hiding

Isis spent the day avoiding us. Ed says he’s harboring a grudge, I say he is in a dazed stupor, fighting off evil bacteria and his suddenly quite feeble state can only accommodate one set of issues at a time. (I always think that for Isis, people present issues: some good, some bad.)

And so he hides. I mean really hides.

My commenters are right to fret about his welfare. Last year, during our June away, we lost Ed’s other cat, Larry. Shy, quiet Larry. He was hit by a car. Our neighbor buried him. Isis doesn’t really go near the road anymore. But the countryside is full of creatures, hiding, waiting. You can see that Isis carries this knowledge always, daily. He looks, pauses and never rests unless he is high up or hidden, well protected. Buried in my flower beds, for example

Me, I’m methodically attending to things. I got many guffaws from my beloveds for writing out for my nephew a many many volume text on how to manage our farmhouse, our animal, our plants. Some would call me compulsive, but if you were spending a month mostly alone in a farmhouse, wouldn’t you want to know what product to use to wipe down the sink in the bathroom? And where to take the compost out? And how many hours it takes to water flower bed A, B & C? And what to do if Isis 'rings' your doorbell compulsively?

My nephew hasn’t been to the States for more than a dozen years. He splits his time now between Sweden and Poland in some fashion – I almost always see him when I travel to Warsaw.

He is ready for the challenge of moving around here only by bike (he doesn’t drive). At 29, he’s a spry and energetic guy and I imagine that even if he had to walk to the nearest store (some four or five miles away) he’d be fine.

I pick him up tonight at the airport – and we eat one of the typical no fuss suppers that are so pleasant to do in the summertime.

I tell him that one of the best ways to spend a late evening is to watch the bat show from the porch after sunset. They’re out now, our wonderful crew of bug eating bandits. They swoop and fly and are never outdone, not even by the fireflies who, too, are trying to do show stopping swirls and dips in the evening.

It truly is summertime. Lee, our farmer friend hides under both a hat and an umbrella as she harvests her fields. 

 

The sun is strong. No rain in the forecast for days on end. 

Even though it should hardly matter for us. We’re leaving the day after tomorrow.

runaway children

In the late afternoon, Ed comes in with a troubled look on his face. That’s rare. Ed doesn’t trouble easily.

It’s Isis, he tells me. He has an infected bruise on his ear.

We know how it happened. There is a new cat in the area. We’ve both seen him. The cat came onto the farmette and Isis defended his turf.

True, this is what cats do. But I’ve grown to know and appreciate Isis for his sweetness, for his fear of the attack, for his life prior to coming to the farmhouse. And then there's this: Isis is getting old. I should think he deserves to roam his turf without fear. Right now, he’s poised for war again. With the drooping shoulders of old age.

And it doesn’t help that Ed works to clean the infection in his wound. Isis is in pain and as soon as he can free himself of Ed's grasp, he takes off like a wildcat.

We don't see him again for the rest of the day.

Thinking back now -- our morning was so very delightful! The three of us – my girl, Ed and I, have our usual breakfast on the porch (and yes, to Bex, my commenter here, I eat oatmeal nearly every day: with fresh fruits and acacia honey and a cappuccino... can you think of a better breakfast?)...

And then the clock begins its accelerated run through the hours. My girl is to leave in the afternoon and suddenly there's hardly enough time... to eat, to walk, to talk, to exchange this, fix that...

She and I take a country walk...

... and I want a nice one, a special one for my urban child and if I had thought straight, I would have realized that walking on a Sunday afternoon along the road that leads to the boat ramp at the lake is a dumb idea. Country road – yes. Peaceful? Forget it. Cars and trucks with boats roar by and isn't it the case that if you want everything to be exactly perfect, you'll find that life teaches you that this cannot be so.

And so she left and of course, that’s always a drag. Kids take off, parents feel wistful and the farmhouse feels suddenly awfully quiet.

We work outside some, Ed and I. 

 

It’s so lush right now!

I know you come to expect these photos of green everything, but please, try to remember back to March. And now look again, at this:

Ed continues to plant the last of the tomatoes.

We have now perhaps one hundred tomatoes, growing, some thriving, some thinking about whether life is worth living, scattered in odd places all over the farmette. I'm thinking they are like very young children: who knows what will become of them!

By evening, Isis still had not returned. I have my Neosporin ready for him (Isis, pain killer! Come on Isis! Where are you Isis?)... Nothing.

As I walk back to the farmhouse, I think to look in the garage. Yes. We have managed to lock him inside (to our credit, when we called for him there earlier, he chose to hide and keep quiet).

Ed breaths a sigh of relief. The Neosporin is applied and of course, the act of medicating him causes him to run off again.

Not for long though. I’ve come to know that your kids’ll come back if you keep the door cracked open – just enough.  So they know there’s a lighted room waiting for them.

June song

It’s a bouncy fa la la la la, la la la la kind of a day with maybe a hint of the Polovtsian Dances and a splash of (maybe Dali’s?) dance of the flower maidens thrown in for good measure. A prance and dance below puffy clouds that only once every many minutes cover the bright, bright sun.

We have breakfast on the porch and I linger over it so long that the oatmeal gets lumpy and stiff. Ed and my girl laugh at me. It’s good to hear their chortles.

I look out at the garden before us. We'll just miss the early coreopsis and the June daylilies. Phlox, too, is going to be lost for us. Last night the animal population (and Ed reminds me that I should add rabbits to our core dining club) came out and evenly cropped all my phlox so that I have nothing but stubble – like a green bearded man who hasn’t shaved for a while. (Ed, you need to have that beard trimmed before we leave!) So it goes.

My girl and I go to the market on the Square. 

It’s not just a lovely market on a sunny day, it is a market filled with kids and dairy themes and it extends beyond the square to accommodate all the June fuss that we have before us. Here's a group of little ones doing... yoga.

...and a group of big ones grilling cheese sandwiches.

We stroll and pick up just a few things – not too much, not too much... All beautiful at this time when there are no frustrations, none at all, just the prettiness of an idyllic moment.

And after – it’s shearing time. Ed sets off for his beard trim, my girl and I set off to shop and windowshop and days like this tend to fly so quickly, but that’s fine because each hour, (even the evening hour) is pleasant.

 Ed and I continue the shearing theme – he takes out his old tractor and goes after the month-high grass, then out come the pruners and down come the dry, spent limbs, I go after tall grasses, whack away, let it all come down...

Well, not all, not even a tiny fraction. Far far more remains to be done, or not done.  We work at it because we like it – no other reason than that. And then we put down the tools and sit back for a while – out on the porch, grilling, on the beautiful new cheap, cheap, yes, how about that, cheaper than a Weber, cheap and gorgeous grill – how could we not grill, one last time before we leave?

Chicken in mustard, corn, and a summer salad – need to use those peas because, guess what, our vines are now bearing pea pods too!

And then the day ends. A perfectly beautiful June face of a day.

June day

I’m so frustrated! Ed, listen to my ten points of frustration!

It's early in the evening and by coincidence, we're pulling into the driveway on our motorbikes at the same time. He had his work errands, I had mine and now here we are, except I just want to unleash the torrent, just for a minute...

Except that you can never really expect sympathy from Ed for the inconsequential irritants in life. He’ll give you that look that asks – really? And this made you upset? Incredible... And so as I glide from point one, to point two, to point three (and so I invested my quarterly savings – my piddly thousand, just before the market REALLY plummeted!), to point four (and then the eye doctor said that what with glaucoma in my family I should have my eye photographed.... no no no, I did not have it done, because, guess what, they don’t have that capability at my doctor’s office and I ask you, why go there then if it means that you have to make two more appointments this summer to pull it all together and you know, there’s nothing even wrong with my eyes!), to point number five (and the administrative assistant hadn’t given me all the exams to grade and so I still have one to read!), and so on...

Let’s go inside and eat.

Neither of us had had much of anything today. Fixing food is a good antidote to frustration.

Eh, but life is good. The flowers in the various beds are just emerging and they look strong and healthy...


 


... (as opposed to the veggies – they look severely chomped). I’m tired, yes, I’m tired but that is so completely my own fault.

...Because last night, I got an email from the school of my childhood in New York. UNIS (the United Nations International School, where I was a student for six very young years).

The email told me that I could see this year's graduation ceremonies on the UN website. There’s a link – click and watch!

I click and watch. Eventually Ed joins me. We spend several past-midnight-hours listening to kids we never heard of make speeches, play musical instruments, smiling as they march up to receive a diploma.

Why are we so mesmerized by this? It could have been any school, any group of eager camera-toting parents, anyone’s speech, no better no worse than countless others given this month across the country.

But it was my school, and as I watch I have to let myself wonder  – what would it have been like had I stayed? And graduated from there? A UNIS grad, rather than one from the Lycee of General Studies in Warsaw, named after the Polish writer Zmichowska?

The students’ names are called, one by one they walk up, all 116 of them, the girls in such high heals, the boys in suits. Boring, right? (A redeeming feature – the graduation was in the General Assembly, so it felt very UN-ish.) No, not boring at all. For whatever odd reason, we are drawn right in.

And so today I’m tired. On my way to town, I pause and watch Lee work in her fields. She’s helped by her daughter and her son in law. Her grandchildren are there as well, eerily bopping into view, then disappearing in the rows of pea stalks.

Lee gives me a bag full of peas and so now we have our supper. 

 (By comparison, our own pea plants are daintily small. Singularly pretty. Singularly.)

And after – well now, here’s the good part: my little girl alights from the Chicago bus. Here for just two days, but I’m not complaining, no not at all.

And did I mention that the colors in the garden are becoming more intense? They are. Welcome to June. The pretty month.

end of the month

With all this unallocated time, you’d think I’d be out, running, biking, boating, flying. Exuberantly.

Well now, consider this day: a fool’s last day of May. The thermometer never passed 50. The furnace has long retired into seasonal hibernation, my woolies are folded, washed. What is this – northern Europe? (I remember many such weather surprises in the course of a Polish summer... In fact, didn’t I buy woolen caps for my daughters the first time they traveled to Poland in July?)

a chilly afternoon market

So I mostly stay indoors. Ed tells me – get under the quilt!

No no. I have a mental separation as to what is daytime furniture and what is nighttime stuff. Beds and quilts belong to the latter.

In the afternoon, I go to Paul’s. Perfect biking weather, you might say. Really? You can bike in this kind of chill when you’re at the tail end of winter. On the cusp of June, you expect better.

At least at Paul’s the heater’s running.

There’s much to be done in the time and space just before us. In five days we leave and I’m one of those weary persons who likes to tie all the knots before moving on to the next stage. An annoying trait, I know. Ed says – it must be hard being you!

In the evening we begin the task of clearing all foods out. Eating leftover this, leftover that. Asparagus from last week, brats from last week, locally grown and pickled sauerkraut, leftover wine, leftover days of May that flaunt their unusual cold demeanor in my face, maybe to get back at me for once complaining that May was too picture perfect.

cooking with leftovers

eating in a chilly farmhouse

No need to water the plants. It rained all night. Perfect time though to use the grass cutting shears we picked up last Sunday at Farm & Fleet.

Let me tell you, standing on a warm sunny evening with hose extended is much more fun than hacking away in the cold at waist high grass that has invaded everything.

June, please do better.

the sour cherries in the old orchard are ripening!

farm guests

A longtime reader of Ocean, one whom I never met but consider, through our Internet communications, to be a dear friend, asked for a photo today of a feast. Dear Lili! How I would love to please you! But I couldn’t do it! Let me explain, in three points:

1.     Comings and Goings

Now starts a week of departures and arrivals and then more departures and arrivals. My daughter and her guy left Madison today and between our various travels, I wont see them again ‘til mid July. With a desire to be helpful I threw out an offer to take them to the airport.

Thanks, mom! That’ll be wonderful!

Okay then! What time?

Well, the flight leaves at 7:20 am.

Enough said. This, after a night of listening to an old computer (these days used by Ed in random places) cry all night. Have you got a crier? We do. It whines and moans and even closing the lid wont quiet it down. Ed sleeps through it, I do not.

climbing sleepily into the car, I caught the sunrise

On the subject of comings and goings – in a couple of days my younger girl will come for a quick visit, and then, immediately after, my nephew comes down to house-sit for us. Most people would think that it's appropriate to have someone local do their cat and garden care in their absence. Not me – I want my nephew. The one who lives in Stockholm, Sweden. More on that later.

And of course, farmhouse sitting means that Ed and I are leaving. But not until next week. More on that later too.

2.     Exams and work in general.

The (set by me) goal was to be done with all school work by noon today. Sluggishness slowed me down. I was half an hour late -- done by 12:30! A few administrative do-dads and by 2:30 I am free!!

Sort of.

The house is disorganized (according to me). There is no food worth cooking. Ed has his evening bike ride tonight and so cooking for me, just me, seems – eh, not such a worthy goal. Even if there was food. Which, again, there's not.

In my first free hours, I turn to the essentials: pulling out a few weeds and finishing the interrupted Google calendar.

So no, dear Lili, it was not a good time to cook.

3.     There is always an upside

Here’s mine. Or ours. Or just out there, an upside:

I’m loading exam grades onto the Law School website. For many reasons, this task requires utmost concentration. And I hear the motion sensor doorbell ring. Almost always this is because Isis wants to come in. Sometimes it's because the chipmunks are frolicking nearby.

Ed, I cannot be interrupted. I say this and continue loading. The sensor bell rings again. And again.

Ed, I cannot deal with Isis right now. You deal with Isis (there’s that “he’s your cat” tone in my voice).

Ed gets up and goes to the door. Nina, come look at your “chipmunk!”

We have a visitor. Probably a repeat visitor. That would explain the utter devastation of one lettuce bed. Forget the chipmunks – we have all of nature living in our backyard!

Well what are you gonna do... Dis-invite them? Nah...  Continue forward, as best as you can.

I live in the countryside and the countryside lives with me here. And that is, for the most part, a very good thing.

I hope, dear Lili, your eyes are fine after surgery. I do. In case they’re a little fuzzy still, here’s an easy close up of our beautiful guest.

Much better than the photo I could have offered of our reheated Chinese takeout, I promise.

(She was gone in a blur of movement. Not your vision, my friend, no -- just her rapid saunter.)

final run

Unless something untoward happens, I’ll be done grading by tomorrow. By noon, I say, by noon!

I’m giddy at the prospect. I worked today against all odds (from Ed: Nina, do you want to set up a Google calendar? – he has no shame...).

As usual, I needed to take my work from one spot to the next. You can never grade too many exams in a single setting. You want to keep each person’s answers compartmentalized, distinguished, clear in your head. When, like me, you have well over a hundred exams and papers to grade each semester, this is the ultimate challenge.

So my day is one of long periods of concentration and short breaks.

Of the type where I go out and note that things are topsy turvy out there, needing my attention... Sorry, not today, not today...

And later, in the afternoon, I trot out to our new orchard, to watch Ed plant more of our odd assortment of started-from-seed tomatoes. Isis is our buddy, our loyal companion.

You know why these tomatoes are doing so much better here than the ones in your vegetable bed?

Yes, there's no shade: they have twice the sun hours here.

And what else?

I know not to take this further. Ed has a scientific curiosity to him that is sometimes best left alone. So long as it causes no harm, I'll let him study the soils and deliberate on improvements without interference. 

We are, this spring, in a season of butterflies. Just like some years mosquitoes have ruled the summer months, so too, this spring, we have had more than our fair share of these beautiful bugs:

And so I watch them, admire them, smile at them...

And then I return for the final push, the final big work effort before tomorrow, noon, when, if all goes well, summer will officially begin for me.

Memorial Day

Odd how it has evolved to be at once a day of quiet remembrance and a day of raucous picnicking, outdoor playing, throwing the ball around, wading in the water – in short, the somber and yet not really somber at all American introduction to the summer season.

We took the middle road.

A stroll not too far from the farmhouse with my daughter...

Then, a lovely, subdued evening of grilling on the porch, with her and her fiancée (and Ed, and the occasional appearance of Isis)...

Smiling at the colors of this weekend...

 Loving the pleasure of being in each others company.

 

Day is done now. Gone the sun, from the lakes from the hills from the sky... Ed dozes on the porch, the embers from the new grill (a grill searched for with such intensity just yesterday) nearly spent.

A storm had passed through just as I was getting the grill going. A violent, quick storm, all flash and brawn and I hid from it, but the three gallant ones sat out on the porch, nearly oblivious to the noise, the threat, the what ifs. One person’s terror may be another's brave moment. It’s good that we can be different in this way.

My girl says to Ed – I see you have a patriotic t-shirt on today. Funny girl. It’s a free one, from donating blood and one of the few that’s left in his clean stack at the moment.

Coincidence. Sure. But a sweet one.

pushing forward

In the morning I say to Ed  -- I'll take a few photos early, because after, nothing but grading will happen.

So I take photos.

Breakfast on the porch.

Isis joins us for breakfast (and a general washing) on the porch.

My men after breakfast on the porch.

My men go off...

 

... and I am left taking photos by myself, arm held out, of myself, before I retreat to grade.

 

And then, I do, indeed, work my ass off.

...Until late in the afternoon when Ed says -- ready for Farm and Fleet?

Our trips to Farm and Fleet are legendary. It’s the place where Ed feels compelled to teach me about life. Here’s where he harbors the innocent hope that I will understand – about blades and cranks and springs and – well, the way the world works.

We pick up replacement shears and we consider (but reject at this point) chipmunk catch and release traps, and I watch men in overalls cart big bags of chicken feed, and others, like us, pick up this tool and the other, and I know I missed grading at least two exams by virtue of this trip, but really, there is work and there is life and sometimes a day has to accommodate both.

wet

For a while, I thought I’d be writing: I only graded today. Or, as a variation: in this household, only I graded today. And if that work commitment had stayed with me every waking minute of the day, maybe I could have written: I graded only today.

I’d fallen behind a little with my set goals and still, I thought I'd catch up: the day dawned rainy and wet – none of it offering temptation to be outdoors.

But, in the middle of the night, the cat threw up.

Now, I know cats do this, but I’m not able to brush it off as a non event and especially not in the middle of the night and especially not when said cat is on our bed and I’m woken up by Ed scrambling with a muffled few words that wake me solid (“he’s making those ‘about to throw up’ sounds”). I heave Isis off the bed as Ed tries to catch whatever flies out.

You should have been there. A terrified Isis, flying in mid air across pillows, Ed holding out Wired magazine just in case – all very dramatic.

So now in the morning I am tired again, and behind in my goals, and it’s storming. I cancel the pleasantness of a market morning with my daughter and settle in for a day of grading.

But with a very quick break for a glance outside -- at the exploding peonies, the cowering mouse (Isis, chipmunks, where are you when I need you??)...

... and a terrifically anticipated break for more coffee at Paul’s. Except, as we motorbike over, we see that Paul’s is closed for the afternoon. Sigh. I'm back home, back with the exams.

And here, what's notable is that Ed is equally indoors and Ed is a distraction.

First, there is in the matter of gussying up the computer we got for my mom off of Craigslist. What pages should be bookmarked, what photo to use for her skype symbol, what desktop design, on and on – one issue more fun than the previous one. We attack all of them.

Tick tock.

Then there is the article in the paper about the guys in North Carolina who resell used china and silver so that people may match up their sets. That whole story set me back a good hour. Ed is curious how you match old pieces. By the time we figured it all out (and get through reading a handful of the hundreds of comments trailing the story), it is almost evening. 

And just as I am promised quiet, and peace, and I dare go up to the bedroom for a change of grading scene (very important to do if you grade one exam after the next), Ed turns on Hulu and deliberately, deliberately runs the last episodes of The Middle – a show he knows I can never resist.

I tell him I am now officially a half day behind my self imposed schedule, thank you very much. 

He promises to get a pizza so I don’t have to cook.

It is a good day. Elements of fun improve the mood and therefore the grading ambitions for ... the next day.

early

There’s a pattern that needs a bit of a tamper: I post too late in the day. Why do I do it? Because life grabs my attention earlier. Only after the last dish is drying on the rack after dinner do I feel I can get down to Ocean. By then, I fight sleep. Ed will have long given up the battle. No, that’s not even accurate – there will not have even been a battle.

The Cat has taken to waking us at 4:45, in the predawn hour, and it’s then hellishly difficult to recapture sleep. Especially when the sweet but princely rascal has taken over a chunk of the bed.

I toss and look outside and I see that yesterday’s clouds have disappeared. Maybe I should ride out to capture that elusive sunrise? I failed last time, but now, at 5, maybe I can come face to face with it?

Ah, Rosie in the morning – it is the best and the worst time to ride her. In the still hours of a beautifully tinted sky, it is heavenly out there, on the empty rural roads. But it’s also quite cool. Dragging myself from a warm bed, to the nippy air of predawn. When will I learn that in Wisconsin, it is rarely warm at 5 a.m.?

This time I do make it in time for a sunrise by the lake. Oh, nice, so nice!  If you haven’t witnessed daybreak lately, consider waking up for it. It’s very humbling.

I ride back the longer way. I’ll warm up soon, I’m not that far from home...

...and the loveliness around it.

The rest of the day?

Oh, all very familiar. A bike ride to Paul's. A Craigslist exchange (computer for my mom!). A quiet evening at home, with a beautifully simple supper of a stove-top roasted chicken. I was reminded of this method of preparing a chicken over on this blog -- a daily read for me because it recounts, without fuss, the beautiful details of a quiet life. (They're Americans living in France, though,  just last week they got married in New York, because, finally, finally, after thirty years, they could!).

So as I write, I’m “roasting” a chicken – getting up just once to throw in mushrooms, shallots, garlic, tomatoes. Pinches of lemon thyme, and rosemary, and parsley from the garden, covered, simmered, nothing more.

I am so content.