gold

Last dish put away, leftovers from Saturday’s meal stored. Outside, the rain comes down in that steady stream that looks never ending. Nothing fierce, just constant.

We take the car for an afternoon coffee. Past gray skies and golden fields of harvest ready soy.




They say fall colors aren’t coming to this part of Wisconsin for several weeks yet. Nonsense. There’s the soy, of course. And at the farmette, we have the very last crop almost ready for Ed’s fruit picker.





Watching the green turn to gold is remarkably satisfying. We ignore what comes next: the brown months. No one I know likes the brown months.

laughter

I wonder, do older people seem a little dated to their children? Do they seem without memory? A tad antiquated? Do the kids, not kids really, but your kids and so for all intents -- kids, will they all eventually want to write books about the oddities of the generation that came before them?

A Saturday at the market. I’m not going to post market photos. You’ve seen them, last Saturday and the one before that. But how about of leaves as they begin to crinkle inward...





And of the special chicken presentation, which Ed and I attended, thinking for a whole hour that we would someday raise chickens at the farmette. Until we talked ourselves out of the idea.






Young people. The farmhouse was abuzz with them tonight: daughters – both of them! – and their friends, all spilling onto the porch where the food is plentiful and the heater Ed put up is quite wonderful.





They look like a serious lot, don’t they? Maybe. Except when the parent speaks in the way that my generation speaks. And then their faces light up with laughter -- abundant, youthful laughter.

seasonal notes

As I get closer and closer to the super extra over and beyond duper busy months (October and November), I think about how utterly wonderful it is that after, it’ll slow down again for me. For a while. I look forward to that.

...even as I really love these months too. For example: in cleaning the farmhouse this morning, I had a chance to do some love-filled polishing. True, Ed didn’t notice. And Isis ignored my efforts, preferring to sit back up on the table to lick his fanny. But I noticed and it felt wonderfully decadent to have everything shiny bright ahead of the week-end (usually I clean on Sundays).

And here’s another piece of utter decadence. Ed took me out to dinner tonight. We don’t go out, the two of us. When we travel, yes, of course. But at the farmhouse, I cook. And most often, he eats. But, something moved us to return to Brasserie V today.







And so the days move forward. Toward the next season. And the next.

plummy ride

If the frost touched the tomatoes, I wouldn’t know it. In any case, I think we’re at the tail end of the growing season. All that was meant to be frozen for winter consumption is frozen. You could say we’re bracing for the first snow storm.

And man oh man, that was a chilly ride this morning. Had to rev it up, too. It’s too easy to set out just a half hour before class is to start. Then I worry and rush. It sets the tone of the day as one of rushing. I prefer a gentler approach. I’ll do better. Get up even earlier. When it’s still dark. Oh! That’s not that early these days!


By late afternoon, the air had warmed to a toasty 52. Scooting down to the café, I thought about how well I know the cracks in the road by now. The sync of the lights. All that. And still, taking Rosie out for a spin is always interesting. I ride pedantically, slowly, stopping for pedestrians. I am the older woman, with graying hair flying, leather jacket zipped tight. Around me, the youth weave in and out, shorts, no helmets, no protection against the elements (even as the elements are sunshine and wind, nothing more).

On the return trip, I have a food cart in front, a protest vehicle behind, and the mildly warm sun on my back.





Oh, I know Ocean has become about the trip there, the trip back. But believe me, the journey is that interesting.

It was even more interesting as Ed and I drove away in our respective motor bikes from the café toward the Fitchburg evening farmers market and then, squash, plums and onion in my back crate, home. It is unfortunate that I did not notice that the bag with the plums sprung a leak and so I left behind me a trail of the best European plums ever. Ed, riding behind me, noticed the Hansel and Gretel plums and attempted, in the midst of rush hour traffic, to pick up the fallen fruits. I was oblivious to it all, concentrating hard on staying warm.

We’re at the farmhouse now, a few plums with us, the rest, well, back in their natural setting. Yes, the journey is that interesting.



at the market

cool ride

Frost alert for tonight? Really? On September 14th?

I biked to work – sloooooowly, against the wind. In my face going in. Skies were gray then, but gray and gold go well together.





Okay. done. Time to head back. Biking to the café after work takes forever. Only eight miles, but really, too far, too long when you’re tired and longing for a cup of coffee with your neglected pb&j. But, Ed is there waiting and the barista and his dad are there waiting and you really cannot have a better end to a work day than that.

Oh, I suppose it could get better. Say you biked home from the café and encountered two sand cranes, casting the long shadows in an early evening. Yeah, that would have been cool.

spotted

There ought to be a Polish proverb of this sort: you cannot rush an Ed because if you do, you’ll have yourself a Fred.

This would translate into something like – don’t even try to hint to Ed that the painting of the farmhouse project might fare better if something was done to move it along on a fairly (dare I suggest – daily?) basis. Because Ed cannot be hurried. If the person responded to attempts at hurrying, he would not be Ed, he’d be maybe Fred or Adam or some other dude.

As a result, the farmhouse currently looks like it has spotted farmhouse disease and, moreover, there are scraping/painting implements on the roof, inside on the stairs, by the porch, just outside the bedroom window – you name it, they are there.

Typically the way to move a farmette project along is to roll up your sleeves and contribute. But I cannot. My sensible time is spent thinking work thoughts. At other times, I cease to function with any degree of alacrity.

I know I once said that I preferred intense work schedules, so long as they are complemented by long periods (such as the summer) of nonwork, but that is a more difficult claim to make when I am in the "intense" time frame.

Ah well, at least the evening is delicate and lovely, on the Square, with daughter, over dinner (over a book before she shows up). One of the last Graze meals to be had outside this year.





And Rosie is there, in her usual off street parking spot...





...waiting to take me home, by the light of the moon...


 


...to the spotted house in the country.

puff

I’m feeling a tad pushed around. Like I can hardly battle the forces that be.

Perhaps it was a bad idea to bike to work today. It was a tough ride back, from school to the café. Eight miles of grueling wind, straight in my face. An apt metaphor for so many things!


But who could blame me!  In the morning – it was so inspiring, so absolutely beautiful, in a golden stalks of corn sort of way!





So what happened? The wind kicked up, the work piled on... And on...

On the good side, I discovered that I can stay on an exclusive-use bike path 95% of the eight mile distance, traveling from my office to the Oasis Café.

Fantastic. But that's it for the upside. On the downside -- did I mention the wind?

the rest of the day

It couldn’t be just a regular Sunday. Even as it was so predictable, that I could have written its script days ago. We work – each in our own way. And we sink into the quiet of the day. It's what we want.

We bike a little too. A short distance.  To the café and back. 7.51 miles. That’s a nothing ride. Good nonetheless.

Eventually, I cook and Ed scrapes paint off the boards near the roof of the farmhouse.





Warm, it is warm. When my daughter comes for Sunday dinner, we take our food out to the porch again.





And it's a good day to turn some of the plums into plum ice cream.





Perhaps not a normal day. But warm. Inside and out.

ten years

I don’t know that there is a person in America who doesn’t take the time today to think of this day ten years back.

Ten years. It’s not a long time. I was born eight year after the end of World War II and it felt as if my country, Poland, then and throughout my childhood was still sifting through rubble.

And yet, ten years can be a very long time. In that period so many other lives have been tragically lost, so many babies born, so many hurricanes, so many mornings of perfect sunrise.

A cornflower blue day today. Warm, mostly sunny. More subdued than it was then, ten years ago today.

corn wars

Last night – it was so beautiful! A sunset, from the helm of a boat on lake Mendota. (A Tormach company cruise; it’s a tradition.) Unfortunately, my camera, my baby really, has developed a serious problem. I'm left with using my phone for photos. So all you get is this:





Today I spend a long while talking to camera fixer-uppers. Once again, my sweetie pie, my wonderful Sony Nex, is going in for surgery.

In the meanwhile, I have a backup option. A reliable little point and shoot which has done a lot of work for me over the years. But this morning, as I zip toward the market on Rosie, I am thinking more about food than photography.

It is the season for corn.

And now that I am living in a farmhouse, I am especially having thoughts on how to store good foods for the winter. Because really, winter is an awfully long season. Yes, sure, I’ve already frozen lots of raspberries, peaches, rhubarb, tomatoes. Those are all from the garden.

How about corn? There’s so much of it around right now and it is splendid! Shouldn’t I shuck, clean and perhaps de-cob some corn for the winter? To throw into soups, to mix up with chili peppers for a winter saute... Corn! Let me pick up as much as Rosie can carry.





I sort through the corn and I say to the farmers – I know, I know, I should not store them in their husks. I’ll clean them the minute I get home!
You’ll what?

Oh, remove the husks now. For better flavor later!

Don’t do that! We never take off the husks until just before cooking. You’re reducing the shelf life!

But the other day, the farmer said...

All we’re saying is that our corn keeps better if you store it with husks. Unless you’re freezing it?
Oh dear.
Who is right on this?





Market's done, one more stop at the grocery store and now Rosie and I are home. Her crate is brimming with foods, and my backpack is full and I have, too, a bag between my legs.

At the farmhouse, Ed comes out to greet me.

I’m going to freeze some corn today...

On the cob, right?

No no, I’ll take it off and bag the kernels.

Why would you do that?

For soups, for winter...

Keep it on the cob! Don’t make work for yourself!
Oh dear. Another set of opinions.

I turn away from the corn for now. We have other items on the to do list. Off we go on Ed's motorbike, to pick up paint at Home Depot. Lemon yellow (with the lovely name of Caribbean Sunrise) for the exterior of the farmhouse. Sort of the color of young corn...

At home I de-husk and freeze. Some on, some off the cob. When you don't know what you're doing, do a little of both.

Outside, Ed gets ready to roll on the Caribbean Sunrise.

waiting for the bird

Nearly every morning, we eat breakfast in the company of a hummingbird. He likes the cosmos and the prairie spiderwort. I like my muesli and berries, these days with a touch of honey. And I always make the comment that I ought to scurry out and take a photo of our breakfast friend. But he’s quick to feed and quick to fly away and so I let it go.

But in celebration of the fact that I do not have to be on campus until noon, today, I decided that it’s now or never: the bird shall be photographed.

Of course, when he showed up, once I picked up my camera and went outside, he was gone.

And so I positioned myself outside, camera ready and poised (I do not have a tripod so I served as the tripod) and counted the minutes.

I made sure the camera was in focus.





I switched weight between my left foot and right foot because it was tedious to stand still for so long. Then I sat down on the ground. After a while, I stretched out on the woodchips, camera still in hand. The flowers look pretty from a reclining position.





But after some seemingly long period of time, I got up to leave. And I saw him then, hovering, uncertain, then quite certain – that he wanted to be anywhere but here.





I’ve photographed humming birds before and challenging that it is, I managed to pull it off. Not today. Today, you’ll be thinking, the bird won.

But I don’t really agree. I got a good half hour on the ground, in the sun, doing nothing much at all. Bliss.

ten points

Step outside. What a beautiful morning!





I set out and I have this to say about today:

1. I motor-bike to work and pass a terribly sad road accident on John Nolen Drive. Oh, why are individuals such feckless drivers? Be careful out there!

2. Three classes: I teach three classes today and one of them is really a class and a half;

3. I appreciate the warm sun in the afternoon and the espresso at the end of the teaching day;

4. I visit the Fitchburg Farmers Market and contemplate making a beet chocolate cake, as suggested on the website of the Westside Community Farmers Market, but then decide that’s not too fair and it’s too fattening anyway;

5. I take the political quiz on Ann’s blog and come out placing exactly like Gandhi (with a score of -5.75 on the Left/Right continuum and -3.33 on the Authoritarian/Libertarian continuum -- which is odd because it seemed that on the issues spotlighted on the quiz, I had very few very strong opinions – as if anyone could have talked me down on any number of points, if only they’d put some substance behind the rhetoric);

6. I refuse to cook dinner, pleading utter exhaustion, then change my mind and cook anyway;

7. I vacuum the couch four times as Isis keeps coming in and going out in the restless way that a cat does when the weather is in the way that it is today;

8. I learn from a farmer that it is better to take the husks off your corn before storing it in the refrigerator;






9. I watch Ed work on sanding the paint off the farmhouse and feel only a tinge of envy, but it is short lived as the sound is exactly as one you would expect to hear in a dentist’s chair;





10. At the market, I buy something called “European plums” and almost decide to make ice cream with them, but, upon tasting one, determine that it tastes just like my (Polish) grandma’s plums and she never made ice cream so maybe we should just eat the plums and forget about messing with perfection.

so hot...

Wednesday is not a ride good-old-Rosie-girl day. It’s a get off your butt and get moving day. My first class starts later than usual. I can bike!

Cool, but lovely. Warming up by midmorning. Looking back over my shoulder, I see the clump of trees that hides the farmhouse, bordered by late summer sunflowers, waiting for a market day harvest.





I cross the Beltline -- the highway that seals off the city from us rural types. And then I bike past Lake Monona. Ah, the lakes. Here’s me showing off with a photo from the seat of Mr. Red: we got lakes, people, see???





But the ride back, after work, is different. A stop at Trader Joe’s means that I then go past lake Wingra... or some run off from that body of water. I want to think -- pretty! But if Lake Monona felt choppy and perky on this windy day, this bit of water feels stagnant and rather sad.





It gets worse: I veer off the short stretch of bike path and now I have to mingle with traffic all the long way along Fish Hatchery Road. Bumpy road, strewn with pebbles and broken glass. There is a bike lane for a while. All of six inches (or so) wide. Flanked by numerous cars. Tell me – is there a worse combination? And I have a pack full of foods and even though it’s 69 degrees outside, I am sweaty hot by the time I reach the Oasis – our best ever café on Lacy Road.

Ed is late – he had detoured to Home Depot to look at the various paraphernalia needed to scrape and paint the farmhouse. That would have been a lovely stop to make together! I miss Home Depot! But, only one of us is retired, with ample time to journey through the aisles of sanders and paint application materials. I am the observer this time, giving unnecessary advice from the sidelines, expecting none of it to be followed because, well, I'm not there.

At least the last stretch of the road – the one connecting the café with the farmhouse – is pretty. Full of sweet golden rod now. The flowers of early fall.

so cold...

A student tells me – it’s the coldest September on record!
Enough that it’s a brutal slap in the face early in the morning as I’m riding Rosie to school today. I am so very grateful to Ed’s motorcycle friends (and by extension, my friends) who gave me their rider jacket – that little thing sends the wind flying elsewhere! (I can’t believe I’m using the thinsulate with it already. Forty-two degrees on the thermometer outside and that's before you factor in the wind on the scooter.)

I am trying to get up very early so that my evenings are free of work. It’s awful to make such deals with yourself because when you then do get up very early, by evening you’re dead to the world. Who cares if your plate is clean of work. Your plate has also slipped to the floor while you doze on the couch,

Isis and Ed continue to enjoy retirement and I wish them well. I’m not jealous. Who needs free time. Hard work builds character, my mother always said. (Or was it Lenin?)

I took a “first day of school” photo before I hopped on Rosie this morning. Not of me setting out – couldn’t do that, and Ed was too busy pulling a warm quilt to his chin (after sweetly rising to eat breakfast with me). But of the farmette – to remember what it is that I come home to in the late late afternoon. Hi farmette, bye farmette, see you later, farmette, I’ve got great minds to stimulate. Or something.





It is evening, I am home. Hi tomatoes, good night tomatoes.

faces of labor

If I said I cooked, cleaned and worked today, would it seem that I had an unspectacular Labor Day holiday?
If I added that the day was crispy splendid, that the meal was a pleasure to prepare and that cleaning the farmhouse made it all spiffy and ready for the year ahead, wouldn’t that sound like a day well spent?

All in the telling. Fact is, I had a wonderful day. My daughter kept me company while I baked and Ed fixed a dented John Deere. I rolled out the buttermilk strawberry scones, made the dough for the apple frangipane galette (apples from our tree) and prepared the strawberries for the frozen strawberry yogurt.





I cooked potatoes and chopped tomatoes (from our plants) and prepared the shrimp for the salad on the side. The corn was terrific, the brats were my favorites (with chicken meat and hot peppers).

And let's not forget the people. My daughter, her friends and so too, by extension, my friends. Ed behaved, Isis kept to the side, the cool air added a touch of autumn to the evening.





Such a good finale.

Now, let me tuck the last dish away and pull out pages of notes. Fall's here. I have three classes to teach tomorrow.

not elephants

The sky cleared, well, mostly it cleared...





It was time to get the farmette ready for fall. Brush removal, yes, that.  Weeding, lots of weeding. Pruning too. All day long.





And in pruning around the pear tree, Ed discovered these:





They grew! The wine caps grew!

Ed, it’s been raining. There are mushrooms everywhere. How do you know they’re your mushrooms?

They totally fit the description and I planted them here!

They could be different, poisonous mushrooms.

They’re wine caps. Let me cook them!

Cook one. Just one.

(Five minutes later, Ed’s outside, frying pan in hand.)
Try it!

You try it.

I did. Have this piece.
(I do.)

We should wait for 24 hours before we eat more.

Why?

To see what happens.

We don't eat any more today, even though I know that they are good mushrooms. Once, a long time ago, a doctor, one of my favorite doctors, told me I did not have some dreaded disease. How do you know, I asked then. How do you know?
Well, if you hear hoof beats and you’re in Wisconsin, you think -- horses. Not elephants.

So, the tree didn’t fall during the storm, the bear didn’t maul, the moped stayed steady. And the mushrooms? Eight hours later, still breathing. Wine caps. How about that!

thunderous

Listen!

Go to sleep.

No, it’s a storm! It’s out of control, I’m sure it’s a tornado.

Go to sleep.

We have to go downstairs!

Mmm.

I’m going downstairs.

Mmm.

The lights flicker, the wind is powerful. The trees are bending – I can see it well, the lightening is nonstop, like flashlight photos, one after another. The farmhouse has trees on two sides, but the nearest are pines. Can’t worry about pines. Their limbs aren’t heavy enough to come through the roof, into the bed.

I go downstairs and huddle in the mudroom, flashlight and phone in hand. Essentials to survival. My laptop isn’t too far either. Life’s work on it. Can’t lose that.

And then it passes.


In the morning we survey the damage. Limbs down, yard cluttered with the post-storm debris. My landlord seems unfazed. Have to take the John Deere and the chainsaw out. Maybe later.





We have such different personalities.

It’s Saturday – market day, but it’s raining hard. We opt for the Westside Community market: compact and condensed. All the essentials are there.










Back at the farmhouse, Ed snoozes on the couch with Isis, I work.

the meal deal

Well, maybe it’s time for the schedule of work to click in. Summer’s great, but is it possible that we’ve become too relaxed about life?






Our eating habits are unraveling. There is still a phony regularity to the enterprise: we have breakfast together on the porch, but oftentimes, Ed’ll pass on breakfast eating. He'll munch on a blueberry and we'll idle through the next half hour watching butterflies. And lunch? It comes late. After we put in hours of work. We’ll go to the café, say at around 4, I'll bring my own sandwich. No one makes PB and J as well as I do.

But the really big issue is dinner.

It's evening. I get up to start dinner prep. Ed gets up to help himself to five portions of watermelon. I lose my desire to cook anything at all since within minutes he’ll say – I’m stuffed. What a surprise. And so I downgrade the effort. I do, for example, this:





True, they’re garden tomatoes and it’s market corn and the Trader Joe’s smoked salmon has omega this and thats, but still, it’s not what I call a solid dinner. It’s not warm, for one thing. That’s summertime for you – you throw things together from the fridge and pretend you have a meal.

Come next week, free time will be very very precious again. The weather will deteriorate, the butterflies will be gone. To Mexico maybe. Lackadaisical habits will disappear. And invariably, I’ll work harder at putting together more focused dinners. Which will be a good thing.

rosie in the morning

I toss in the usual morning way. Because I should be getting up soon, I am especially feeling comfortable in bed. As if staying there is the most wonderful thing, as if I could do this for hours, as if getting up belongs to another time, another place.

One eye open. I glance out the window. Ah, the mist rising last night has found a home for the morning. I can see wisps of it.

I should go out and take a photo.

You should.

I should.

Go out and get your photo. Go, you like doing that.
I should. Toss, burry into the bed. Sigh. Get up.

Maybe I should take Rosie out. There’s a lot more distance that can be covered in case the fields just next door aren’t at their morning best.

We head east on the road. Nice!





The farmhouse is maybe a mile or two from a lake. I tell Rosie – we’re going to the lake!




Oh, really, if I could paint, I would, right here, right now.





Slowly we head back, doing a small loop back to the farmhouse. And now the fields of corn are so golden, so perfectly Septemberish.





The sun has broken up the ribbons of foggy air. But a few strands remain. Rosie and I pause and watch. How can you not.





Back we go to the farm.

It’s going to be a warm day. I’ll get going soon enough, but first, a few more minutes in a morning sleep, replaying the images from the morning ride.