bee behavior

If I am like any out there, it’ll have to be the bee. Busy. Taking care of what is expected of me. Running to finish up the work of this semester.





But it’s not all bad. Indeed, not any of it is bad. This evening, after finishing paper-reading, I went out to Ed’s farmette to finish planting. 36 tomato plants. Seeds of peas and onions. Cosmos flowers, around the already planted black eyed cones, russian sage, sweet william. A palate reflecting our backgrounds. I’m happy with veggies, but I miss the flowers.

People say it was sunny, but that it felt cool outside today. I did not notice.

being a mother

In the same way that Ed tells me he assumed he would not be a father from the day he had the mental capacity to assume anything, I assumed from day one I would be a mother someday.

(These childhood assumptions have, by the way, little to do with how suitable you are to the task; tweak circumstance a little and you could have had Ed as a successful parent and me as a mommy failure.)


On my first date with my future husband, we talked about wanting to be parents. We knew this about each other: we already worried about being parents and we began our joint worrying right then and there, on date one.

What we didn’t realize (and maybe what Ed did realize) is that for most people who become parents – well, they stay in that role for a good 75% of their life. I mean – all this talk about kids growing up and leaving home? That departure just ups the worry quotient, because you are not there to protect them!

I remember when storms would pass over Madison. I wanted to be near their school, just in case!

And following September 11th when one daughter was on the East Coast, I wanted to chart out a strategy to get to her, just in case!

Even before they were born, when I was a kid, growing up in post-war Poland, I worried how I would protect my children in the event of war.


And still, the word worry doesn’t describe things well. It’s not always an anxiety exactly, nor a pathological paralysis of some sort. It’s, for the most part, when they are well, an emotional embeddedness in their lives.

Motherhood. As a mom, you know, from day one that you can’t screw up. And yet you do screw up. But then you can’t give up. Where else in life do you have such patience with yourself? Come on, pull yourself up and try again. And do better!


I’m in the backseat now. They are zippin’ ahead on their own speed and inclination. And they’re good drivers. Great drivers. They take care. They give lifts to those who need a lift in life. They know when to slow down. And every once in a while, they look back at me, there in the back seat and smile and that smile makes me cry and laugh and give them a thumbs up in life.

God, I love my daughters!

Happy Mother’s Day to all – those still in the front seat, and us in the back.

And daughters -- thank you. At the very least, for this dinner:

the robin chase

I am watching two robins chase each other. They’re not flying – just hopping along a woodchip path. It’s a hugely amusing sight and it makes up a lot for what’s missing in this day.

Weather? There’s a sore subject. Lousy and cold. You can assume that sourness could not be a product of a sunny warm day.

Then there is the matter of the market. I try not to have expectations, but I read the newsletter announcing this and that and I get hopeful. Asparagus. Morels. Bunches of lilac. All of the above! I set out with basket swinging on the arm, thinking of how many lilac branches I dare place in my condo given that I am leaving in five days. But if there were such bunches, or morels, or asparagus at the market on this day, they are no more.

And I haven’t the time to go to the big market downtown.

Then there is the matter of work. Anything that cannot be done via computer has to be done before my departure. That’s a hunk of work. Many people accomplish a lot under pressure. Not me. I was raised to believe that pressure is a capitalist construct and that good people rise above it. It’s very hard for me to change my ways.

Let me continue.

The dove on my balcony came back, took a look at the crumbs I had left for her and flew away. I clearly haven’t impressed her with my offerings.

And finally, having not succeeded in buying branches of lilac at the market, I asked Ed to bike me over to the Arboretum. It’s their big lilac week-end – where everyone brings their aging mom and grandmom to look at lilacs. (Women over a certain age appear to like the scent of lilac. I can only say that my love for this plant preceded my maturity.)

There was a plant sale at the Arboretum and I boosted my spirits by convincing Ed that we must partake. (For those who select more than they can carry, there were plant sitters.)




But it was so cold. Did I mention that?

Oh, there was a note of color that I must acknowledge here. First of all, there were the lilacs. Not in full bloom, not in these cold cold times, but halfway there.





And there were the Laotian women, convening for something or other. Having watched the Hmong farmers till their soil for weeks on end, it was a pleasure to see them now in the colors of a celebration.





Finally, at Ed’s place, we are facing the prospect that we have ourselves a bunch of flakey shed builders helping us with our Writer's Shed project. Ones who miss appointments and forget things, ones who lead Ed to say – this is why I do not hire people to do things. It’s always safer to do it yourself.

Oh please no!
Bring out the robins again. I need a pick me up.

No robins? Oh, hi Amos. We thought you weren’t going to show up. Ed, wipe that scowl off your face, the man has one of his ten kids in his truck and orphans in Ghana on his mind. Surely we can forgive entrepreneurial lapses.

Such a Saturday. For the birds.

side by side?

Ed tells me – I’m heading out to get the second trailer load of insulation boards.
You don’t need me to come, do you? I ask.

If you use the words “do you need” with Ed, you’re guaranteed a “no” answer. Ed ranks high on the “self sufficient” continuum. Perhaps too high.

And so I spend an evening feeling the guilt of not insisting. Because I know that in my non-help, by sitting in the cab of the huge, borrowed truck and trailer, I would, actually, be helpful. Not in the erratic, annoying, terrified admonishments (“Ed! Be careful! Do a wider turn! Watch that car!”), but in being there, in my annoying presence. Annoying can be very entertaining when you are tired and have hundreds of glass slivers on your clothes and arms (the insulation itself is not fiberglass, but it sure spent a restful period next to fiberglass, because there are glass splinters everywhere).


The birds are back on my balcony this morning. What’ya doin’? – he asks her. Digging around, she answers.





Ed finishes unloading the last of the boards late, late into the night.


Today, I sit down to do a final sketch of the Shed, with all accurate dimensions. Ed teaches me how to do this on the computer. Or, rather, he does it on the computer while I parallel sketch windows and doors on my pad. We work side by side.

And now we are ready for the final pre-construction step: Amos, the co-builder, has to truck on down (when? I don’t know. Amos has a forgetfulness about him that is at once charming and disconcerting) and assess whether he can plunk down the structure in the space we have cleared for it.


In the meantime, we attend to our stuff. I’m immersed in my stack of papers. Ed talks about returning his buddy’s van and trailer combo.
I should help you! You can’t back that out onto the road!
Don’t be silly… Silly? I’m not silly. I helped him yesterday. The simple act of backing it onto the county road took many attempts and the fact that he missed the ditch, along with the entire crop of freshly planted by Cha berry bushes was a heavenly gift.


The bird moves closer to her. Can I help? But they seem to be poised to do different things there, in my disastrously cold-bitten bougainvillea pot.




I also have to fill the van with gas, Ed tells me.
You can’t possibly manipulate that thing into a gas station.
He looks at me with pity. Clearly I don’t get it. He says simply: my manhood is at stake.


The bird positions himself so that he is now parallel to her. It makes more sense that way. She makes room.





It’s all good, all beautiful, until I open the balcony door to share some crumbs and freak the daylights out of them both, so that they rush off banging into every glass surface on that hostile urban balcony.

I should have let them be.

outdoor work

Ask your friend – do you have a lot to do, or not so much? They’ll always say: tons! More than a lot! Beyond the impossible!

I took my own “beyond the impossible” stack of papers outside. Just for a few minutes… But it was so heavenly out there, in a field of dandelions, that my papers and I stayed put and watched the sun move from one end of the horizon to the next, wondering why it happened so fast.

Sunny May days should last forever.

In the meantime, the farming family in the field to my side settled in for an evening of outdoor work too.









Mother and son, I think.

The difference between them and me? Their work will produce crops. Mine will produce grades.

campus crossing

It didn’t rain, so I crossed campus on foot. All of these are campus beauties:

























If only I could include the May scent of lilac. It’s always there, even when there’s no lilac for miles. Ooops, there was lilac.




I can’t remember – why do people like spring?

Uff

Such a day! The one you later say had the best May skies and the kindest May temperatures. The one that lets you take all your work outside (if you are in a situation where your work can be done outside). The one that, when you bike, has you pass others enjoying the kindness of spring.





I biked for coffee and passed even more beauty and bounty and loveliness.










And then, evening set in. The time for Ed and I to retrieve the Janesville Ramada Inn insulation boards (the Ramada Inn came down to make room for a Menards; the insulation went up on Craig's list). Ed has purchased 130 boards in an effort to make the Writer’s Shed very warm.

You may ask – how big are these boards?
Ed would answer: everything in American construction is 4 by 8.

So, if you stack 130 boards, say on a trailer, say in 2 stacks, how tall would the stacks be? Ohhhhh, maybe 8 feet tall (each). (For the curious reader.)

We drive past beauty.






We enter hell. The seller lives on property that has the skeletons of everyone’s past life. Piles, everywhere. Old machines, old containers, old everything, littered, stacked, cast to the side.





The seller is not home yet and so we wonder around the place.
Ed comments – it's depressing.
For real! I mean, this place is dehumanizing. It is a terror of junk collection gone amuck. And the cats. Many cats. Sickly cats. Lethargic, sickly cats.

We wait close to an hour and suddenly the seller is back. As is his teenage daughter who saunters into the (cluttered) house as if the place was normal.

The seller helps with the loading of the insulation, but Ed rejects many of the boards. After an hour of this, I am hitting a low point. And it’s getting dark. And there is rain noise in the distance. We take 59 boards today and will come back for the rest in a day or two (without me – please, without me!).

Ed navigates his buddy’s pick up and twenty foot trailer (poorly) and I am sure now that I am staring death in its face. Or maybe I'm just tired and hungry and wishing I were in a nice clean place where I can soak the fiberglass out of my hands (no, the boards have none; who knows where those creepy glass bits came from).

Miraculously, we get backs safely to Ed’s farm where we unload the damn lot of them (I am very much in a cursing mode by now) and head back to the city where thank God, Dane Pub and Brewery still serves dinner at 10.

conversation

Ed has an entirely new idea about windows for The Writer’s Shed.

I read about these flexible magnet screens. Let’s get cheap windows (with very bad screen attachments – allowing beautiful entry opportunities for any number of insects) and add to them flexible magnet screens.
Okay, tell me. What have you discovered on the Net? (Ed on the Net is a loose cannon.)
In New Zealand, one company is making these flexible magnet screens. They sound absolutely perfect.
And so?
And so nothing. I sent them an email and it bounced back.

You would think this would cause Ed to think twice about the viability of this option, this company, this continent. (New Zealand??) You would think wrong.

Later, in the evening, at my condo:
Do you have that cheap longdistance dialing plan on your phone?
Yes…
Let me call New Zealand.

Ed calls New Zealand.

It tells me that circuits are busy.
Try again.
It tells me the number is wrong.

Let me try. (If there is anything that I’m good at it’s calling distant lands.)
I get a connection. I hand it to Ed.

Hello, I’m interested in your magnetic screens…

The conversation proceeds favorably. Ed is tickled. He’s asking for pricing. Things are looking good.

Tell them we’re thinking of moving to New Zealand (not Ed nor I are thinking of moving there, independently or together, but it is a phrase we use when things are not favorable in our own back yards).

By the way? Just so you know, Americans love New Zealand. We all want to go there!
We’ll be happy to have you come.

Yes, but in the meanwhile, I have to write exam questions. Besides, it’s just turning cold New Zealand. Who needs that. We’re enjoying the burst of bloom here.






Ribbit, ribbit.
Oh, who are you?
Just a frog in Ed’s old truck, wondering how I can get the hell out of here. Humans have such uninspired conversations. All about dollars and cents. Ribbit.





In the background, a student-recommended song fills my acoustical spaces. I’m not a perfect person…

Really, I don’t mention the downfalls of this day because so much of it was so blasted good!

minding the embers (or: The Writer's Shed Project, part 8)

I’m sitting outside, half writing exam questions, mostly watching the fire burn. Occasionally I throw another board on. Larry, Ed’s cat, skittish to the max, for once prefers my company to being in his own space. Something about a fire makes him unusually clingy.




I just want it all to burn already. The good wood is gone, the rotten boards were destroyed yesterday. The deconstructing family took away all that’s salvageable. We’re left with the shaky floor, heavy support beams and whatever is buried below.


I lift a board to throw it on the flames. Underneath? An old belt. Bricks, boards, a child’s shoe. And yes, a large bone. And a dung pile. That’s truly disconcerting. Whose is it and for how long has it been there?

Woodchucks, Ed says confidently. Okay, I guess that makes it okay. But there’s still the question of the little shoe…

Some of the boards are so heavy that it takes more than even the horsepower of Ed to move them. In the morning, there were helpers.









But they're gone now. We're left with the pile of unwanted, unmovable debris.

Burn, fire. Do away with all this -- the remains of something long gone, with no good memories left. No happy tales and love-filled notes. A fallen shed, where no one could make it right again.






The sun is out today. Ed and I pick up many flats of tomatoes. And the last of the Menard windows. And a door.

You know, the ground’s not so level here, where the Writer’s Shed is to be built, Ed comments.
And so now what? Start again? Look for a new site?
I'm only saying we have to level the ground.

One obstacle removed, another revealed.

And in the neighboring field, Cha and his wife continue to plant. Up one row, down the next.

deconstruction 102 (The Writer’s Shed Project, part 7)

How come the hazards of life are so often... beautiful?

It was a miserable beginning to a Saturday. Cold. Drizzly. Cold, really, barely above winter.

The farmers market? We went searching for morels (it’s the season!), found none, talked a little to the cheesemaker, admired the flats of lettuce and left.





Somewhat hurried this morning. The old shed was coming down and Ed and I wanted to be there. For the glory of it all. And the fire.

You would probably guess that Ed doesn’t like to burn dead wood. He doesn’t even like sawing it off. When I suggest we prune, he talks endlessly about the integrity of it all – dead branches, old stumps, old canes: he’ll reluctantly clip, cut and saw if I can prove (with links to websites) it’ll encourage new growth. And still, he doesn't really believe it.

Once sawed off, old branches are heaped in an infinitely large compost heap. The stack of old branches is so large that I ask Ed if it will ever turn back into soil. It’s pointless though. He’ll answer with a story about a frog he spotted there the other day. I’ll say that was accidental, but he’ll be convinced there’s a colony of frogs somewhere there and so the stack will remain untouched.

But when you move into a property with several old sheds full of old life, there’s a lot of stuff that can only be disposed of through burning. Rotten boards and doors, frames, beams – things that no one can use and cannot be composted. And so once every few years he burns the stuff.

One phone call to the fire department and we’re ready.

And it is a beautiful, awe inspiring, monstrously huge, (and therefore threatening) fire!






The old shed family -- the people who bought the wood and agreed to take the structure down -- arrives in stages. Grandpa, grandma, daughter, son in law, grandkid. And dog.

They get to it. Slowly, methodically. In the cold, damp weather.

Grandpa, a once farmer, tells us how much he loves to work with this wood.
And do what with it?
Oh, for example, make birdhouses. I sit at the lake, watch the birds... I'm a nature guy. And I'm just so happy with my projects!
We do a lot of fishing there, by the lake, his grandson tells me.

I have often thought that one of the best things you can do for your family is learn to be happy. Because they'll come to you then, they'll do projects and take down barns with you and eat lunch out of the truck. And happiness is contagious.

The grandson works the ax on an old wooden post. Good exercise – his mom smiles. The dad is up on the roof now. Be careful dad! -- the kid shouts. But within minutes he, too, is up there. Dad has tested it. They work together prying off the steel sheets.





Underneath, there’s rolled roofing. That’s unfortunate. Too many rusty nails. All the roof boards have to be burnt. The fire is stoked again.





But there are treasures as well in the old shed. For example this guy. Asleep still? Bats, like me, don’t like the cold.





By four, the deconstructing family is winding down.




They want to finish tomorrow. Of course. We're fine with that.

I comment to Ed – I can’t believe they paid you to do this.

But then, I listen to the grandfather talk about his birdhouse, the daughter telling me how beautiful the old door is with its old hinges, I watch the grandson hack away at an old rotten post...




...and it all makes sense, doesn’t it? Who isn’t happy after this day?

chainsaw 101

That tree needs to come down – I say. It has a sprawling habit and it is invasive. [And it’s very close to the future site of the Writer’s Shed.]

Can I use your chainsaw?

I have never used a chainsaw. I know that they are unsafe. But Ed has a good one, with features that surely will keep the chain from disengaging and hitting my limbs. Besides, most bad accidents (90%, according to Minnesota website) happen from branches falling. This tree, as I said, is thick, but low.

You need chaps. I don’t have chaps. [chaps are leg guards]

Okay. I understand. I’ll be super careful. Super super careful.

Wear protective eye stuff and ear guards. And know that this is a dangerous tool.

Forewarned. But not about this essential element: cutting through tree limbs is damn hard work!




I now add to my skills this: a very half-assed knowledge of and comfort level with chainsaws. (I once told someone that I am an encyclopedia of half-assed knowledge.)



Meanwhile, Cha keeps to his planting regiment in the neighboring field and the willow branches sway this way and that and really, it is a fine day.









P.S. Let me add this on the subject of chainsaws: Even though most people don’t die from chainsaw accidents, they do lose limbs and other precious commodities. Sure, people die in cars with a millionfold greater frequency. But I read about chainsaw injuries on the Net. Gruesome! So, my 101 here is important: be very very careful when you come anywhere near a chainsaw and protect yourself in all ways. With chaps, eyeguards, the whole shebang. Otherwise, it’s like this: the chain slips at a speed you can’t even imagine and hits you in one place or another and then you've got yourself a major headache.

and so

April ends with sweet confetti. The last day of the month, the last day of teaching (until July), the last day of a long period of disorganization and reorganization. A cool day, but a sunny day, a day of sailboats and paint colors.










Sweet things. First cotton candy, then ice cream at the Law School.





One more student presenting one more paper and then it’s over. For most of my students, mine was the last class they’ll ever attend in their lives. One tells me – yours was my first and yours was my last.

Sadly, I’ll likely never see him again.

I ask my class for a gift – to help me while I’m grading papers. I like music, but I don’t listen to the radio much and I don’t follow music trends. Write down a title of a song I should download and listen to. Put your name by it and I’ll associate it with you when you’re long gone into the attorney world.

I pack for home a list of songs scribbled on a yellow sheet of paper.



Evening. We’re out on the terrace – a group of my students and I, having a beer by the water, recalling the highs and lows of it all.

Remember when, in the first semester of law school you took us for a pizza and karaoke?

This graduating class began their tenure here at a time of tumoltuous changes for me. Teaching was a solid, teaching was good. I had 22 anchors in that class. Two and a half years later, I let them go. Off you run now, all of you Katherines and Kates and Aarons and Brandons and Neils, the whole lot of you – off you go.

And now we're in the last hours of the last day of April and there's nothing left but a song and a smile. And that's a good thing. I'm up for both.

a rare confluence

In the years that I have been blogging, less than a handful of days passed without a post. Wednesday turned out to be one of them. Why? The last day of teaching and then celebrating the last day of classes for the class of 2008 joined together to keep me away from my computer until... now.

I'll provide more detail later. Full days are good days and this most certainly was a full day.

vocal visitor

This is the second day in a row that she is here. Yesterday she sat out on the balcony chair and I watched her rest on her legs, folded under her light body. I hoped she wouldn’t mess up the chair. She didn’t.

Today she came back with a friend. I want to think he’s her lover, but I don’t really know. She is extremely vocal, but she's secretive, too. I can't always read her all that well.

She made her way to the corner of the balcony and peered at it for a long time. Why? I’m thinking she’s considering hanging out there a while. I want to encourage her, but I don’t want to push her to a bad decision. What do I know about finding your own corner – my own version is to put down a wooden floor and buy a comfortable couch. She seems to need neither.

I had to leave to go to class. I tiptoed out so as not to disturb her thoughts. When I came back in the late afternoon, she was gone. I’m hoping to see her again. It can’t be just a two day thing, can it?

Amos and Dave (The Writer’s Shed Project, part 6)

As we move forward with the building of the Writer’s Shed, Ed and I are still discussing who to hire for help with construction. Last week, we drove an hour south of Madison to meet with Dave, the fallen away lawyer who, with his wife and fifteen children, has embraced the simple, peaceful life of a Mennonite and taken on shed building as a livelihood.

Building sheds is something I can do with my older children – he said to us, as we presented our thoughts on the project.

This afternoon, we drive to western Wisconsin. The gentle greens of late April are lovely, even as the dark clouds of a late winter storm roll in.





And it turns cold.

We are getting almost close to the Mississippi by the time we reach the homestead of Amos and Mary. We’re here to talk to Amos – the fallen away Amish, now somewhere between the Born Again Christian and the Mennonite faith (though I read that not all in his family agree with this religious reclassification) who, along with his wife and ten children, builds barns and sheds for a living.





You may ask why I mention religion in a post about shed building. If you visited either Dave or Amos, you would understand that it is a significant part of the story.

Building barns and sheds. Raising children who then help with construction. Dressing simply. Modestly. Posting uplifting slogans on walls and down driveways. Frugal lifestyles. Quiet temperaments.

You’re selling the business? Ed noticed the real estate sign by the road.
Yes, we’re moving to Ghana. I’m curious about this and he seems willing to explain.
We’ll be running an orphanage there. We’ll be working with the adolescents. Helping them to transition to adult life.
You’ll take your whole family?
Yes, of course.

So I’m thinking we should work with Amos. It’s like handing money to support a good cause. Or maybe it should be Dave? He and his wife have adopted six kids over and beyond their biological nine. Maybe they’ll adopt more.

It really is more than just paying someone to help put up your shed.

The winter weather catches us on the drive back. Wet flakes and gray colors take away any ideas about spring. We pass one sad looking town, then another. Lifeless main streets. Thrift shops, empty storefronts.




And in spite of this, I think to myself – what a beautiful venture that was! And what gorgeous countryside, just west of Madison!

And it is. Weather and other life’s challenges notwithstanding.

raspberry canes

The Writer’s Shed is not even in the most formative stages of construction yet and still I feel the need to roll up my sleeves and do my part to improve the land where it is to be built. And so I head out to Ed’s farmette to weed, prune and chop.

Initially, I set my sights on clearing the huge raspberry patch of dead canes. There are more dead canes than live fruit bearing ones and so it seems like a worthwhile task.

It is certainly an unpleasant task. The canes scratch. Some of them crack at a snap, others are dead but stubbornly clinging to their pod. It’s all a terrific mess. But, I am to be part of this grand landscape and so I pitch in.

I watch Isis, the friendlier of the two Ed cats, move out of the canes and towards the still to be removed shed and I think – buddy, you have one easy life.




Right to the side of Ed's raspberry jungle, Cha and his wife are engaged in their own farming challenge: the planting of new raspberry canes.





Such grueling work! I want to say -- here, just harvest Ed’s berries!

But I know that this would not be helpful. Ed's berries, in their uncontrolled habitat, could not support what this family needs --a bounty. A harvest that will pay their bills.

And so we continue. I destroy dead canes, they plant new ones. We pause to exchange Sunday greetings and then resume our respective chores. Snap, pull, discard. Dig, plant, pat down.