just say no

It’s not easy for me to say “no” to opportunity. Maybe it's because I’m an immigrant – one who came here alone, focused on taking chances and risky steps.

Two ideas percolated in recent days and today I had to give some kind of an answer.

The first had to do with a legal issue. Should I work on it? If it succeeds, it may be financially rewarding. Or not. Ed tells me most large gains grow out of chancy investments of time. And yet, wont I feel hugely frustrated if, after several years' work, nothing comes of it? Just say no, my internal voice shouts at me, just say no! But my immigrant’s brain can’t just say no. And so I sit on the fence. One more day – I tell the party who is asking for my input. Just give me one more day to think about it.

The second idea has to do with the writer’s shed. You remember the writer’s shed? Years ago, before we came to an agreement about the farmhouse, Ed put great efforts into constructing the writer's shed -- a place where I could write, sleep, stay for a day, or two, or three...

We tore down the structure that once stood there and, with the help of Amos, the shed builder, put in the structure that stands there now. But we never finished it. I agreed to move into the farmhouse instead. The writer's shed stands incomplete. A shell of what was once to be.

And that’s a shame. Recently, we've tossed around the idea that we should put in the floor, the little kitchen, the shower, toilet. And then we should rent it! Not year round, but occasionally! A real money maker!

And yet...

So many times we’ve rented rooms in private homes and looked at each other to say – who would want to do this? Who would want to cater to the needs of grouchy travelers? Who would want to listen to complaints about bad TV reception or an overabundant mosquito population?

But, but, we could rent it just to special, preapproved people! I tell Ed.

One more house to maintain...

We could meet interesting folks!
*You* could meet interesting people. People who would complain about the grouch on the premises. Me. Besides, do you really want to lose your privacy?
I smile. I wrote about my colonoscopy on Ocean. What privacy could he possibly be referring to?

Just say no, just say no...

I will, I will, but why is it that I am regretting saying no? In both cases?

We bike to Paul’s café. We pass Lee, tending the fields south of us. When are you planting in our quarter acre?

I have planted! Beans and cucumbers. And my sister will plant some more!

We swing by the local market, too. The last of the perfect asparagus. And spring spinach. And, of course, as every week come spring and summer, Madison’s best baguettes.

Finally -- home.

...Where the iris stands tall, the tomatoes are getting chomped down by the chipmunks, and the lettuce seems too stubby and tastes...like lettuce.

the next phase

 Surely you do not want to hear that I did a clean sweep of three grocery stores today? Is there a story in that? Perhaps not a story, but room for a smile: does anyone else walk away from Woodman's giddy, after loading up a shopping cart with many, many jugs of fruit juice (blueberry-grape-wild cherry -- mmmm! Diluted with sparkling lemon mineral water -- the best!) and many many packs of sparkling lemon mineral water?

And I’m no longer surprised when, at Trader Joe’s, the clerk asks if I make my own trail mix since my cart is full of unsalted pistachios, lightly salted cashew pieces and peanuts. Oh and how could I forget – so many containers of chocolate covered raisins. (The answer is -- I do not.)

I venture out to town so infrequently that I now buy as if for a winter season in North Dakota. Anticipating a powerful snowstorm. That will bury me deep for four months. Without access to unsalted pistachios, chocolate covered raisins and sparkling lemon mineral water.

At the farmette, my focus has...evolved. To grading – but please don’t let me get into the habit of repeating day in and day out for the next two weeks that I’m grading. Know that whatever else I may be doing, I’m also grading. There, I’ve said it.

And what else? Ah, the seasonal job of carrying water to the thirsty plants. Much of it is accomplished by standing still with a pointed hose. But some of it is significantly more taxing. I am reminded of the resentful kids of Monet, the artist. They complained that their childhood was lost to watering his expansive gardens. My plots aren’t one hundredth as vast, but they stretch far and wide so that even multiple extensions to the hose wont do. And so I carry the watering can. Back and forth. To keep the flowers satisfied.

(Sorry, how could I forget: and the fruits and veggies.)

It’s an evening task and one that, honestly -- I sort of like. At least now, in the early stages of the growing season.

Then, tonight, a special return to town – for a Mother’s Day meal at Graze. This is the city trip I’m always happy to make: for a meal with the terrific younger set.

My littlest one is, of course, in Chicago, but in spirit she is there too. And since it's "Mother's Day," I am left to open boxes. (These days, insofar as I am at all decently dressed, it is because they attend to me in this way. What I am wearing for example is, from head to toe, their doing -- from a recent birthday.)

At the end of it all, Rosie transports me home. Past a sun that set over the fields, past deer that always come out when I ride at their hour of play.

A beautiful evening. You could not hope for a better one.

pause

A break. No weeding, planting, watering – none of it today. I cast a half hearted glance at a dead strawberry plant and shrug. What are you gonna do...

There is a breakfast out on the porch...

 

...a poke out to the barn, where Ed cleared out years of debris...

 

...a trip to town – a lovely bike ride, past fields and meadows...

...and hidden barns...

...for a lunch meeting downtown, and then a return to the farmhouse, for another meeting, a most wonderful one, with three of my graduating students...

We sat for a long while on the porch and reviewed the past years – theirs and mine.

When you’re in the business of teaching (an inflated term, I know), you accept the idea that your role is just that of a temporary assistant in the process of moving someone from point A to point B. Sometimes your role is quite small. They sort of know what needs to be done and if left to their own devices, they’d probably figure it out themselves. (I see this in Ed who never studied law, but knows quite a bit of it just because life forced him to tangle with the judicial process and learning about it was preferable to being pushed and pulled in all directions without a clue as to what was happening.)

And still, we’re there to help them ask the important questions. Or at least what we think are the important questions.

And sometimes we’re there because we just love working with young people – people whose minds are still open to numerous possibilities.

I thought about all this as my trio of students lingered over a glass of juice on the farmhouse porch and clouds tumbled above as if ready for a storm but not a big one, not tonight, not now...

And then I cooked dinner for Ed and myself -- a dinner which was just veggies and eggs and I felt a tiny bit nostalgic because this is the way one feels at the end of something, even if that something is as inconsequential in my scheme of things as the end of another academic year.

He said then – let’s go play tennis.

Tennis? I hadn’t played for a couple of years. Last year, my shoulder froze for some inexplicable reason and I could hardly move it to write on the blackboard, let alone play tennis.

Okay!

As the sun moved to its final place at the line of the horizon, we volleyed the ball back and forth, me – clumsily, he – with greater skill. I laughed so hard at myself that my eyes filled with tears and then I laughed some more and you may wonder about tears and laughter and the relationship between the two, but I can assure you, it was a fine evening, down to the last missed opportunity to hit back, do a good serve, gloat at a success that was not to be, not in this lifetime anyway.

day after, day of

There are so many punchy jokes I could have made here yesterday, admitting that the reason I was not up for celebrating Mother’s Day was because the next day (today) I was scheduled for a colonoscopy. Anyone who knows the routine understands that even brunch is a no no on the day before. Dinner? Out of the question. (Remarkably, one can still ingest wine, albeit white wine, but after jugs of apple juice and white grape juice, the last thing you want it juice of any kind, including fermented and with alcohol.)

The reason not to poke fun of picking this day to not eat is because colonoscopies are not really funny. Too many people avoid them, too many results are suboptimal – it’s all part of getting older, even as, if truth be told, my first colonoscopy and surgery on my colon were at age twelve. One of the many childhood traumas that I bring to the table.

This morning, Ed dropped me off at the hospital and then quickly departed. He’s a good sport about taking me places when I ask him, but he’ll seize any opportunity to not interact with the medical community. When I came to, we scooted out on his motorcycle before the hospital staff could hold us back and say – hey, when we asked that someone drive her home, we didn't mean on a biker's seat, with a milk crate as a back rest!

I was unconcerned. After all, Ed turned around every few blocks and asked if I was still awake. I was. Right up until we pulled into the driveway. After that, I promptly dozed off on a chair outside, on the wood chipped driveway. Eventually I woke up.

And now I’m just full of appreciation – among other things, for the foods I can eat. (When I was told that for the week before the procedure I should avoid eating fruits, veggies, grains and nuts, I thought – well what else is there? Needless to say, I cheated.)

I did not work much in the garden today. I walked the rows of strawberries, noting that all the ripening fruits were nibbled on by our resident chipmunk. I’m going to have a shouting match with him before the season’s over, that’s for sure. The Hmong farmers have planted berries all around us and they appear to harvest a significant number of them for the farmers markets. So why do the chipmunks come to our small motley assortment? I cannot answer that.

In the evening, I planted five, yes only five tomatoes out back. That’s unremarkable. But what was remarkable and is always remarkable is the big willow we pass every time we walk to our orchard out back. We have two such willows, but this one is bigger, mightier, coddled by hours of unobstructed sunshine.

The willow has to be older than I am. Its branches are as unruly and untamed as my hair, its roots mess with everything below, but it is beautiful especially in the morning and in the evening, when the wind tussles its branches this way and that.

...with the red sheep shed peeking through at the lower end.

What a beautiful May 14^th! What an absolutely splendid day!

mothers and others

 

Well I hope you had a happy Mother’s Day – if you’re not a mother, then you are at least the kid of one and whether you are able to stay in touch, or wish you could, or didn’t give it that much thought – I still hope that there are some calm and joyous recollections that you have of that unique relationship between kid and mom.

 

You would think that I would be celebrating with my daughters today. Not so. We postponed it for later this week, for reasons that are completely inconsequential. In the meantime, I say to Ed – wish me a happy mother’s day! – and he does, with a notable absence of enthusiasm that is deliberate and childish and sometimes adorable.

Andy, our construction guy, the man who helped us rebuild the farmhouse last year, stopped by. We have a small project that we want to discuss with him. It’s like old times – Ed fires off construction questions and ideas, Andy, shakes his head – and still it all moves forward.  

 

Moving forward. In the garden too. One plant at a time.

We hunt for strawberries, buried under weeds – tall plants straining for light, without much hope, salvaged at the last moment, placed in the quirky bed of veggies and now fruits.

Flowers. They’re each taking their turn now!

They’re always framing the farmhouse for me. The entrance along the brick walkway is defined by what grows at the sides.

The entire house, even the still-light-beige-brown-whatever-off-color dormer, stands in a thicket of growing things.

It's always this way: I look up, see the farmhouse in a bed of greens and emergent blooms. I rush inside to grab the camera, not really caring that I’ve already taken this photo. Many times. And yet, I need another.

There are subtle changes! Flowers change. What I cut for the table changes too. Daffodils done, lilies of the valley – out. Lilac – I’m back with lilac, a late blooming variety.

And so, to that sweet smell of middle spring! And to you, moms of kids and kids of moms!

markets and rallies and who knows what else

To market, to market...but let’s skip the pig part. Though, just a couple of days ago, I did notice that our neighbor has this on his rooftop.

This is a somewhat distant neighbor, but he owns and rents much of the farmland to the west and south of us. He is selling his house and moving closer to town. This is the trouble with rural America: houses sprout close to the cultivated land (rather than, say, clustering close to the bakery) and this isolates families. Our neighbor complains that he and his wife have to shuttle the kids constantly to school, to extracurriculars, to friends. To be a parent is to be a chauffeur. May as well make the daily shuttles on the short side.

At the market, I buy the usual. My usual. Everyone has their usual. And we wouldn’t be Wisconsin if the usual did not include cheese, in some form or another.

In May, I search out the good asparagus, the oyster mushrooms, the strawberry plants. Loaded onto Rosie, for the trip home.

Home. Where work continues. Ed cleans out the barn so that he can retire one of his ancient vehicles there. It’s a long story for another day. 

Me, I plant. To you, it all may seem abundant already. But abundance is a funny thing -- it demands attention or else it withers and fades.

And then we break for a coffee at Paul’s and here’s the odd thing: as we leave, we see that there are motorcycles up and down the street. A flash mob! – Ed says. Actually, it’s a Facebook rendezvous of the Vintage Motorcycles of Dane County .

Ed’s ancient Honda with the milk carton stuck on the rear suddenly looks like it’s here for a reason. Guys come and stare at it, because staring at ancient bikes of others is what you do at these rallies. And of course, Ed eventually recognizes past acquaintances and now I'm lost in the midst of a bikers' gathering, surrounded by people in black leathers and bandanas and I'm thinking -- odd how a day can suddenly place you in the thick of the unexpected.

The remaining daylight hours are, of course, at the farmette. digging, weeding, digging, weeding.

...planting. Always planting.

Then, too, there is the incident with the bug. Ever have a bug fly into your ear? Deeply into your ear? It’s weird. Ed uses the vacuum to try to suck out the guy that's made it into mine. No photo there, but I assure you, it was a very strange set of minutes.

But these are the outlier events. Much more meaningful is the time spent standing perfectly still, holding a water hose. Aiming at the slumped transplants. Firming the soil around the last of the cheapie plants. And making sure that the pots keep the vibrant colors of the garden alive, even as one set of perennials fades and the next has yet to take hold.

Such a good day. No complaints. Really, no complaints at all.

cat on a hot steel roof

Hello, morning. Yes, from any vantage point, it is a beautiful time of day. A real show stopper.

But I cannot dawdle today. I have before me a grand swing through town, with many things to accomplish there.

The best part is the first stop – at the Arboretum, for a walk (a run?) with my daughter.

The worst part is everything else. When you don’t go in to the city very often, your checklist grows. And grows. Exchange this, pick up that, and that, stop over here, do that. Bleh!

I remember sitting at a café in Sorede (very southern tip of France) and thinking – man, that guy who’s making food deliveries here sure seems to enjoy his work! Going from one place to the next, carting in boxes of onions and carrots with stems still on them – he’s virtually singing as he unloads the truck. What’s so great about stop and go errands? Stop, start, stop, start – it’s numbing!

In the Sorede scene, I see the pleasurable elements: it's not just the unload, it's also the greeting, the pause for an espresso, a comment on this or the next thing, a salute to life.

My errands (after the lovely walk) have the stop and go but none of the warm elements that would give them meaning and vitality. Stop, get out, purchase, pick up, no greeting offered, none received. Onto the next one.

And then, finally, I’m done. Pulling into the driveway of the farmette, I exhale. Home.

In the evening we are out planting again. Tomatoes. Eight more go in, shade, no shade, so what – so they’ll produce a dozen fruits each instead of two dozen. Do the math! We have too many plants, too many seedlings, we should cross our fingers and hope for a small bounty!

And then we plant a flat of strawberries and they look so pretty and so oblivious to the fact that they’ll have to spend half the day in shade that we search the farmland for more berries (because there are indeed some old berries with new runners, smothered in weeds, needing a rescue) and we transplant those too and now we are satisfied because the peas are starting to climb, the lettuce leaves are almost ready, the tomatoes are perky and the strawberries – lovely to behold.

The bulk of our spring work is done. Orchard, flowers, veggies, berries – most everything is in place. (Except the tomatoes: dozens more of those... next year we’ll do less, Ed tells me, as if that helps us now.) Some of our plantings will thrive, others wont, we know that, we are not foolishly optimistic. But the stage is set. The new season begins. 

...make the garden grow

What a day, what a wonderfully bright, pungent with spring, beautiful, sunny day!

But we sleep in. At night, Isis was restless, Ed was tired after his bike ride and so I was the cat care person, down the stairs, up the stairs, coming Isis! Okay Isis! Ed was so deeply asleep that he almost didn’t wake to the loud crash of Isis being knocked off the bed by an overly generous sweep of a limb. Ed's limb. Isis knows to sleep on that side of the bed. I complain loudly when he wanders over.

But last night the cat fell off the bed and I felt sorry for him so I was a good caregiver. Coming Isis!

We ate a hurried breakfast. It’s a packed day for us. Tomorrow I pick up exams, but today I have a different agenda! 

 

Start putting in the tomatoes! (Two dozen today, many dozen more at another time)

...and plant the newly arrived variation on pink daylilies (goal: 24) and lavenders (goal: the entire 6).

The noon hour passes, the sun grows stronger.

Lee, our resident farmer, comes over to assess the land she’ll be planting. How is it? I ask her.

Lots of grass. She has a point. It will be several years before all the quack grass is tilled out of there.

What are you planting? - I ask.

Cucumbers! Big ones. Pickle cucumbers!

Ah.

She walks past our veggie plot. Her friend is with her and they have a rapid exchange in Hmong and there are small giggles mixed in as well and it doesn’t take much to understand that she is amused at our efforts. She looks up at the sky and shakes her head.

I know! Not enough sun.

You come pick my peas. No need to plant.

Too late. We're invested in our beds.

Revised count: planted today: 28 tomatoes,  20 daylilies, 6 lavenders and various miscellaneous cheapies acquired at a Shopko sale – not so much because the plants themselves were tempting, but because these commercially grown perennials look so bedraggled and listless that it’s like going to an animal shelter and saving a cat or dog from a fate far worse than coming home with you.

The sun has set, the birds have settled. We eat our summer supper, which so often is accompanied by a baguette from the Thursday market...

La Baguette

Ed asks me – do you ever finish planting?

And I answer truthfully – yes. When we stumble into summer I am done. For me, there is a time for work and a time for reaping the benefits of work. My interest in digging the land diminishes as the soil gets harder, dryer, less forgiving, when the failed plants can’t be revived, not this year anyway, when the bugs drive us nuts, when there are other ways to enjoy the heat of the day.

 But for now, we work. Everyone who cares about what the earth produces works now. Late into the evening, until the sun sets.