a break

Take a break. Go ahead and take one, be it from work, from cooking, from sitting home every evening -- oh, ooops! those exactly describe me! -- a break, so that you can view life differently for a split second, so that you can see how the other side lives, plays, laughs.

After an enormously long period of time out on the porch (from breakfast...





...to hours of reading, to lunch, to more hours of reading), I slammed the books shut and went out to help Ed tear up the raspberry beds. One hour of ripping weeds, buried plastic, spent canes. Of course, one hour accomplished less than 1% of our goal for the season (to replant the entire bed), but I cannot think those kinds of thoughts. Too dispirited for my liking.






And then...  then! What an extravagance! I climb aboard Ed's incredibly worked over 1980 Honda motorbike, right behind him, like I used to do so often when I lived in the city and we'd go out together, God knows where, probably to the country -- I climbed on and off we go to our not too distant multiplex for a 5p.m. showing of Blue Jasmine. 

And no, that's not all! Returning home, we stop at the Great Dane Brewery and Pub for a supper at the counter. In the way we love  -- with scraps of reading material in hand and the occasional comment on the quality of the salad or the paragraph we may be reading, or life itself.

when, if not today?

Just shy of six in the morning, there is some movement in the farmhouse. Isis wants out, I want to be left alone, Ed tracks the both of us and comes up with some partly satisfying, but not really, solution. He's up and following Isis, telling me he'll be back momentarily.

Some twenty minutes later I hear the clank of dishes in the kitchen.
Ed?
Are you awake? I made a new batch of applesauce. Try this one!






I do. Without asking the obvious -- why are you making applesauce at 6 in the morning?
Because I suppose I know the answer -- if not now, then when?

We eat breakfast on the porch -- it is a really beautiful day, the kind that has the dry warmth of fall, the smell of spent leaves and false sunflower, growing wildly in the fields.

I tell Ed it's time to throw him the camera for the breakfast photo.






A good chance to record the skirt I struggled to exchange on the left bank, in August.






And now it's time to decide: will it be a rosie ride to work? That would be the easy choice. But why am I not biking? True, it takes twice the time, but it brings with it three times the health benefit. If I do not bike on this most beautiful day, then when will I bike to work?

Am I growing soft??

I bike.

We often sigh at the prevalence of soy and corn in the midwestern fields, but when I look out at an expanse of soy here in early September, I'm left breathless. As if clouds were casting a shadow and then letting the sun do its thing again.






The bike ride back, in the early evening, is leisurely. Equally bucolic.






Wednesday is Ed's night out on his own biking adventure. So I throw foods together for myself  instead of cooking a conventional meal.






Eat and exhale. That's the rhythm of an evening during teaching weeks. Eat, exhale.

first day of school

Everything changes on the first day of the academic year.

Breakfast. Faster, slicker, earlier. Though for us, still on the porch. And today, the oatmeal has the addition of Ed's applesauce.






There is an unusual twist to my teaching this semester -- my classes are very late in the day. That means I spend the hours in advance of them in my sweats at the kitchen table. It's the most efficient way to get things done. The benefit? Right now, I see (beyond the windows and screens) the fuzzy world of flowers and the sheep shed. Makes me smile.






And again I look up and again I see the last blooms, drawing the beaks of the humming birds. A wide grin for this one. (The bird is in the upper left.)






The day is absolutely beautiful. Ed is out, dumping wood chips around the shed -- for winter insulation. I'm out only for the photo. Sigh...






At the western edge of the farmette, the goldenrod is explosive. You can think of it as an invasive. I think of it as a beautiful banner of early fall.






Isis is outside now too. I've neglected him in Ocean photos. Here he is in the strawberry patch -- one of his favorite spots in the yard.






Some lilies never give up...






But it was not meant to be day of play. The first day of school, remember?






After, Rosie takes me back. Past fields of goldenrod and skies of blue.

labor day

So many of these national holidays pass by with out much thought as to why we observe them in the first place. Labor Day: a day off from work, oftentimes, the day before school starts. (But historically, a day honoring the labor movement and the workers that contributed to America's prosperity.)

This "day off from work" is, for me, an extra busy day, because however you end the semester, you surely should start it with your head held high, excited, bursting with energy and knowledge and whatever else you want to bring into the classroom. In other words, you need to be prepared.

Are you going to yoga today? -- this from Ed.
No...
Want to play tennis?
No, no time...

Is that really true? No time for a silly game of back and forth on the tennis court?

I take out a packet of nougat that I purchased in Uzes and munch on it. Suddenly I remember that in the evening there, I hiked, randomly, until I could see the sun set over the skyline. Maybe travel is just a stand in for free time?



(Ed, over breakfast, studying the soon to be replaced roof on the porch)


It's been a long time since my flowers have seen rain or the hose water that comes their way when things get too dry. I take a half hour tonight to throw some moisture their way, knowing darn well that a little water often does more damage than good. Plants are not like people. They do not thrive when we're not paying attention to them.

Or do they? Here's a random surprise: it's growing out of the compost pile by the old barn.





The hours pass. I take my work outside because there is a sudden nip in the air.



(Ed, after I trimmed his beard)


There is nothing summer like about the afternoon. I think winter thoughts as I survey the garden.



 


In the evening, my daughter and her husband are here and I am so glad they choose the porch for dinner because even though it's cool, it is always grand to be sitting outside as the light fades.






I make (among other things) ratatouille because a neighbor gave us huge chunks of zucchini in exchange for a few of our cucumbers. Ed isn't really a fan of zucchini, nor is he a fan of eggplant, and my daughter isn't a fan of onions, so it's fair to say that there will be plenty of ratatouille in the fridge in the next week, in case you're itchin' to stop by.






For dessert, I thought I would replicate the heavenly melon soup I ate in Rouen, forgetting that the pouree is only as good as the fruit. Here it is -- a very tame melon soup.






Evening is done, Ed's asleep, I'm not too far behind. Tomorrow, school begins.

what you put in the pot

I was 52 when Ed and I began to spend our days in each other's company. He was a fresh 55.

We were already formed.

In younger years, people grow together, or, so often, they grow apart. It's hard to tell where that growth will take you. But after, say 50, your direction is probably set. The core is formed. What you put in the pot is already there. You can season, you can mix in other ingredients, but you can't take out what's simmering within. It's been cooking too long.

Ed's love of roaming freely, unencumbered, say through Latin America is formed. My love of rambling along somewhat more predictable tracks through Europe is formed. We bend and we go along to meet the other, but we are never fully convinced. We like what we like.

I write this because Ed and I take up the topic we left hanging yesterday -- where will we travel next?

It's such an abstract discussion! I have months of work before me, and then -- more months of work. And yet, it is an essential discussion. Because I want to know -- where we, you and I -- where will we travel next?

In the morning, we move gently in our back and forth. There are distractions, after all.  The blooming anemone has attracted a flock of bees. We try to imagine where they're living, what they're doing with the pollen they collect.










In the early afternoon, I break from work and from porch specualtions: it's been a while since my older girl and I have taken a longer walk together. We do that now, through the maze of paths at the Arboretum.






Wisconsin could not look better than it does right now.






Evening: Ed and I do a round of tennis and then, because there are all these tomatoes, Ed makes up a batch of salsa and let me not forget to mention that the guy who, before this summer, hasn't cooked for us since he was 55 and I was 52, also worked up a pot of fallen apples from the old orchard so that we can have applesauce all winter long (after freezing a dozen jars of homemade peach jam last week).
Applesauce? I ask, trying to imagine how we might use it come January.
The fact is, if it grows at the farmette and it's edible and if Ed is inspired to preserve it, we will be eating it, all year long.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         



Night time. The air is cooling down. Windows are wide open. The topic of future travels hangs in the air, but it wont be resolved. Not today, not this year. It will be an ongoing discussion. So that we can find those paths that we would both want to take. Despite the fact that he will never feel as rooted in Europe as I do and I will never crave to ramble through Latin America with a backpack as much as he does.

is it Saturday?

I think of days like this as one picture days: the entirety can be summarized in one shot, one sentence, one thought. At least at the level of the blog. And although I intend to post six  photos here tonight, it doesn't matter -- they're all within a framework of one idea: I worked most of the hours of the day and those hours of work really did define my day.

And if you don't think work is necessarily numbing of your creative edge (we all have a creative edge), try writing a post about a day that is jam-packed with work.

So yes, here we go, the breakfast.






The flowers (there'll be fewer and fewer of these as we move into September).






The work station.






And a quick trip to visit Goldie -- the cat at my daughter's place. Here, Goldie is asking, impatiently -- where were you?






And here, she's ready for her close up.






There was dinner of course. I almost had no choice but to make chili. Too many tomatoes that need attention right away. Some aren't good enough for freezing, but, cut away the not so good parts - and you have a splendid addition to a pot of chili (for example).

Now, if you wanted to probe, I'd tell you more: worries about work, about traveling with my increasingly reluctant traveling companion (so, from OTC to IRTC, though I should add -- it's IRCT only insofar as we're talking about revisiting my continent of birth), about health, wealth and clutter on the counter tops at the farmhouse. All that, if you just scratch a tad below the surface.

But in the end, when all is summed up, processed, reviewed, I remain with the image of a one picture day. Only one that survives. That deserves attention. Which one? How about this -- from Farmer Lee's fields. Because it takes me out of my own world and puts me into the lot of someone else. Which is a good thing.

little things

Sleepy! Call it jet lag, call it Isis, I'm nearly out as I type this. A late August day, a busy with work day, a pretty day -- all that, wrapped in a blanket of intense heat as I watch the thermometer exceed the mid nineties for the first time this summer.

I've unpacked, and ran through the washing machine things that got a Banyuls vinegar bath. No, I did not break my sweet little container of precious vinegar, but sometime in that last flight, the cork popped open and so sprinkling a delicious vinegar from the Languedoc over the garden tomatoes was not meant to be.

A few flower (and berry) photos from before breakfast:
















Then breakfast, which is especially wonderful as Ed is back from up north. Beard trim is in the cards, but for now, it is wonderful to be starting the morning eating garden berries together and talking about how to proceed with farmette projects.












More flowers. Fiery read, dry in places, but this is the season for that progression toward dormancy and truthfully  -- it has its own charm: I don't worry anymore about display, I think only about helping the sweet things along until the wake up moment comes next year when it will all begin again.












I work on the porch even though it is hot hot hot. A little fan moves the air around and that's quite enough relief for me. I love the outdoors too much to give up on it merely because a small heat wave is passing through.

In the afternoon, I visit Goldie, the cat my daughter and her husband took in earlier this summer.







She has a new resting place -- their dining room table and she reminds me in this way of Isis, who, last night, sat with us out on the porch, adoring the new table cloth, digging his nails in, as I shook my head and told him -- Isis, go back and ruin the couch instead. This is too fresh and therefore precious still!

 Goldie, on the other hand, just stretches out her full body and purrs.








Back at the farmette, we are having a ridiculously large harvest again. Here, you see about 1/4 of the tomatoes picked just today.I'll spare you the pile of cucumbers.






We also pick our first corn ever and though I heard that some insist that for perfect corn, you should carry the pot of boiling water to the stalk so that you can cook it before it's even picked, we're not that far gone. We pluck two ears, split them in half (so that we can each taste both varieties)  and there you have the perfect end of summer meal -- only the salmon on the plate is not farmette grown.






Eyes closing now, almost there, almost almost! If I click "publish" I can stop fighting the great desire simply to sleep. Publish!

taking a place with you

If you like a place, inevitably, you want to carry some of its charm back home with you. Souvenir is a French word -- to recall, remember. That's what we want, no? Ocean is a souvenir of a life, a fabric is a souvenir of Languedoc, vinegar is a souvenirs of the wonderful cuisine that you'll find there.

This post takes us from Barcelona to the farmette. When I step off the plane after the long transatlantic flight back, the feeling of being away quickly recedes. A trip begins gradually -- you plan it, think about it, engage in it before it even starts. When it's over, it's pretty much over. Except for the memories and the souvenirs.

Let me go back to the moment when I am still in Barcelona, eating a croissant  breakfast at the bar.






I got a message that my flight will be delayed and so suddenly I'm not in a hurry to leave. The walk to the bus for the airport is equally unrushed. There's certainly enough time to take a photo of a traditional balcony...






...or another, with the (Spanish) Catalan flag.






Or of the fantastic square, where I always get off after the airport, and now, on the return, catch the airport bus back.






Yeah, such a city!






The flight back is rocky. A ride over the clouds, but really through the clouds. I work during most of the nine hours. In Atlanta, the wait is manageable. Finally, I'm in the air, on the way to Madison.






And home. Which looks like this, from up in the air.






My daughter is there to pick me up and take me to the farmhouse (Ed is still up north). I stumble in, do right by Isis, go to sleep.

...only to awake to a warm summer day. Morning's the time to take stock, to reconsider it all.






The flowers are fading rapidly, but they fight on, for another last set of days.

Here's my anemone -- the trooper that carries the banner all the way into September.






And garden strawberries for a breakfast on the new tablecloth...






A souvenir. How remarkable it all is! I install the fabric for the chairs and suddenly it's as if I am in Uzes.





Yes, the colors of Languedoc and Provence.

I work all day, but I have two more photos for you -- one of a quiet dinner on the couch (there's  a new cover for the cushions. Yet again a very useful souvenir from the south of France).






It all brings such color to the spaces in the farmhouse that need color. One more then. The last one -- chairs, table, all of it, out on the porch -- you've seen it just seconds ago, but now it is in the evening light of one of the few remaining summer days.