hello, day

I am up, the sun is up, we are up together. There is a little window in the farmhouse bedroom. Through it, I can see well enough the emerging light each morning. And today, that emerging light looks like it's worth stepping out for. A pretty sunrise to start the day!






Thursday is a very long work day. Rosie waits patiently for me. She goes from being rather naked, to standing there as if showered by golden leaves.






These days are workdays, that’s for sure. But here's something unique: this is an October day when the temp hits 82. To be repeated tomorrow. You can’t ignore that. Perhaps getting up early and taking a shot of the misty skies just as the sun breaks through is one way of saying – I’m grateful. It’s going to be beautiful out there today. How splendid is that!

life is warm

On days like this, I feel I am dangerously close to Andy Rooney, as depicted in a cartoon I saw this week – in it, he comments on everything and nothing. Mostly nothing. Yeah. Exactly.

But this is the way it is: a day blooms, I venture forth. This morning, in the bright, heavenly light of a warm fall day.





I’m out early and so I take the longer route. Mostly bike trails. Warm! One of those October days you can’t really believe is an October day.





My final bike lap is on State Street. Here I am, taking a photo while careening down the middle of the bike and bus only street. (Even Rosie isn’t welcome on it.)





In the evening, I bike from the Café to the farmhouse. Past fields of corn and meadows of autumnal prairie flowers. Most are dry now. But occasionally, I’ll still be able to pick out the asters and the goldenrod.





I ask my students if they like such splendid weather on days that are super busy for them. Most say no. Me, I’m thrilled with the warmth, the brightness, the idleness of my steps as I walk from the Law School to the bike rack, or to Rosie’s stand by St Francis (it’s where I park her).

There’s winter ahead. I know that. But in this week of drying corn, drying leaves, drying grasses, I can hardly remember what winter’s like. Life is warm. Life is good.

days of October

It’s 11 p.m. There, I am forcing myself to stop work. Now... about the post. What? Has the day passed me by??

And it is such a splendid golden sunny week! I wish I didn't just get to feel the tail end of each day. Still, leaving work, I had a chance to sample that wonderful parched heat of another dry autumn day.





Rosie and I zipped over to the Café, then to the farmette. Across the road, the shadows cover the fields early. And still, on a day like today, who can groan about diminishing light! It was just so beautiful. Even as by evening, I have to wear the biker jacket. There’s a chill as you dip through the valleys. Sun or no sun, I'm definitely tasting autumn air.





Supper? Leftover cabbage soup! We just cannot get enough of it.

five... days of summer

Damn. Summer’s back. Maybe this makes you happy? Seeing all that blazing light, feeling the warm breeze, shedding layers... And me too – I loved biking to work..





...and from work to the Oasis Café ...





But there is a sadness there as well. It’s not summer. Work is pressing. And, even in the course of the day, it all ends way too quickly. The light fades, the evening comes. A chill returns. Until morning -- when, these days, or at least this week, the temptation, the happy ride, the wistful realization cycle through all over again.



In other news, I want to celebrate the lonely tomato in our yard. It wont stop, despite the threat of frost, the decreasing sunlight. It just keeps growing as if, as if... it were summer.







At the farmhouse though, I'm facing the cold months head on. An Ocean commentor mentioned cabbage soup. Mmm, cabbage soup. Our eastern European roots (Ed's and mine) are kicking in. Because it sure tasted good, five... days of summer notwithstanding.

hike

When you live in the country, it becomes less important to look for occasions to ...head out to the country. Last fall, I was eager to drive out with Ed most every week-end when the sun was out. This year, we have to nudge ourselves to move beyond the perimeters of our usual orbit.

Today, we nudged ourselves. We drove out to Governor Dodge State Park (45 minutes southwest from the farmette). There, we had in mind to do the trail (the horse trail) that skirts the edge of the entire park. It’s 15.3 miles. We thought we could do it in five hours. Easily!






Not so. The hills slowed us down and so it was 7.5 hours before we finally, FINALLY hit the home stretch (with a twenty minute pause for a pb&j lunch and a five minute snooze stop: Ed snoozed right in the middle of the trail as I took a call from a daughter).







Here’s the thing to remember: when you take a walk on a brilliant autumn day in Wisconsin, no photo is going to be as good as the real thing.






Still, here’s a sample. A little one. I’m too tired to do more for you tonight.

watching geese head south

There isn’t a lot out there that would cause me to switch from movie watching to football watching, but the hype for tonight's (UW) game has been tremendous and, well, I just want to know. Besides, the movie we had set for the evening was deeply depressing. I’m hoping that watching my enthusiastic university’s football team do well will be more upbeat.

I’m eager to stay with today’s more upbeat tone. Market. I had a great run through the downtown market. Maybe I’ve been lax in posting photos, but trust me – these are the weeks when the market is in its final weeks of glory. We’ve had several frosts already and so you’re not going to see summer staples much longer. Even as for now, there is color.






After the market, my daughter and I took off for Indian Lake. You can’t resist this on a brilliant fall day. A short drive north and you’re there.






We walked the circuit and I thought how so many of life’s struggles had been hashed over between my girls and myself on this path.





I felt better just remembering that.

On the Square again, we parted ways...



 



...and I headed home on Rosie. Home, yeah, that’s right, home. Where the nasturtium bloom and – something that I learned this year, continue to show off their loveliness if you cut them and bring them inside.

home

One hard lesson that I learned not too many years ago is this: if someone says (or does) the wrong thing, don’t you, too, say (or do) the wrong thing. You don’t get a free pass.

I remember almost twenty-five years ago having a very lovely conversation with Mrs. Jahnke. She was the principal in a Milwaukee elementary school and she said – it’s when they’re most obnoxious, that’s when they need you most. That’s an easier statement to live by when it’s about kids.

These were my evening thoughts. The day was somewhat different. And the afternoon was somewhat wonderful. Ed and I biked to the Oasis EVP coffee shop and even though the wind was still gusting (and therefore keeping a balance was interesting), the light was beautiful.





At the café, Ed helped the owners fix an Internet issue and even though it wasn’t me that helped fix a perplexing problem, still I was delighted that one of us could help.

After? Well, I had to go back into town. Rosie helped me. And it was a lovely, albeit chilly journey.





All the way to the Discovery Institute at the UW, where the spaces are beautiful and the discussion was, at the very least -- passionate.





At night, Rosie and I found our way home. The stars were out and the air was crisp. Home. BTW, what’s the definition of household? I want to know.

fair warning

Did you know this about Ed? I’ll fall asleep during a movie, or I’ll shy from kayaking down the Dordogne and so he’ll finish it (the movie, the river) alone. And, if it’ll be good, he’ll do it all over again with me, so that I can experience it. (The Answer Man, on DVD, last night.)


If you wake up in the morning to a weather alert (a mix of storms and rain and a promise of strong winds), it’s good to leave Rosie behind. She doesn’t like the wind.





The lake is rough today. I knew it would be. I made a point of walking down from my office so I could study the choppy waters.






Waves. Really.






Late in the day, I walk up and down State Street trying to find 449 State. Missed it twice. On the upside, it was kind of pretty out there, in a crazy skies sort of way.





Ed painted the trim around the door of the farmhouse today. I asked for him to do that. If only part of the farmhouse is to look pretty this winter, let it be the entrance.

I made a salad. Beans and tomatoes from the market, eggs from happy chickens, mustard from one of my summer trips across the ocean.

And speaking of trips, someone pointed me to the New York Times piece (in the travel section) on Krakow today. Made me look forward to going back all the more. Even if my annual return to Poland is not for another two months.


They say a red sun is a sailor’s fair warning. I saw it glowing early today. I considered myself warned.

blue

I miss those jingles, I do. The evocative happy tunes from a fake world of pink girls and bow-tied boys, harmoniously urging me to double my pleasure and double my fun with double good, double good double mint gum!

Ed mutes commercials. He will not listen to someone telling us to buy, even cool stuff. Sometimes I mind the silence in between show segments, but most often I don't care. It's not as if I'd get jingles -- remember the one that told us all to have a nice holiday, with C a N a D a, D r Y, Canada Dry, the best you can buy is Canada Dry? It put me in the mood for Christmas! Now I’m just not hearing stuff about how sick you can get taking medicines that pharmaceutical companies tell us we should take anyway.

So this morning, as I dusted off Mister Red and looked up at the blue sky, I automatically hummed -- Everything's better with Blue Bonnet on it!






I like the sound of those words together, in the way that I've always liked how "grammarian" rhymes with "Hungarian" in My Fair Lady. When the skies suddenly become sparky blue after a period of prolonged gray, Blue Bonnet on it seems spot on.

red

Morning. Dark when I get up. Dreary when I get going. Sigh, it's going to be a car day.

Yesterday I had run into a councilman from Fitchburg and I had asked about the future of public transportation between here and Madison. The immediate plans are to grow the system, but in directions that have little to do with my daily commute. In the meantime, he tells me -- I can drive or bike to the hub over by the Fish Hatchery (4 miles), from where I can catch the every half hour bus (runs only early in the morning and early in the evening) downtown. If you miss it, he says jovially, you can drive further in and catch another bus by Wingra Park.

Oh my, by that time, I will have driven a distance greater than the one between the farmhouse and campus!

So it's back to Rosie and Mr. Red and on days like this one, where I am on campus from 9 until 9, it's back to the last of the Red Hot Lovers -- a new name for my '93 Ford Escort without the bumper guard. Why that name? You'd understand if you'd taken a ride in it with me -- the previous owners had put in a huge red heart cigarette lighter which shines brilliantly each time you turn on the ignition. It is rather comic in a brassy sort of way. Much like the play of the same title.

It’s late now. I’ll end with a photo of my dinner companions. A superb group of people.





Once again I was too timid to order the Plaza burger. Next time. Maybe next time.

Monday

It felt like razor sharp pins were being thrown at me, hitting mostly my face, but relentlessly, at the same time that the wind knocked me and Rosie from one side of the lane to the next. It was not a good day for me to ride Rosie to work.





You gotta be tough, Ed tells me. Someday, you’ll get rained on. So what.
So what? So you can’t see the road, so it’s slippery, so I slow down to a crawl, so I get my face slashed by pellets of cold rain.

On the flip side, maybe it’s good for my face? Like a massage of pristine and pure water from up above? Nah. I bet we have acid rain.

A gray day. A photo from the ride in, as usual -- without any color manipulation:





Ed asks later, at the café, did you get rained on?
Funny guy.

I make soup tonight. First time. (Soup is my winter go-to meal.) With bread and cheese. Eaten on the couch. In case you think that’s too informal, let me assure you, we eat breakfast at the table.

Sunday once more

In the scheme of things, mushrooms and pears are so commonplace. They grow, they’re shaken down or pulled out, they’re eaten.



It's Sunday. There are such small vicissitudes to this day! I clean (today, in an unusual move, we clean). I work, write, work, write. We pick mushrooms.





...and pears.





Storms come, storms pass.





Ed and I chop and pull  at weeds.

The farmette is still lush...


 


...the cranes still parade at the end of the day as if there is no end to anything at all, just one moment followed by the next and the next...






I cook, Ed cuddles Isis, my daughter comes over for a Sunday meal.





A week-end day like all others or like no others, depending on how you look at it.

random moments

Last evening, as Ed fell asleep (so early!), I played music. The kind that makes your life spin before you, so that you can chastise yourself at all the points where you think you didn’t quite pull it off. Ever since I purchased the Beatles collection on iTunes, I can go pretty far back now – to when I was ten and didn’t do my French homework as required... or twelve and took my skateboard out on the streets of Manhattan even though I knew I shouldn't...

Over breakfast, I ask Ed about his lunch the previous day with his business partner.
Chinese, in Waunakee. All you can eat buffet.
I wasn’t envious of the all you can eat buffet. That kind of set up makes me fill up with foods like broccoli because I want to take advantage of the all you can eat idea without piling on the calories. And yes, there is such a thing as eating too much broccoli.
But I was envious of the Chinese. We never go to a Chinese place for dinner anymore.
You don’t like any of the Chinese places in Madison.

Not true! It's been years! Maybe there are fine new places. You know, fresh and honest.

At the downtown farmers market, things were looking so good! So very good! My daughter and I circled the square (!) and she nibbled the curds and I stared at the tomatoes. And the eggplant. And the apples. And the corn. I felt like I was leafing through a catalogue of favorites foods. Nothing seemed unappetizing. And it looked still so richly end-of-summery! As if a hard frost hadn’t come by to shut down production! (It hadn’t.) Raspberries! Flowers! Peaches from Door County!





At the farmhouse, Ed is painting again (after a four day pause). I ask him – if you’re going to do such a small detail, why would you do it in the most invisible spot ever? Because it’s the most difficult one and I want to be done with it.





Okay. Makes sense. Still, I look forward to the day when I will approach home and think – my, what a fresh and lovely building! Not there yet.

In the evening, Ed asks – so, we’re going to a Chinese place for dinner?

But where?

We go to the Orient House on Park Street. Quite new. Call it a neighborhood place for us. A couple of soy/corn fields, a couple of city blocks and you’re there. Ten minutes door to door. And the food is fresh tasty and crisp (if a tad heavy)  and the waitstaff is young and charming.
It’s our special place now, isn’t it? I ask Ed.
He rolls his eyes at my sentimentality.





On the way home, we stop on the county road, just shy off where we turn off to go to the farmette. A new road is going up, getting the highways dangerously closer to where we live.





It’s a threat. It could be, that five years from now, we’ll be surrounded not by market crops but by a subdivision.

Few things are today as they will be tomorrow. For the most part, that's a good thing. For the most part.