or mental state. A challenge for him is a good thing. And he will never rush to do it or get to it. There is an organic flow to his days that's actually admirable.

  

I pick up two happy kids. They have only three more days of school left! And today was a bit of a lark for the girl -- games and splash pad fun in the park. 

With such a small number of days left, we struggle to figure out what after-school treats are in the offerings. Ice Cream? The farmers market? Which one? Sparrow is desperate for ice cream. Snowdrop, having had ice cream at the park, wants to market. 

And so we do both.

(it's strawberry season at Natalie's!)

 

(Look who is by the market yet again! the young one is growing so fast...)

 

 

And in the evening, I pick up my first veggie box from our CSA veggie farmers, and a flower bundle from our CSA flower farmers. How incredible it is to live so close to the people who grow our foods and adorn our kitchen table!

And yes, we do watch one of Ed's movie picks. And it is lovely. As is our evening together.

with love.. 

 

stuck inside

You think of rain as clearing the air. And we had a nice, steady rain last night. 

It did not clear the air.

In fact, we woke to hazy skies and an air quality alert. The Canadian smoke came right back down and with a vengeance, aiming a narrow plum of particles straight at Madison. Hey, Canada! We are not the enemy here! We like you as our northern-independent-country-neighbor!

With air pollution at a "dangerous" level, our time outside is limited. Sure, I feed the animals, check the rainfall amount (nice!) and place a support cage for the fallen peonies (rain does topple some flowers).

("hmmm... should I eat these strawberries now or wait for them to get ripe?")

And then I hunker down inside. With breakfast in the kitchen. 

(I keep most flowers in the gardens where they grow, but when a flower falls down -- I bring it in. My peonies are huge this year!)

And a lot of couch time afterwards. I finish a beloved mystery novel (another Tana French one, set in Ireland) and start in on the next in the series -- not so much because I need to read yet another tangle of dreadful events, but because I have this weird longing to straighten out the bond that was wrecked between two principal characters in the first book. In other words, I'm hoping for a reconciliation! 

And this has me thinking -- why would I crave for this in a novel? In something that is total fiction? Why do happier endings appeal to me, given that I know they have no real value except to tidy up a story line imagined by the author? Is it because the news of the day is rarely cheerful and we all look for good resolutions to life's problems elsewhere, even if it resides in fictional narratives? 

I suppose happy or at least satisfying endings are like a glass of wine before dinner: they create a buzz of contentment that lasts for a short while. I don't mind using artificial devices to shake away the distress of the day's news. And if increasingly it cannot be wine, I'll take a satisfactory ending to a story line! 

 

In the afternoon, I talk to my friend Bee in Warsaw and since it has been a while, we give ourselves a good chunk of time for this. It's perfect really, because the air quality remains miserably low here in south central Wisconsin, and so I'm stuck inside. Nor do I have the kids today, as they are off getting haircuts. Or at least one of them is -- the one who absolutely hates shorter hair. I'm happy to hand off the chore of taking them for a trim to a parent who can withstand the pressure to "not cut off too much!"  

Just before I turn to dinner prep, Ed suggests a walk. The air quality has improved a little -- it's now "only" "unhealthy for sensitive groups." Being in our 70s plunks us right into that category, but we figure with masks, we should be fine.

And it is really good to be walking again. With so much work on farmette lands, we've hardly walked at all. And of course, the prairie fields in our local park are starting to look really lovely: wild indigo stalks shoot up their white flowered stems, golden alexanders send yellow ribbons across gently green expanses of prairie.

 

And the birdsong! I'm hearing birds I've never heard of! Warbling Vireo, Northern Flicker? And so many more. 

 

Evening: Ed wont ride his bike in smokey air so no Wednesday evening ride for him today. I make soup, we get comfortable and watch a couple of episodes from a comedy series. It always feels so good to laugh, loudly, unapologetically.

with love... 

stormy day

I always thought the English language had a perfect word for this kind of day: muggy. There is no Polish equivalent, possibly because I rarely recall muggy days in my country of birth. This morning, as I set out to deal with the animals, I think: it's muggy. Pre-storm weather. Which leads me to water some of the hanging baskets (because they hang underneath canopies of leaves, so a rain has to be substantial to reach them). Oh, do we need rain!

The fields are now at their peony and iris peak. It wont last long, but it really is a beautiful bridge between the seasons.

Breakfast, on this very warm morning, outside.

We talk about farmette jobs that still require our attention. I tell Ed I took a good look at the two meadows and one is sprouting very many thistles. We take a couple of buckets over to it and get to work. I pull out some of the tall grasses, Ed goes after the thistle. 

 

 

I haven't much hope this year for the peach orchard meadow (the newer one). Sure, I did seed it, but I'm not convinced we mowed it at the optimal time. We may have mowed down the flax flowers and other early bloomers. And in some places we did not mow at all, so the grasses probably smothered any of the wild flowers.

The thing is, I can't give my full attention to every flowering project. Ask me, for example, how the lavender field is doing! You really want to know? It's awful! For reasons I cannot understand, half of the bushes did not survive the winter. Given that they were several years old and quite established, it makes no sense to me. Why was this winter especially bad for lavender? (Other lavender plants in farmette flower fields also had a 50-50 survival rate.) Everything else seemed to have had a splendid resting period. Yes, I should replace the dried out lavender bushes but I wont. It's a really low priority. I rarely go to that field, even when it's healthy. The meadows are slightly higher on the list of "Important Farmette Projects," but still, they take a back seat to other jobs. I wont give up on them and today I cleaned up one meadow and seeded the other, but then I'll cross my fingers and step back. Too much to do elsewhere.

 

(have you ever seen a chicken slurping spaghetti? delightful!) 

 

 

By the lunch hour, it finally starts to rain. This is a good thing. There are rumbles of thunder as well and I wonder about Snowdrop's field trip -- they were to go on a day-long hike today -- but of course, a sudden change in weather is what stories are mode of for future telling. You can't lead a calm life as a kid and expect to have good material for family sharing when you're an adult!

I pick up the kids and bring the to the farmhouse.  

 

 

 

 

 

Snowdrop tells me the class hike was brilliant and the dip in Devil's Lake even more so.  No storms. A little rain, but that, too, was fun. Sparrow, I think, is counting the days until he can be in 4th grade.

The rain pauses (more please!), then resumes. Muggy turns to windy and wet. No hail, no tornadoes, no destruction. June is showing herself to be kind to us. We are very grateful.

with love... 

 

 

hot

I would not be surprised if this turned out to be the warmest day of the month for us. Quick to arrive and equally quick to leave us as we return to more normal readings tomorrow. But for today -- toasty warm.

This is the week of irises and peonies. I like both, even though they both have such a short blooming period. All the more reason to give them extra space here on Ocean.

 

(Butter and Sugar Siberian Iris) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(A very unusual color for a peony) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wake up a sleepy Ed at 9 and ask him if he'd like to come down for breakfast. Dutifully, he agrees to join me...

... though the only sign of wakefulness is in his open eyes. I patter on about the news of the day (overnight damage to the coop and the trap by a persistent racoon, terrible election result news coming from Poland, a quilt in need of a wash...), he listens. I think he hears me, but I cannot be sure.

There is one flower field that I've sort of let go of -- the one next to the sheep shed. We decided that it looks okay with only a cursory pluck of some of the more noxious weeds. Still, I clear a little more of it this morning -- just enough to tempt me to do more! But not today. I have an appointment later this morning and this one I am actually looking forward to -- it's for a good back massage (and other parts of the body, but the important focus is on the back and neck). After all that yard work, I feel I need it. And as I lie there in a cloud of lavender and rose aromas, I think to myself -- this is perhaps the most intensely relaxing hour I will ever spend. But it is expensive. And I wonder, if I could have only one of these two -- an occasional massage or an occasional professional house cleaning (I've never had a maid clean my home), would I always pick a massage? Would you? The benefits of a massage may be significant if you do this often enough, but my last one was in the dead of winter, so I average about one per season. I don't think that's nearly often enough to feel any lingering effect. But then, doesn't the house get messed up equally quickly? I tell myself that yes it does, and that I am perfectly capable of wiping down surfaces on my own. But sometimes I wonder if I am simply becoming One of Those Older People who no longer sees or cares about the dust balls left behind.  I hope not!

In the afternoon I pick up Snowdrop. After a difficult Friday, she is once again feeling happy and enthusiastic about her school day. About nearly everything, actually.

Toward evening, I drop her at her play rehearsal (this time she's in a production of Shaw's Don Juan in Hell. We'll see how that goes!). 

And I shop for groceries, I return home late. In trying to move away from my love of a good white wine, I've taken up a new predinner habit -- a nonalcoholic beer with delicious crisps. Buckwheat with almond, or those with apricot and pistachio. I was amused to hear a story this morning on NPR about how good the nonalcoholic beers are these days. I thought I was the one who discovered them! For a person who enjoys a drink before dinner but has found that there is a price to pay for always having it be one with alcohol (a wakeful night), these beers are an amazing thing! I pop one open, knowing that I can have a second if I wish, guilt free, and I start in on dinner. Which is very, very late. 

 

(evening visitor) 

 

with love... 

June 1st

When I was a kid, June 1st brought with it giddy excitement. This was when I lived in Poland and the date was significant for those living in so called Communist countries. On this day we celebrated International Children's Day (you can read about its origins here). Small gifts, a few treats -- maybe an ice cream scoop between two wafer bars, and school celebrations. 

I've never stopped thinking of it as a day that acknowledges the very special stage of life that is childhood. Personally, I think it's tough being a kid. I remember it as a period of great uncertainty. Where was I heading? What would I become? Who will I marry? Will I die before reaching adulthood? Will I ever have my own home, however small, maybe a studio, a place to escape to at the end of the day where no one will look over my shoulder and tell me what to do? The usual kid stuff. If you have a family, a safe home, adequate food, good health, a school where you actually learn something, then chances are you're not unhappy. And I wasn't unhappy (though I worried about what "being happy" was really like and if I in fact had risen to that level of life satisfaction, given that I was also so apprehensive about where I'd land as an adult, if I ever reached adulthood). But I had the feeling that I was just treading water, and that life would really began once I had my own home and maybe a child in it. Hmmm... waiting for childhood to be over so that I could then assume responsibility over another childhood?  I tell you, being young is hard, contradictory and often nerve-racking. 

And yet, there is that impishness, that playful defiance that seems to slip away as you grow to be a Responsible Person. These days I look back at childhood and I smile at all that seemed so normal then. Downing a candy bar (in New York) or a whipped cream concoction (in Warsaw) after school. Taking my skateboard out and pretending I was so cool with it (in New York). Watching endless TV shows when my parents went out (which, given my father's diplomatic career, was often). I may have worried about the future, but I never worried about investing time and energy into that future, preferring to find something to amuse myself with, sometimes, indeed oftentimes, to the detriment of my school work. 

These days I have plenty of kids in my life and this is a good thing. They remind me of what it was like to be their age. I hope I can reassure them that finding happiness is a worthwhile pursuit, even beyond your childhood years. Too many of us can, but wont look for ways to lead a satisfying life. Reading about all the children that can't even imagine what a peaceful, healthy, food-filled day looks like only reminds you how precious are the days where these are not your worries, or the worries of your children or grandchildren. 

I wish I could just say "Happy Children's Day" to all the kids of this world and make it be so... 

*     *     *

In other news -- it is a calm and very lovely morning here, at the farmette.

We eat breakfast on the porch and linger once again after we're done eating. I'd purchased cushions for our metal chairs and Ed is trying very hard to convince me that this was an unnecessary acquisition, but I've noticed that since I put them down, our breakfasts have doubled in the length of time we spend on them!

And then I finish the weeding of the sunny flower fields. Thoroughly! Ed's friend comes over to visit and as he pauses to watch me bend down to pull out the weeds, he asks if I ever suffer from back pain. (He's a chiropractor, so well he might know about back pain!). I don't know why I can do this for so many hours and come out unscathed, but so far, I've been spared! 

And by afternoon I am done. The fields will never again be this weed-free -- certainly not this growing season and perhaps not ever. True, it is like cleaning a house: within a short period of time the house will be messy again. Guaranteed. But unlike in a house, where wiping a surface will not lessen the likelihood of a dirty one soon after, a removal of a weed lessens the magnitude of weed proliferation over the summer. You've removed seeds. You've weekend their root structure. You're investing in a lovelier landscape way beyond the period where you can say proudly -- "we are, at the moment, weed free!"

Of course, this is work only I can appreciate. Here, I'll take a photo of a field or two: you can't tell it's weed free! But I can!

*     *     *

And still other news: I see that today's election in Poland cannot be called with certainty, though it does appear that the Warsaw mayor (you can view him as pro-EU, pro-democracy, anti-whatever it is that authoritarianism brings with it) may eek out a presidential victory. Which would be splendid. And here's what really is inspiring: 72.8% of Poles voted. (65.3% of eligible Americans voted in 2024.) 

 

*     *     * 

In the evening the young family is here for dinner. It was warm enough for them to have gone swimming at their community pool today. Could it be that we are done with spring? 

 

 

 

We eat on the porch. Of course.

 This is what contentment looks like. For all of us. 

with so much love... 

thank you, May

Thank you -- for a month of progressive warmups. For an assortment of daffodils, then tulips. Indigo, then iris. Allium then peonies. And clematis blooms. Thank you for holding off on any night frost: my tubs of annuals loved you for it. Thank you for the two days of rain. We wish there'd been a little more, but hey, the two day steady trickle was awesome. Thank you for the sunshine, for porch breakfasts, for flowering fruit trees and all that delicious asparagus.

Thank you for giving me the time to take care of my flower fields, of my grandkids, and a little bit of Ed and myself. Thank you for the month low on drama and high on love.

Once again I feel like our planet is reeling from one cataclysm to the next, but in our small corner of south central Wisconsin, this month has been so beautiful that really, the heart aches for those who cannot share in its riches. 

The last day of May.

Despite the Canadian fires, the air quality has improved. I can feel it just in my short walk to the barn.

I feed the animals. Pancake, the wildest cat, has been in another fight (not with our cats) and he once again is sporting bruises all over his body. I have to wonder why this happens repeatedly. At the farmette, he is by now accepted as one of the pack. The cats dont chase him. Dance occasionally gives him a gentle swap on the porch to remind him and everyone who is watching that she is top mama here, but otherwise no one bothers him. He is well fed and has plenty of comfy spaces to rest. Do other feral cats come here to bother him, or does he go out looking for trouble? We cannot tell.

It's early -- Ed is still not up when I decide to go downtown to the farmers market. For the asparagus and for an extra bouquet of flowers. Late May, early June -- this is a tough time for flower growers. Sure, people love buying peonies, but many of them do not open up and, too, a peony bush takes up space and offers up not too many flowers for cutting. Those who sell bouquets at the market mix peonies with false indigo which looks okay the first few days anyway. I walk the entire market before I settle on my favorite bouquet.

(And carrots and arugula from these guys.)

 

Breakfast, on the porch, with market flowers, with fruit, with Ed, and with treats from the Origins Bread stand. These are made with different flours (rye, millet, cornmeal) and in principle, I like them, though in taste -- only a couple would I ever buy again.

We linger on the porch for a whole hour, commenting on the wonderful silence today. Hardly any traffic on the rural roads. No one within earshot is using any machinery. It really is special for us to hear only the birds -- a chickadee, a catbird, a blue jay. And the sun comes out and the air is just right. What a grand ending to a month that's not shy in displaying its magic.

 (Friendly likes the dome we built for a Clematis vine)

 

I then finish weeding the sunny flower fields. That takes many hours! I want to get the beds ready for June -- I have a complicated trip right at the tail end of spring (or is it the very beginning of summer?). The flower fields have to be at their best by the time I leave. 

I have to say, I think I've done more weeding this year than in any of the previous growing seasons here, on farmette lands. Farmers have been saying that it's been an especially weedy month and I have to agree! And I'm more fussy this year. I don't know why -- some years are just like that. But the results of all that work are obvious, at least to me. The fields all look healthy and ready to take on summer!

 

 

Thank you May. You've been the best!

with love...