Sunday in the country

I’m up early. Not by my standards, but by yours: isn’t Sunday supposed to be the day the sun eventually coaxes you up and out of bed?

Eh, there was no sun.

So we picked berries for breakfast (and then some). Might as well plunk a friend into the cane jungle too. Experience farm living from all its scratchy sides.

Breakfast on the porch. Cereals, breads, fruits. Toasted bagels. Acacia honey.





What is acacia – someone asks. Ah, in Poland, Acacia is what allows little girls to decide if “he loves me” or “he loves me not.” It goes like that: he loves me, he likes me, he respects me, he doesn’t want me, he doesn’t care, he’s messing with me, I’m in his thoughts, I’m in his words, I’m in his wedding plans. Except in Polish, it all rhymes.


Some people are very helpful putting out the foods. Other people are very good at sitting back and watching the world of early morning swallows.






My friends and I take a morning country walk. We want to veer off on the Nature Conservancy trail, but the path is so overgrown that some of us are buried to our necks in grasses. Others duck and dodge the singularly motivated deer flies. All of us decide to turn back and resume our walk along the country road. The prairie flowers are as beautiful from afar.





Really, it is like a canvas out there.





All that’s missing is a vineyard or two. Soon. We’re a state with an open mind.

sparks of light

What a treat: my two law school days best pals ever showed up at the farmhouse door this afternoon with their overnight bags and a willingness to (mostly) sit on the porch and talk for a good many hours.

Oh, it wasn’t all that spontaneous: when one lives in the Twin Cities and the other travels even greater distances, you need a bit of coordination.

Still, it was a terrific evening and the bats performed right on schedule and the fireflies continued even longer, though their light became muted and interspersed with the light of stars and somewhere, lightening flashes.

Is it heat lightening? One friend asked.
What exactly is heat lightening?
Don’t know, but wouldn’t you think it is just this, on a hot summer night?

A hot summer night. Yes, and a hot day too, though not so hot as to make the flowers wilt. I should know: we see rows and rows of them growing in the fields across the road. Like lavender fields only not lavender at all, but beautiful to pause by on the bike ride home from the Café.





That’s all for today. Think flowery thoughts and if you're still up now, at midnight,  poke your head outside just in case there may be fireflies and stars in your backyard too.

the day after

It can’t be that time passes without mishap. I’ve not known it to proceed that way, ever. I was so very aware of that on our last day on La Franqui beach near Sorede in France, when I stayed in the sea water and stayed some more, thinking that if I leave it – this moment of bliss, the time of bubbles and  perfection will be a thing of the past and life will take over in its normal way again. With bumps and bruises. I remember noting here, on Ocean, that you must learn to love non-bliss to stay happy.

So I’m getting a handful of bumps – it is to be expected after all. I’ll mention them more if they become major stumbles. Mere bumps don’t deserve Ocean time. I am, however, surprised at how easy it is to maintain calm, to strategize with new factors in place. I think getting older is a great thing – the drama is really muted. Calm is easier to attain.

So, let me tell you about some of the high points from this day: first, the beautiful bike ride to the Oasis Café. Did I mention that if you are ever so watchful, you can, for a fleeting second, catch a glimpse of this? And by this, I mean a view of our Capitol, introduced by a field of corn. Wisconsin, I do love you so!





At the Oasis, I met up with an old friend of Ed’s. She gave me his photos from years back – a treat, since Ed keeps no photos and I have no visuals to help me construct the story of his years before he knew me.

I looked at the photos afterwards and I thought – man oh man, this is not the guy I know now. He has this roguish strut there that I recognize, only now it is tempered and weathered, so that it is almost always accompanied by a smile. As if time has mellowed the need to be sharply defiant.

I pedaled back and was reflecting on all this when a creepy guy in a car pulled over to the wrong side of the road. When I glanced at him – to see what he was up to and to figure out a way that I could circumvent his presence, he spat out some nasty sounds. I hoped he was on a cell phone and that they weren’t directed at me, but I guess they were, because he then sprung forward in his car, passed me, shouting obscenities and throwing something (a branch? ) at me. He missed, but I thought – Jesus, there are a lot of creepy people in this world.

Up our road, the road that leads to the farmette – I finally paused to take one out of the two photos that I have wanted to take for a while (the other will follow, not today, but soon). I want to spotlight it because you should know that almost just across the road, every single day of this summer, whether biking or driving, I can look over my shoulder and see this:





So perhaps that is why I can be calm. And quite happy.

looking for small pleasures

I said to Ed today – I think great chunks of my book are not turning out the way I want. The excitement just isn’t there.

I think I’m too much in a hurry. I have the summer and then I have teaching again and I know I will not find the time then to write. My head will be swimming with to-do lists and appointments and meetings and all the hoopla that accompanies full days on campus.

I admit, it’s been a challenging day. By the end of it, after at least a few pleasant minutes at the Fitchburg farmers market -- wonderful La Baguette bread, peas and pea pods at another stand, elsewhere -- cheese, as explained by a father to his son...















...and after some more pleasant minutes at the Oasis Café, Ed and I pedal home. There, he mumbles something about feeding the cat and disappeares into his shed for a good many hours. I felt badly for him – he did not bargain for the tougher times of traveling occasionally with a companion. It just sort of happened.


 

the hottest day...

...of the year, yes, maybe of the decade, of the century – opinions vary. One thermometer says 97 and another 99; I’ll go with the 99.

It is unfortunate that I had not one, but two trips to make into town. My old Escort is without AC. If it was hot outside, it was hotter in the car.

Flaming hot.





Coffee? 

Sure. 

Bike over? 

But it’s so hot! 

And so?

We bike to the Oasis. Twenty-five minutes. Steamy clammy hot. Though with a breeze. It’ll be hotter going back – Ed comments. Without the wind in your face.

From Paul at the Oasis: You biked here? You guys are (insane? inspiring? – can’t remember)...

In the evening I water the tomato plants and watch damsel flies chase drops of water on their leaves.


 


And I pick the berries. Less feverishly now. The guilt of relinquishing so many to the birds/animals/insects/compost heap is passing as I have many a bagful in the freezer.





And finally, I fix a simple supper, because even though it is cool in the farmhouse, one shouldn’t cook big things on the hottest day of the month/year/decade.

disclosure

My daughter spent a night at the farmhouse the other day. In the morning she asks me – remember that vocal group, Sweet Honey in the Rock? We used to listen to their songs when we were little? I was reminded of their song “No Mirrors in my Nana’s house...” I admit it – she is correct: there are no mirrors in the farmhouse. I take that back: there’s a little one near the bathroom sink. You can check your teeth there to see if you’ve gotten all the poppyseeds out if you need to. Like Ed, I haven’t much use for mirrors.

But I also admit that today I decided I do have a great use for something: an ice cream machine. You could say that the raspberries pushed me there. Maybe. But truthfully it was more the fault of one of my fellow bloggers. When she described her daily ice cream habit – I thought, that’s right. This is what I am missing: good ice cream.

Now, I do know that I live in a dairy state that prides itself on making the best ice cream in the country. Oh, it's good, sure it is. Creamy and sweet, laden with chocolate and syrups and caramel and nuts, yes, all good, but, especially on hot days, it is a tad overwhelming. I prefer, for these days, small scoops of fruit-laden ice creams. I love chunks of peaches and berries. And blueberry ice cream and black currant ice cream and in the winter, too, I love the impossible to find honey ice cream, with maybe a touch of lavender or orange. And I quite like yogurt ice cream, but not the frozen yogurt that comes out as airy soft swirl – I like it to be creamy and tangy all at the same time, with flavors that are intensely tied to the season.

Thanks, Golden West for the ice cream nudge and thanks, too, to commenter Trudy for the raspberry vinegar tonic suggestion. It’s on the “to make” list as well.


In other news – on this hot hot HOT day, we took out our bikes and zipped down to the Oasis Café. I heard Paul say that he had not served many hot coffees today. Well now, I happen to love hot espresso on a supremely hot day. There’s a match there that’s hard for me to explain.

Paul marveled that we had chosen this day to bike over. In the heat of the afternoon, no less. Oh, but you know, I’ve missed biking for coffee. When you motorbike, you don’t pause to smell the roses.







Or rather, the Queen Ann’s Lace. Or cone flowers. Or something (what?) that has the fragrance of wild honey. It’s all worth wiping a wet brow for. Oh, those hot, beautiful days of summer!

the oasis

There are so many reasons to pick this title for a post!

To start with, we spent a delightfully ordinary hour over coffee/lunch (depending on your inclination) at our very favorite café – the newly named Oasis Café (OC hereafter), just across the newly opened public library in Fitchburg. [The sign still says EVP Café, but don't be fooled, it's the Oasis (though with EVP coffee).]




Paul, the owner/manager, may be familiar to some of you: he once co-owned and developed the tiny Pelmeni (small Russian dumplings) place on State Street (before it changed hands and lost its authentic, food centered vibe). Many people, my daughters included, raved about the delicious dumplings. At the OC, Paul is continuing a tradition of handmade pelmeni, using local ingredients, organic where possible.





...Even though I haven’t been going to the Oasis for the dumplings. Ed and I are regulars – myself for the coffee, Ed for everything else (he loves the tomato basil soup there so much that I no longer make my own at home: I don’t want to compete... what if I lose...).

Today we went to the OC with my daughter, so that she could have her reunion with the fantastic pelmeni and so that we could have the kind of perfect break from work (and writing in my case) that you always hope for on long hard days.

It was a heavenly inerlude.

Thanks, Paul (and Paul’s dad, there in the background, waving). (If you go for the pelmeni, say hi to Paul and tell him I sent you!)






In other news – well, it’s no news really to say here that I am reaching my raspberry saturation point. I have eaten them, I have frozen them, I have baked with them. Canes, slow down on production already! There is more to life than just raspberries! (Is there?)

It has been suggested that, with a more generous impulse, I might want to give the overflow to neighbors and friends. Here’s the catch: you have to pick the berries first. We have no tidy rows, we have a jungle out there! My legs are deeply wounded by the canes and Ed’s cap with the funny cup covered with sticky stuff is full of deer flies. And, of course, today there are the heat and humidity. I can’t remember a day this humid in Madison. My camera lens misted over and refused to focus.






Life is really grand when all you have to complain about is the overabundance of raspberries. Such days never last a long time. But they do come.  For most everyone. An oasis of calm.

Sunday on the porch

A farmhouse Sunday in mid July. Early, (or late, if you’re looking at this from a Saturday perspective), the moon is so bright that you could see animals dart from one field to the next. What animals? Don’t know. When you’re caught by surprise, you miss those details.

A sizzling day. But not yet. The morning is mild, in a humid sort of way.





Time to start cooking. Pastry for the tart, crème patisserie. Need berries, lots of berries. Into the patch I go, pushing past the canes to the good ones, laden with purple and deep red fruit.





Not a complicated meal. Easy. Fresh stuff. Zucchini and spinach frittata. Sausages. Breads, cheeses, rhubarb jam.











And the tarts. Large, small, touched by garden mint.






It is so good to have daughters and friends of daughters here. Their easy manner, without the taint of cynicism or indifference, is so darn fresh and wonderfully fun. Today’s small group stayed at the farmhouse for the night and I thought – this is the very best use of the space here – for their voices and their stories, I’ll make frittatas and tarts any day.





We sit on the porch even though it's getting to be quite warm. But these are city people, all of them. New Haven, New York, Chicago. A farm brunch has to be out on the porch, so that you can look out and listen to birds do their chirpy routines.

For a brief heavenly minute, I have two daughters here.






And now I still have one and she and Ed and Isis and I are out on the porch, watching the fireflies spark and the bats dip and flutter across the not yet dark sky.

darn cat

Five in the morning. Thump. I wake up to the noise and think – are we having mice again? We thought we’d pushed them away, at least for the warmer months of summer. Can’t be mice. They don’t thump into things. I doze off, but five minutes later I wake up again. Standing at the foot of the bed is Isis.

How the hell did you get in? I ask. He doesn’t answer. Downstairs I see his strategy: he jumped up on the windowsill leading in from the porch and pushed in the screen. Isis!
I can’t sleep with him there, I tell Ed.
Oh come on, he’s just visiting.

...shedding cat hairs.

You want to throw him out? It’s raining. I don’t want to throw him out. But nor do I want him to be on the bed.
I roll over to the side and my leg bumps his small frame. He startles, jumps off and runs toward the door. Someone has to follow, as the farmhouse has no cat doors. I follow. Out he goes.

Well, the morning’s young. I can will myself back to sleep. Thump. What??? I thought I secured the screen. I go downstairs. Isis is on the sill, outside, trying to push the screen in. Thump again. Don’t do that! Oh, alright, come in. I’ll have to close this window in the future.

But what of our almost finished screened porch? If tomorrow, when it’s done, Isis finds no clear path inside (so as to get to his new entrance through the window), will he rip and shred the screen material? It’s supposed to withstand hurricane strength winds, but Isis is one forceful cat. He kills small critters for a hobby.

We eat breakfast on the porch. Isis is outside, but seeing us there, he comes meowing. Isis – there’s a panel still unscreened and open. Walk that way. Well, maybe not. I don’t want to teach you to walk that way because tomorrow there will be no more that way.

Oh, Isis...


LATER:

The porch screening project is finished!





Or practically finished. Tiny openings still need to be mortared and the last of the wasps and yellow jackets need to be chased out, but that’s nothing compared to the mammoth job of building many tight screens for this place.





Thank you Ed.

And the lilies bloom and throw new colors outside, every day!











In other news – the temps are climbing. Nonetheless, I want to grill tonight. Chicken brats, corn, portabellas. With Sangria. We have ourselves a nice outdoor eating spot for the rest of the summer months!






My daughters and their friends are coming down to the farmhouse – the whole pack of them staying here until tomorrow. It’ll be a hot but jovial night indeed. Delightfully so.

Don't mess with the screens, Isis. Okay? Walk toward the door. Screens are for looking out. Watching the fireflies. And the bat show. That's a good cat! 

days of lilies and raspberries

Days like this make the other three seasons look bad. I think Fall and I see November’s dreariness. Winter? Freezing and slippery. Spring? Unrealized expectations in March and April. And today, in the thick of summer? ...cool breeze stirring the curtains in all the open windows of the bedroom... Outside? Not too warm. Go in, go out – it’s all deliciously pleasant. And speaking of delicious, the berries, warmed by the sun, are especially ripe today. Perfect, in fact.





Let me nibble on them and take stock of the lilies I planted last fall.





So many varieties!





And the summer nasturtium! The Monet flower of my life.





I should stop right there. Except, may I brag for just a wee bit? I chased a dozen yellow jackets out of the porch area today. What? No, no, of course not all at the same time, but still...

Summer. Beautiful, endlessly pleasing and pampering summer.


I suppose if I lived in New Zealand, I would not love July moments.

I do not live in New Zealand.

work day

Even if you take a summer semester off, you never really take it off off. There isn’t a day when a work issue doesn’t cross my path, with deadlines, requests, -- the usual.

Still, this summer of no teaching is remarkably different for me. Not only is there the “no teaching” part, there is, too, the significant time away from campus. I almost never go in.

Except for today.

And it is a shame that I had to spend the day in my office, because the weather was fine and there is the excuse to act in a slightly more holiday-ish manner if you follow at least some French habits. Bastille Day. What did I do to celebrate my enduring love of spending so many wonderful vacation moments in France? I made a French meal. Elaborate? Nah. It was a work day. Salad, omelet with champignon, baguette and cheese. And wine from a box. I tell you, work days are work days.

trapped

I wave a broom to get them to react. They stare at me, but their big bugling eyes don’t show fear. More like: attack! But they don’t attack. If I had wanted to coax them down and chase them out, I failed. They cling to their nest and stay put.

We have at least four yellow jacket nests in the eaves of the porch that we are right now enclosing with screening materials. The little bandits didn’t build their own nests there. They invaded and pilfered old homes of paper wasps. My inclination was to remove them before screening. Ed thought otherwise.

If we chase them out now, they’ll come back and renest.
He has a point. But as less and less space remains without a screen cover, we accumulate quite the diversity of flying insects, coming in through unscreened spaces, but incapable of seeing the route out. I’ve been helping them along with a broom. I was hoping that the yellow jackets could be shooed out the same way.

But, they cling to nests and move around stealthily. We're getting set to wage war the minute we aggress against them. Ed has the arsenal ready: a big fat glass, a sheet of cardboard. Fortunately, I could not volunteer for that job. I’m too short for it. I was useless at mouse removal and now again I am useless at yellow jacket nest removal.

Did I ever mention that I am of hardy Polish peasant stock? Truly! But I'll hide when this particular nest removal takes place.


In other news – it was, indeed, a magnificent day, weather wise. Ed and I take our oatmeal out to the porch and we admire our handiwork (or, rather, mostly his handiwork).


In the evening, I meet up with my older girl and we attended the Concert on the Square. It is ironic that years ago, when our schedules were tight as anything, my girls and I still managed to pack a picnic dinner every week and make it to the Capitol Square for the Wednesday evening summer concert. But when the daughters moved away, I stopped going. It was an era that belongs to the past – I would say to myself. Eras, of course, aren’t that easily disposed of and now here we are again, sitting on the green grass and listening to the music. Well, no, not listening really. You can’t go and expect to listen to the orchestra. There are people sounds all around you and at first, it is slightly disturbing, because you want to hear the music, but after a while it all blends together into a wonderful symphony of jovial sound and nothing seems terribly disturbing anymore.





The moon shines bright tonight.







Clouds drift in, drift out --they're on summer break too after all, over Lake Monona, over our part of the world and yours, too I bet.

crops

If farm animals are a constant speculative element in our talks about the future (and believe me, much has to happen before we would elevate them from the level of discussion to a plan of action), what we grow here is something that we have to confront every single day, now. Mostly, it’s not about what we plan on growing.  Plans -- they cover an infinitesimal portion of space. Flowers. Herbs. Tomatoes. Asparagus (when we remember to weed the plot). And raspberries. The rest? It's out of our hands.

We do have a huge number of raspberry bushes. They proliferate expansively.





This spring, in an effort to contain them and encourage healthy growth, we spent a huge number of hours trimming, transplanting and pruning. When we came back from France, it was as if none of that had ever happened. The raspberry jungle had established itself once again.

We are, however, hugely lucky this summer. I don’t want to jinx this, but for some reason, the mosquitoes have not quite shown their ugly faces just yet. I am sitting on a half screened porch at dusk and I hear no buzz. In July. In Wisconsin. Rare!






And so I can pick berries today (to be preserved for winter use)...


 



...without the need for protective mosquito garb. Fantastic!





After, I take stock. We haven’t much in the refrigerator. Copps free range eggs. An ear of corn. Lousy dinner choices. I leave the farmhouse and walk over to the fields where Hmong families are growing market crops.
Do you suppose I could buy a head of lettuce? I ask. No answer. The two women getting ready to work in the fields do not speak English. They point to a person coming down the hill. I’m guessing it’s their daughter. Maybe. She’s of the next generation. Schooled here. She speaks English.
I ask for lettuce. She translates, but only in part. As a result, the women rush over and bring me a pint of raspberries. Oh dear. I most certainly do not need raspberries. I try again. Lettuce? Green lettuce?

The young girl translates some more. She tells me – it’s further in the field. Go pick your own. As much as you want. I hand her a few dollars. She refuses. I stick it in her pocket but she finds it and hands it back.





At the farmhouse, Ed and I (mostly Ed) put up the final big panel of the screen for the proch (now there are only two dozen little ones left!). The evening is cool before the expected rush of hot air this week-end.

I have my laptop on the partly finished porch. Isis comes, Isis goes. The sky is beautifully tinted. I’m playing music from Scotland. Firefly sparks come in bursts. Like fireworks. Here! See this one! Bats fly around the silo. One comes into the porch area. Oh! Be careful! Most of the screen panels are in now. He flies out, back with his buddies, darting, searching.





I have no complaints.

farm(ette) animals

Ed, Isis is spending every waking minute in the farmhouse. I'm standing poised with the vacuum, ready to catch any hair that may fall from his nape. Last night he watched TV with us all evening long (Hoop Dreams – a very very long movie),  this morning, he is at the door again, asking to come in for breakfast. (He likes to check on everyone’s food, though he’ll be satisfied with his own bowl of milk. Organic, fat free.)

Yeeees?

Sometimes, can we just say no?

To his begging outside?
Yes. He’ll meow and retreat. (I don’t really believe it though. That cat can sit patiently for hours, waiting to be let in so that he can hightail it over to his favorite spot – on the couch, in my corner, right by my computer.)





To demonstrate my otherwise kind feelings toward animals, especially farm(ette) animals, I throw out a suggestion. Should we get chickens? A friend yesterday was telling me about her chickens in her back yard off of Willie Street. We have all this land! She said it’s easy. Just give them water and food.

We hunt on the Internet for people’s reflections on raising chickens. Sounds not so easy at all. Sounds like Isis is easier. Open the door, feed him milk, organic, low-fat, vacuum up hairs after he leaves. Chickens – if they’re babes, you have to do complicated temperature manipulation. And eventually their “productivity” goes down and you have to... make chicken stew out of them. I’m not going to ax off the head of Martha the hen once she stops laying eggs. Will you?

How about goats? They’ll eat your grass. A regular lawn service. And maybe give milk? And who is going to milk the goat? I will. We look up goats on Craigslist. $150 and that’s before you get the goat supplies. Surely they need toys and bedding and...

I think about the huge amount of work the porch project has been – even more for Ed than for me, though I still need to finish painting today. I’m aware of the front porch that still needs to be replaced and the cedar planks that are in need of a fresh coat of paint.

Let’s think about the animals, okay?

Okay.

In the meantime, I walk over to the farmers’ hut in the fields by our farmette. We hear a rooster crowing and I want to locate the source. Ah. So they keep a caged rooster here. Interesting.





I don’t want to cage a rooster. I don’t want to buy a tractor for chickens and wheel them from one spot to the next. I don’t want electric fencing and I don’t want to chase the old hen once she’s done with the egg laying bit.

Ed, we need some eggs.

We get on the motorbike and zip over to Copps. Organic, free range.

paint

My Cinderella story for today involves drudgery, heat, the buzz of nasty horseflies, stretching on a tipsy ladder to reach high places, cursing as splashes of paint fall to the brick floor (white splashes look awful on red brick)).

By noon I’d been at it for five hours. My hands, shoulders, legs are splattered, smudged and dabbed with paint.

Time for the great transformation. Step number one: the shower. No, not at the farmhouse. That’s a clean shower stall. You have to preclean yourself to go there. To Ed’s sheepshed then. Where nothing is too dirty to set loose in the tub.

Step two: don the frock, put on dangly earrings, take out the sandals with the silver straps and off you go, to the ball.

Not the ball really – just a reception for the new dean at the Law School, but my oh my do it feel like I am stepping into a different world.

Driving home, I think how nice it is to move from the world of laborious work to dainty cookies and lemonade and quiet chatter about this and that. And then, how nice it is to come back to the farmhouse, even though the porch is only half painted and the horseflies are up and buzzing and it looks like screening the damn thing will take many many many days of work.





Now, have I mentioned how wonderful it will be to have a place to sit outside without the bugs? Yes? I have? Okay, well let me not be too repetitive.

on this day

Well, some days are harder than others. You wake up, the sun shines in your face and then slap! You’re hit with one of life’s punches.

This did not happen to me today, but I thought I’d remind you and myself (though I’ve not forgotten) that life is not always easy.

But for these fleeting seconds that make up this day (thus far, because you never know) – I have been lucky. Avoiding calamity is tough. As I said – I have been, on this day (thus far) (more often than not), without major mishap.


In other news, I finally had the pleasure of seeing one of my children. She’s back in town and happy to come over for dinner.





... and also worth noting: the tomato race continues between Ed and myself. His plants are doing well. So is the one that's"mine." I water his to help them along, because a good race is one that is evenly stacked.





In not so good news, I have this to offer: I prefer food over art. Please, do know that I love art. But food is better. So that when I arrived on the Square and found not the Farmers Market, but Art Fair on the Square, I was disappointed.

On the up side, I found, to the side, a few vendors with peas,  asparagus, flowers and berries (other produce as well, but I mention things I myself purchased).





...but it was not the same.

Back at the farmhouse – oh, we are working so hard here! Isis looks on with utter disgust (being, himself, more inclined toward napping). (Please, do not remind us that the grass needs a trim; we know that.)


 




So, the sun was out, the lilies stood tall, other flowers -- well they stood, that counts for something...










...and work continued. On the Book Notes and/or on the porch construction. (Depending on whom you ask.)