the order of things

It’s the afternoon. I know that in twenty-four hours, we’ll be flying out of here. It’s a difficult trip to pack for, because at different times, we’ll be doing different things, some requiring sport equipment, some requiring nothing of the sort.

And there’s the matter of my exams. Still a handful to read, grades to submit – all that, obviously a tremendous priority.

So why is it that in the early evening hours, I am back on the porch, sanding, painting, sanding painting?





Don’t be fooled. This is not the smile of a happy person. The painting is hugely difficult and I would give up a lot – including a night’s sleep to get it done before we go. If the mosquito population explodes as it did last year in our June absence, this is not a chore I would like to have waiting for me in July.

So I paint and scrape and paint some more and somehow I do finish the task just before the last light fades.





It is right about now that Ed tells me – I think I’ll do the Wednesday night bike ride.

Say what? We have severe weather warnings up and down the corridor. Ed, really?

I am reminded of how much this man does not run from danger. I think about the travels just before us and I know he regards most of them, not all, but most as rather timid. Staid. And I think – that’s okay. Because I like a good amount of timid.

Ed goes off to bike, I settle in to work, but not for long, because I'm hearing distant sirens and, too, the TV is giving forth monstrous warning noises. Within seconds, the TV dies and the lights go off.

I sit on the basement steps and I contemplate life. I do not know where Ed is. I have a handful of exams to grade. I do not have a ready flashlight to help me with this, I do not have food for tonight. Outside, the winds are ferocious.

Time passes. I note that my cell phone's battery is nearly dead. I think how next time a tornado is about to rip through this part of  the world, I should remember to have a charged cell phone with me.

And then I note that the winds have calmed.

My older daughter calls me. Come over – she tells me. The tornado warning has expired.

I eat pizza at her place and sip a lovely glass of white wine. The porch is painted, the exams are just about done. Nothing’s packed, the house is a mess, but Ed is back. He’d spent the tornado minutes at Walmart. Having gone in for a quick purchase, he was hustled into their tornado quarters. Whatever I think of Walmart, I'm grateful that they lock down the store in times of fierce storms.


It’s quiet right now. Storms have passed. Tomorrow I’ll walk the farmette and look to see what trees were affected. I know the farmhouse is undamaged. Though I do wonder how the porch fresh paint held up to the torrential rains.

heat wave

It is far harder to leave a farmette for a long spell than it is to leave a condo. There are the sitters to arrange. House sitters. Cat sitters. Garden sitters. No, forget that, let the garden develop on its own. But grass sitters for sure.

We’re leaving Thursday and I still have a handful of exams to grade. How did that happen?

In the meanwhile, we are in the thick of a heat alert. Last night, the second floor of the farmhouse was toasty warm and predictably, we fell asleep downstairs. At 3 at night I woke to find Ed on the floor, myself on the small couch and Isis, the cat, on the large couch. It was an awkward time to disinvite a comfortably situated cat, but I did it. Go outdoors, already! I pointedly brushed off the couch, to demonstrate that there may well have been a cat hair or two that needed my instant attention. By then, the upstairs was cool enough for a restful sleep and we finished the night in a more suitable sleeping arrangement. In case you hadn't known, Isis does not have night privileges at the farmhouse.

In fact, surprisingly, the farmhouse does have air conditioning.  But I don’t like air conditioning and I doubt that I will have the need for it so long as the night temperature dips below 80. For all the windows, or perhaps because of all the widows, it actually stays quite cool. Except for the upstairs at the end of the day. In Mediterranean homes, there would be shutters to close against the heat of the sun. I don’t have that, but believe me, upstairs curtains will be drawn today. You know, those nice, delicate linen curtains with a delightful sway at the slight whiff of a breeze? Better delicate linen than nothing. (A commenter suggested an attic fan: yes, that is a project that remains in the state of arrested development.)


In the early afternoon, I began the grueling job of painting the porch.

Outside, the bees buzz, the dragon flies dart and the flowers are beyond sublime.

future trips

I ask Ed – are you sure you don’t want to go to Poland with me next winter?
Yes.

Why not?

(I’ll not provide his answer, lest you might think -- hey, that's not a fair response. I don’t want that.)

fate

Something that sticks in my mind:
Two years ago, I say to an innkeeper on the Isle of Skye: I am so sorry that we are here for just this short stretch.
He tells me – it was good that we met. Fate may have it that you will return.
I have not returned. What does that say about fate?

night update, from the northern Midwest

I say to Ed: it’s hot upstairs. Must be nearly 100.
Did you open windows? -- he asks.
Yes...
What’s the temp outside now? (Nearly 11 pm)
81.
Ah. So less than 100. I’ll go open more windows.

wheels are churnin’

...on the hottest day thus far.

And you know what? I love it. A sun that heats the earth quickly and forces me to turn the hose onto newly planted stems -- it's okay, it's okay!






A few things to note on this day:

I decide to pay attention to Facebook. I had joined early on. Daughters -- they thought I should. But I basically ignored it. If someone “friended me” I mostly said OK, but I never posted, never logged in, never even noticed it – with the exception of those long evenings when I moonlighted at the little shop, and a minute of reading a social network felt less lonely, less like I was constantly trekking on some mill that was too fast, too distant from where I wanted to be.

So today I actually posted something. Not anything significant, in fact not anything an Ocean reader wouldn’t have already seen here, but still. Kind of cool to limit yourself to a sentence or two. A different style of writing – another challenge.

Then, too, it was hot.






I grade exams – I have to. This isn’t about self imposed deadlines anymore. Ed and I are taking off this Thursday. We have a lot to do before then.

And I look around me and I think – good, this is good. I have plans. I have a path to those plans. It’s good.



We pick up my older girl at the airport. She’d been away for the week-end and the blast of warm air catches her by surprise, I think.


And late at night, I listen to Beatles music. In Poland, when I was in my teens, I challenged myself to sing in exactly the right diction/intonation/breath intakes as on the Beatles records that I had from my years in the States. You should hear me do Fool on the Hill! I knew every pause, every upswing, every hesitation!

I’m 58. So many decades since a high school classmate would ask me -- sing Strawberry Fields! Sing your favorite Beatles song! Let me take you down...

Many people can trace their childhoods, their friends and family through Facebook. I cannot, really. There are very few people from my past who are on Facebook. My ignited interest in it is a nod to the future, not to my past.

But there will always be the Beatles. My bags are packed. I’ve said good bye to all my American friends. I turn on the old box that plays 33s for me. There are places I remember...

Sunday at the farm

It is how summer days should be: a cool shaded outdoor spot, tables covered with casual, colorful cloth, dishes stacked.

Maybe two pans of spring vegetable frittata. Maybe some chicken sausage on the side. And bowls of fruits. And a rhubarb coffee cake, drizzled with rhubarb compote.





Your friends should be there – at the farm, escaping for the week-end, with their dog, maybe. And it’s good to have at least one daughter there, with her friend, to vary the ages a bit. Two daughters would be over the top great, but one is good too.





At some point, someone on the porch will fall asleep. I’m guessing the farm man himself. People that live and breathe the outdoors get sleepy after big meals. Others will continue eating, or taking pictures, or telling jokes. He’ll snore just a little.





But eventually someone will propose a walk. It’ll likely be the cook. Cooks like to get out of the kitchen for a spell after they’re sure everyone is well fed.

The friends have to leave – it’s a long drive to the city up north. The daughter and her friend will leave soon, too – it’s a long drive to the city down south. But they humor the cook and they take that walk and they’re rewarded with a field of lupine and a view toward fields of gathered hay.





Yes, Sunday at the farm. It’s best when there is food with friends and family. Really it is.

summer days

The living is pretty good, if not easy. And yes, the flies are starting their heat-of-the-day buzz. How did it get to be this green, this pungent, this idyllic, this quickly?

I’m up early. The garden to check. New plants to water, six more that came in the mail, revisit the ones who have been prone to wilt, note bugs attacking my tomato heirloom. Ed’s caulking the porch, getting it ready so that I can paint it tomorrow or the day after.

Breakfast. Outside, of course.





Isis, the cat, hides. Karma, the dog explores.







After, I tell my visiting friends -- follow us to the market!



(photo credit: dianalouisa)


And they do. To the downtown market, where we meet these guys...





Yep, the younger daughter’s in town. One daughter at the market one week, the other the next. Funny how that goes.

We sample sweet stuff, spicy stuff, cheese stuff, bread stuff...





I buy asparagus, oysters (mushrooms; we’re in the Midwest, remember?), one more plant, just one more...



Early afternoon. I join Ed by Lake Waubesa. He’s checking out a used partly inflatable two person canoe. He needs me to assess its wobbliness (I don’t like tippy boats). We take it out a bit and talk about its potential to take us down adventurous rivers in far away places.



photo credit: dianalouisa


Not bad. Okay, okay, we can do this. We'll navigate it down the river in a few weeks, okay. (Gulp. More on that later.)



Late afternoon. My visiting friend and I take a walk along the lake. So quickly! The summer came so quickly! Like a season that grew up from infancy to adulthood at the blink of an eye lid.


 


Or, like your baby kid. The one who now eats cheese bread with you at the market.


A sandhill crane screeches and guards her young.





Calm down, quiet, we'll not bother you.



Evening. We go in to town for dinner. Second time to the city in one day!

We’re at Underground Kitchen – a place that, too, has ties to my law school friends (one friend's daughter’s partner is one of the an owner/chefs). Such good foods (and drinks! try the no. 44!), from beginning...





to end.





Superbly intoxicating stuff. Or, is it that the predinner drink was superb and thus intoxicating and all that followed was a rollicking run of good flavors and seasonal ingredients?



My visiting friends, Ed and I, walk down State Street to the Memorial Union terrace.


 



The younger daughter is there with her friend. The sun is setting. The Union chairs are packed and so we sit at one of the decks, jutting out into the lake.





A superb sunset.



You’d think that this is where I end the day. But no, the sun has long disappeared, the night stars are visible, and there we are, walking up Bascom Mall to visit the Law School. My friend hadn’t been back since she graduated in 1986, a year ahead of me. You have to think how heady this all is: my law school pal and me, walking through hallways together now, 25 years later, with lawyer daughters grown (her daughter, too, is a law school grad), and landlords, or is it traveling companions, or in her case, husbands at the side, walking now through the office rooms and class rooms and spaces that were just so different then, when we were both starting out.

Such a night. June night, warm with the smell of lakes and the sound of someone starting a motor on a boat again and again and again until eventually it kicks in and sends the little thing chug chug chugging up Lake Mendota.

company

Company’s coming for the week-end.

I should not really say “company,” – it’s so retro, no? My parents used to say, when they were in the diplomatic circuit – we’re having company for dinner. It was never fun company. I would step in and be introduced as the child, and company would ask how old I was, and how school was going, and after answering both, I’d retreat to watch TV in mother and father's bedroom and eat a Swanson’s TV dinner on my lap. Like I said, retro.


My company this weekend is actually such close friends that you could say it’s really like family, but still, I prefer to think of it as these two (plus dog) urban folk who are driving for hours (all five hours) down to spend a few days in the fresh air of rural Wisconsin.

So, time to snip into the lilacs again...





... plan a good menu, and greet them as they drive up the dirt road and walk up the brick path. Hi Karma!





Hi friends!

routine

The sun is setting now – I can see it, but I haven’t the inclination to go out and photograph it. Yawn. Another sunset.

The orange color announces itself out the west-looking window. I can see the flash of color, through branches and bushes.

Comings and goings. The sun is up, the sun is down. One daughter returns, then leaves again. Other daughter coming up for a brief moment, to return home soon after.

And through all this, we, Ed and I, are the ones who stay home. Comings and goings, sunsets, sunrises – it’s all distant. Remote. We’re up, sometimes very early, sometimes out immediately, sometimes working hard for hours before a breakfast at 10 or even 11.

Today was like that. Ed is ripping the porch up and nailing in treated boards. I’m weeding and grading, weeding and grading.






Yesterday was (for Ed) a biking day, today is (for us) market day. So there is a difference between Wednesday and Thursday. Good thing, or I’d get terribly confused as to where I am in the passage of time.

June 1st

As I have said before, for me, June 1st will always be International Children’s Day. I grew up with it in Poland and I continue to recall it, in the same way that I recall July 22nd as post war Poland’s national holiday, and May 1st as Labor Day. It seems that by switching countries, I have gained a number of memorable dates. I've added Thanksgiving and Fourth of July. Sort of like an expanding family adds birthdays. Curiously, I have, at the same time, shed quite a number of birthdays to remember. A classic case of winning some, losing others.

So perhaps it is not surprising that I behaved like a child today, given the date.  I failed to meet my self imposed grading deadline. It was to be June 1st, even though I knew that it would be a struggle to finish this early. It was more than a struggle. It was not to be.

It may have worked, had the days been less radiant, less beautiful. Had I not told myself again and again  – these are the best, the very best days on the farmette, when you can still enjoy the outdoors, when you can plant and watch things grow (as opposed to wilt, shrivel and retreat). No bugs, no office time, plenty of sunshine – bliss!





And, of course, Ed and I are still struggling to make progress on farmhouse projects. The porch is now finally under attack. Rotten boards are torn off, new ones are cut to size. I have to paint what’s there, Ed has to measure screening material and eventually nail it down. It’s a huge undertaking.






One adult element of this day is the evening on the town with my older daughter.





It's good that I am out at the farm. It's great that the farm isn't too far from either daughter's more urban home.

the law

1. movers
2. shakers
3. buyers
4. bakers


It was a day where I contemplated the way the wind blows. Actually, there was a lot of unexpected wind. Gusts of it. Plants shuddered, then wilted (it was a hot day – and you’ll get no complaints from me on that). Those who worked hard at tearing down rotten porch boards wilted as well.

But really, the day was dictated by legal matters.

First, (or third on my list above) was the final stage of the condo sale. I get a phone call early: Nina, the buyer wants to know....blah, blah, blah... Sure. Here’s the scoop. I provide answers, tired answers. I’m done with the place. But the new owner is still signing, obligating himself, wondering. Still, I’m done. And indeed, within minutes, I get an email – congratulations, you are no longer a condo owner!

I’ve switched from being beholden to a bank to being beholden to a Landlord. (Who is, at the moment, ripping rotten boards off the back porch.)





Later, I hear from a friend who had hired movers who basically lost or damaged much of her movables. I think about the options available to those who have been poorly served by one company or another. Basically, if you have time, you can accomplish a lot. There is, after all, The Law. (Contracts, first semester.) If you don’t, you can’t.





And late at night, my Landlord receives word that the judge who presided over the New York court case (October, 2009) that required his participation has finally handed down an opinion.

We read it carefully. It’s an interesting and not unreasonable piece of legal analysis. There were so many complicated issues at stake. The judge took note. In fifty-five pages, she provided a thoughtful perspective. One that certainly should make Ed feel proud that his role in the tangled mess was diligent, honest and, well, faithful to those who needed someone to do good work for them. So, I guess I’m glad I’ve entrusted in him Landlord duties from now on.





All day long I grade exams. I feel I ought to be tough. Because today, it’s just a quick answer to a basic and predictable law school question. Tomorrow, someone’s well being will be on the line. The bread they learn to bake today... Oh, alright, bad metaphor. Sometimes it’s all about the rhyme.

see-saw, porch and morning walk with cat

What’s see-sawing is the weather. From a cold foggy Sunday to hot sunshine today, gray skies turned brilliant blue, with a wind whipping the sticky air around so that everything feels suddenly vey very warm. If this doesn’t feel like a summer day then I don’t know what does. And blessedly without the mosquitoes.

I’m up early. I can’t resist it.






A morning walk around the perimeter of the farm. With Isis, looking awfully cool strutting along the brick path to the farmhouse door, then, too, in the tall wet grass that grows madly and competitively everywhere.
















...and back again. To settle in on the porch.





Oh, it’s an outdoor eating day alright. Breakfast – oatmeal, fruits (including the much talked about rhubarb compote), honey, frothy coffee. A good beginning.











Ed has a never ending catalogue of chores around the farmette (plant the remaining tomatoes already, clean up the place where we compost – because the number of trips I make to the pile is actually quite large, and most importantly: start hacking away at the rotten wood that currently is what defines the porch. The maybe soon to be screened porch. The porch that has so many problems and yet offers so many good possibilities if done right, in the months where the bugs are too horrible to confront without protection.





I, however, am physically inactive. I sit in a chair that has a half-rocking sway to it and I read exams. My goal is to be done soon. I cannot take lovely summer breaks yet. I cannot.


I listen to the sounds on the road that runs past the farmette. Sundays are the noisiest by far. We are a shortcut to the boat ramp onto the lake and the number of happy people speeding by with radios on and trailers hauling heavy boats is significant.

That’s them. I stay with my papers.

...Until the light grows golden and the breeze cools the air and I light up the grill – on the porch still, same old porch – I’m stuck to it today, for our own brat-fest, alternative indeed, with chicken spinach and feta brats piled high with sauerkraut and mustard, and roasted veggies and salad greens and all the good things that spell summer. Ed says he's never felt so suburban. Me, I feel all-American. Our images are very predictable.






We, up in the northern Midwest, are a happy people when the days explode with summer warmth. Even those stuck on the porch grading papers.

decisions

You get more cautious over time. For example, it takes me a while to work up the courage and enthusiasm for moving to a farmhouse of an occasional traveling companion. Make that landlord. Or something. It's true, too, that I'm going to hesitate about forging ahead with projects that involve others, even if “others” means animals. Isis continues to have limited access to the farmhouse, I continue to be skeptical about raising chickens or goats or pretty much anything that lives and breathes.

And, too, we’re both hesitant about turning over some of the land at the farmette to truck farmers.

Our neighbors have done it. On two sides we have Hmong farmers growing market crops now for the third summer in a row. But these are vast stretches of farmland and the owners live a ways away. Then, across the road, a few hundred yards west, a neighbor (is he a neighbor if he lives a quarter of a mile away?) contracts directly with five farmers who grow beautiful rows of the most in demand market crops – peas, berries, asparagus – just at the side of his home.

So why not hand over half the farmette land to farmers? Why not? Oh, so many reasons. And so we mull and consider and ask questions.

It’s a good day to think and speculate.


A day that begins with a heavy fog advisory.





I take the bike out just after sunrise. It’s quiet on the country roads. I watch turkeys pick on the cornfields and deer reach for the young leaves on overhanging trees.


The fields and meadows are still now. Except for the occasional bird.






Afternoon. We visit our “neighbor” and talk about turning grasslands – easy, free flowing, prairie like and pretty grasslands – into farmland.

I set standards – he tells us. No garbage. No heavy machinery. Gotta have insurance. I give water, I provide shelter for their tillers. You have to want to do this for reasons other than collecting a fee.

Yes, we understand that.We're not going to get into it for the money.


In the afternoon, we go to my condo. I don’t want to go inside, but I forgot to hand over the mailbox key. Ed volunteers to take it upstairs.

We run into my condo neighbors – and maybe I never mentioned this, but they are my all time favorite neighbors ever. And I have had, in my life, a lot of neighbors. I come upstairs, because visiting with them is worth it. We talks farms and wine and dogs and, well, stuff. Ah well... you can’t continue to live in a place because your next door neighbors are superb.


It’s late. We approach the farmette from the backside. I often see deer here and this time is no different.





I tell Ed – if you cut into the fields just to the south, past the truck framers’ huts, you can get a sense of what they grow and how they tend to the land. Ed swings the old Geo into the dirt path. It’s a wet day and the lane is slick with mud. I have no traction – Ed says. We are nearly spinning in the fields. Trying hard to not harm anything. Clumps of mud hit the windshield. Hard going. Another thing to add to the list of considerations: how to get close to the farmed land.


We’re home. Isis is there, in the driveway. Earlier in the day, I’d seen a chipmunk attack a squirrel right in that spot. The squirrel won. Maybe, in the end, Isis won. He seems in control. Doesn’t deliberate, hesitate, mull things over. He just is. One can envy that.

to farm or not to farm...

I’m on Capitol Square early. The original Madison farmers market. I am making the circle (can you make a circle around a square?) with my daughter before she takes off for the east coast. My younger girl is already a thousand miles away. Memorial Day week-end creates travel opportunities. Not for me though. Not right now. I'm here in Wisconsin, where the flowers are too brilliant to let go of just yet.










At Matt’s stand I meet an Ocean commenter. It’s terrific to come face to face with someone whom you sort of know but not really, even as you sure as hell like and have always liked his writing (and I don’t mean only that on Ocean). Hi george h.!





A good start to the day.


All other waking hours I spend toddling between exams and Ed’s land. I weed one space, then another and another. Whatever muscles are used for pulling out stubborn growth are going to be well developed by the end of the season.

I attack the asparagus patch, completely overgrown by, well, everything.
I grade exams.
We transplant offshoots of the lilac.
I grade some more.
The hostas: we transplant those as well.
Anthills on the raised bed, quack grass chocking flowers.

Ed tells me – go write your novel. (I’m not really writing a novel, but I get the point. I am spending an awful lot of time, too much time improving his land.)





At the café, Ed is thumbing through a local newspaper. He shows me an article that describes the work of an organization that helps immigrant or otherwise disenfranchised people with farm talent and an interest in organic farming in Dane County. Maybe some of the acres of the farmette could be put to good use by these people? Ed and I walk the land and consider the possibilities. Maybe. He makes the initial contact. I’m hopeful.





In fact, overall, I’m very hopeful.