now we are cold

That really is a gusty wind out there!

Most of the day I spend just looking at it, from the same perch at the kitchen table -- starting with breakfast...





...through a long period of lecture writing.

You know how killing that is of your spirit, don't you? You stare at the computer screen, you write, you draw a blank, you do a quick step to your favorite blogs or websites, you come back and resume writing, you break again. You keep hoping for new distractions, anything to get your mind off of the task at hand because you've had it with the task at hand...

One such distracting place to run to in times of great work stress is the weather.com site. Looking at it now, including at the ten day forecast, I'm dismayed to see that we're in for a cold spell. With an occasional threat of snow-showers. Snow showers??

When I see that tonight there is a window of reasonably dry air, I suggest that we break from our various work obsessions and drive out to get that cider that we missed picking up this weekend at the orchards just north of here.

It is the perfect escape.

So first and foremost -- the classic pretty view from the orchards (at Ski Hi):





...and the documentation of the purchase:





As the orchard based shop closes for the day (we are the last customers), we see that there is still plenty of light outside. Or at least enough to do a side trip to Parfrey's Glen.

Parfrey's Glen. It's the first space devoted to state parkland in Wisconsin. For me, it's probably one of the most magical spots in the Midwest. Ed and I first went there early in our years together. Flooding closed the place down in recent years. In fact, we weren't sure if it was open now.

But it is open. And after driving around in circles (this is what we do so well: we nearly always take the wrong turn in our ramblings on the rural roads to the north of Madison),  we come to the state park entrance. Deserted now, in the early evening of a Fall weekday. We leave the car and walk up the trail. There used to be elaborate paths with supportive boardwalks. All that was washed away just a few years ago. These days, if you come here, you have to climb your way up the riverbed, flanked by the natural sandstone formations.

In the blaze of autumn color, as seen in the fading evening light, it is magnificent. Cold, yes, that: I'm in a my winter down jacket -- but beautiful to the core.















Nina




Ed




Ed




Nina, Ed












From there, the easy route back home takes you to the ferry that crosses the Wisconsin River at Marrimac. We're at the ferry landing just as the sun sets somewhere there, behind the clouds.






We've done this trip so many times and still we take the wrong turn and lose our way along the rural roads leading home. It is quite dark by the time we pull into our diveway, six jugs of cider and a bag of Chipotle dinner burritos in hand. 

now we are eight

Eight years ago, when he was a mere fifty-five (to the day!), he sent an email -- want to go out to an orchard?

I did. It was the first day I laid eyes on this tall guy who drove up in an ancient red car with a peeling stripe. (The car is still around, though the stripe is gone, as is most of it's body actually.)

We spent most of our days in each others company since that October day. In the first five years he'd be over at whatever dump (his description) I lived in. In the last three years, we've made our home at the farmette.

Shouldn't we sweep the leaves off the glass roof?
You don't like them there? They'll drift off eventually.
What if we get too many?

He stayed up most of the night fixing up a new laptop for my mom (her old one crashed and the new one has too many cluttery things on it -- at nearly 90, she'll never be able to navigate it unless all the quirks and foibles of the new Windows operating system are removed or made easier to work through). By the time he was ready to sleep, Isis was ready to be restless. We accept the fact that some nights will be calm and Isis will stay put or stay downstairs or stay invisible and on other nights he'll be causing a fuss. You can never tell which night will come when.

Breakfast. Pancakes, for a special day.






Want to watch vows on the NYTimes video?
It's odd how much we like to do this -- watch other people find joy in being together.







The idea was to go out to an orchard today. Not because Ed likes to commemorate anything as sentimental as our coming together however many years ago, but because it is time to get cider for the winter. Twice we bundled up and twice it began to rain just as we stepped outside. But the third time it stayed dry.

Still, it's too far to drive to the orchard now. Instead, we go to our favorite cross country skiing park -- just two miles east of the farmette, and we walk there.











The funny thing is, when I first saw Ed, there, in front of my apartment, he was waiting for me, pacing the railway tracks that run parallel to the road. Coincidentally, today, we are on tracks again.





Are you done? It's cold!
I want to find a rock to crack a black walnut.
You can't eat that! It looks rotten!
It looks fine. Want to try a piece?

On the path again.  The clouds release a small drizzle.

Do you suppose we should finish the front entrance to the farmhouse this spring? There are rotting boards and crumbling steps...
Maybe.

A few years back I would have wanted to do this for the aesthetics alone. Now I don't care that the door facing the road looks funky and bit run down. For us, the focal point of the farmhouse is the back, with the porch, looking out onto the sheep shed and the barn. But we like working on projects together. The reconstruction of the front entrance will be one such opportunity to do that again. I'm sure the design will be a tad original. And quirky. There always is that element of quirkiness to the this place.

We finish our walk just as the drizzle really gets going.





Tomorrow, we are told, is the official last day of our growing season. The hard frost comes, all tender plants will die back. We'll pick the last of the berries before then and I'll cast one last fond glance at all those flowers that kept right on going. Next year -- we'll see you again next year.

My older girl and her husband come over for dinner. We don't think of it as celebratory. Not really.

Hey, have a slice of cheese before the kids come...
Okay. Oh, good one! I suppose it's for them?
No, it's okay -- eat as much as you want.

I stir up the sauce for the pasta and saute the shrimp and chunks of salmon.







After, he and I watch old Seinfelds and Isis snuggles right next to us. The cat likes it that way. Both he and Ed doze off. I finish up the Ocean post.

Hey, thank you, Ed. And happy birthday.

growing things

The farmette has many trees. On balance, that's a good thing. Shade. A feeling of privacy. Spring buds, autumn colors.






(For my breakfast photo, I give you the mighty crab, which, in the morning hours, is abuzz with robins and their compatriots, hacking away at the red fruits.)







But for the most part, these trees aren't your sweet little trees put in some years back, still waiting for their adolescence. These are mega trees that tower and explode with new growth each year. And of course, some branches die off.

We have moved beyond the impasse, Ed and I. He no longer objects to sawing off dead branches. But to go after live limbs (ones that block light or bully their way into a space occupied by another) --  he says he cannot do it. And so as we once again team up to do our seasonal tree pruning (at least at the level where we can reach branches with our pole power saw), the negotiations begin.

That one. It needs to go.
No it doesn't.
It's killing these beautiful shrubs.
Fine, just that one. Sorry tree!
It'll love you for it. Trees like to be pruned.
How do you know?

And so on.






It's a massive project and we only have time and energy for so much of it. As we haul the last load of branches to the enormous wood pile out back, I look over toward the fields to the north of the farmette. They're used by truck farmers as well, though not anyone we know.






The skies are of an uncertain mode. Cloudy. Not cloudy. Partly so. It makes for a beautiful display! But I know what's coming: frost this next night. The most vulnerable flowers are having their last flowering moment.











Enough nostalgia. There's more work to be done! In the prairie grasses out back I see that we have our old foe trying to make a comeback -- the honeysuckle that we'd worked so hard to eradicate is sprouting again in small clumps.

We get to it: they all have to be clipped back. You leave one standing and you'll have twelve cousins joining it in the space of a month.


A commenter asked about our master plan here, at the farmette. It really is quite simple. We love that it is wild and untamed. That most would say "overgrown" rather than "manicured." That every flower bed is freewheeling and seemingly unplanned.

But there are limits to that prairie freedom out there. If honeysuckle were allowed free reign, these puffs of prairie seed would soon disappear.





If creeping charlie continued to mount its aggressive expansion, we'd lose our raspberries, our flower beds, our strawberry patches.

So we try to channel growth. To moderate, to redirect.


...And then we retreat inside, for a late late lunch of peanut butter sandwiches with Ed's grape jam, eaten at the kitchen table (bathed in the light of a bright Fall day).






The farmette at her seasonal best. Stunning, even if a bit unkempt and wild around the edges..

embattled

We continue to wage war even when we know the chance of victory is slim. The enemy isn't necessarily stronger than we are, but it is resilient. It'll come back again and again, even if we push them back with our exceptional might.

This is how I feel about bramble roses and creeping charlie.

When I first moved to the farmette, I thought that where I wanted there to be raspberries, there would be raspberries. Where I wanted flowers, there would be flowers. Sure, weeds, quack grass -- they're part of the deal here. But places where I sought control, where I waged war, would be mine. I have force and determination on my side!

So do they.

This morning, after breakfast...






...I work. Long, tedious hours of school work. Systematically I check off pages, write down assignments, take  notes on what I'd read. By afternoon, I am spent.

Time to refresh. Time to maybe put in the bulbs. I have some five dozen -- crocuses, tulips. No daffodils. I have hundreds of those in already.

But I get distracted. When did the bramble roses get so out of control? How did the creeping charlie creep into my primary flower bed? Ah, the nasturtium! In its abundant phase, it covered over the weeds. It covered over everything.







And of course, life continues and I have my attention elsewhere and now rose brambles are coming out of every conceivable space and creeping charlie is about to declare victory.

Not yet! I have might! I have determination!

I spend two hours pulling out deep roots of invasive devils. Heave! Pull! More! Come on!

Ed comes home and finds me with blood dripping down my face (bramble stalks fight back).

I suppose I should feel victorious. I brought things under control. For now.


 


But I know it's a temporary victory. It isn't a blow out celebration. They're hiding, but they'll be back. Next year, they'll be back.

But for now, I have to believe that I've made progress.

Dinner is of the easy kind: salad, veggies, eggs. That's it. Nothing more.

relax!

Breakfast, in the beauty of the windowed kitchen.






Outside -- it's raining again.











I was chatting with a physician about one thing or another (for example -- being excessively busy came up in the conversation) and she said -- have you considered going to relaxation therapy? (I'm guessing it's like physical therapy, except you're working on a wounded spirit rather than a pulled muscle.)

Well now, if I scheduled relaxation lessons, I'd be even more busy, wouldn't I? Yoga, for example, was my strategic relaxation class and I haven't gone since the semester started. There's a reason for that.

But she persisted. She thinks I need to slow down. Sleep longer. Etc.
Ha! All that will happen when I retire! 
Retire? She asks. My, that sounds good! (I should note that I'd place her age at around 32.)
I almost retorted -- meet you in relaxation class! -- but I didn't. Perhaps she doesn't have time for that kind of indulgence. Mindfulness, relaxation -- all noble ideas, if you have time to pause to consider them.

Still, I do get the message. And to prove to myself that I am on the ball, a slow rolling ball at that, I pause on my way home at Owen Park. It is one of the loveliest places in Madison to admire the changing palate of autumn colors. Surely checking in on the foliage there would give me the needed balance for an otherwise full day.






But I never leave the car. The photos are taken from a rolled down window.






Why? Because I'm already late for my next meeting.

I breathe in the scent of a mossy, wet forest...






...take one more picture from the seat of the car...





...and then get going.


In other news, we are bracing for frost next week. I don't mind the frost. I do mind that we haven't done the work to get the farmette ready for winter. The raspberry patch is in shreds. The old limbs on the many trees here need to be sawed off. Several packs of bulbs need to be planted. The porch needs a paint job. And the new orchard -- oh, the new orchard! It so needs our attention! It will never survive another winter of deer unless we build shields to protect it!

I add these things to my to do list and wonder if I should put at the bottom of it --  "attend relaxation sessions."


Still later, Ed comes home, listens to my summary of the day and steps in to take charge of my relaxation issues: Tennis. Now!

I am terrible at first, better as we play. It takes me a while to unwind.


On the ride home we wave to Framer Lee. It may be that this is the last of it -- that we may never see her harvesting flowers across the road again.


 


She waves her hand, pretending to hide from my camera. The flowers, Lee! I shout.  It's all about the flowers!

Isis greets us as we pull in with that meow that says -- where have you been?! 
Come inside, dear boy, I tell him. It's time to fix dinner. I got some fresh fish at the market. You can have the skin.

He appears happy with the idea. I settle in to cook.

turning the corner?

Are we at the point in Fall where the good weeks are behind us and the bare trees and cold winds begin to drive us nuts?

I don't think so. Though many leaves are down, many more are still vaguely green and clinging to trees. Cosmos flowers are blooming their heads off. Nasturtium as well. And why shouldn't they? We haven't had a hard frost yet. (We haven't had any frost in fact. Unusual for mid October.)






A walk in the garden, then breakfast.






I study the weather maps. I see that this is it: we're consistently going to be hitting the thirties in the nights ahead. And so decisions have to be made. It is the time to bring in plants that cannot survive a frost. This includes all those that stand in pots by the walkway to the farmhouse.





But which ones?

In years past, I let them all fade off with the season. Annuals are called annuals for a reason. I was not their savior -- nature deemed that they should retire after a year of blooms. But last year I saw that it was possible to winter over some of the vulnerable stalks by bringing them indoors.  And though things got a little spindly by season's end, we did have some memorable blooms inside in the dead of winter and moreover, when I put those survivors back outside in spring, they really took off! In gratitude I think. Spindly stems turned to a profusion of color and blooms.

Still, I have only so much eastern and southern exposure and things are already getting kind of crowded, what with geraniums and irises and the old regular indoor stuff. So I point a finger -- that one comes in! And that one!


 


Okay, one more -- that one!






And with the heaviest of hearts I turn my back to the ones who don't seem quite vigorous enough. Let your seeds drift, your life will continue in the next generation, I tell them, as if they needed a prompt! Nature has a way of figuring things out without my assistance.


So if Nature calls the shots, can we at least learn to follow meekly in her tracks?

No we cannot.
I look carefully at the weather forecast and, reassured that the probability of rain is set at 0%, I take Rosie to work again.

(Here's a photo from campus for those who know Madison and our tradition of putting flamingos on campus mall in mid-fall.)





And when I finish teaching, I am dismayed to see a fine drizzle set in.

Why don't they have windshield wipers on helmet visors?

I'm cold and sopping wet. Never mind: each additional week of rosie rides is like a special bonus. One more week behind me and seven to go before the end of the semester. Maybe winter is around the corner, but I'm banking on a few more good weeks ahead. Rain or shine, rosie and I continue to face the winds and forge ahead. Even as it surely looks less promising out there on the ride home. Recall yesterday's view over the lake. Compare it to the one tonight (taken at more or less the same hour).

return

It's funny to wake up at home to what I would regard as quintessentially Irish weather: misty rain, cool breezes - the kind that make those cheeks so rosy.

I had good travel weather yesterday, so surely I ought not complain.

And here's another category of "no complaints" from me -- one that may surprise  you; I have nothing bad to say about the air travel experience.

The flights were more or less on time.

The seats were comfortable.

The food was good.

The champagne flowed freely (meaning it was free).

And another detail -- one you surely would not expect anymore: the airline (AF) informed us that they commissioned a prominent designer to work out a new design pattern for the plastic eating utensils used in economy class. Whereas these days on most flights we're used to being herded into tight seats, with no promise of food -- with the exception of small snacks and you're charged Las Vegas big bucks for those -- here, I see an attempt at real class. Even if it is plastic class.

I did work the whole flight long (and it was a long flight) and I caught no great photos of the descent into Chicago (what can I say -- the city was on the other side), but the whole travel thing was a curiously pleasant experience.

I haven't come into Chicago's O'Hare (International) in a while so I was surprised to see a new system in place for passport control. Self-service stands -- sort of like you have in supermarkets: scan your own! But of course, then some authoritative person has to review your work. This isn't groceries, it's your entry into a country. So after waiting for a self service scanner, you wait again for a real person. It's all very confusing, but I'm sure efficient in some fashion that I don't quite yet understand.

And because I was toward the front of the plane, and because I ran to get to the passport line, and because I said "no" to all the questions asked by the scanner  (I hope that was correct -- I did not read them all that carefully) and because I had no luggage to pick up (actually no luggage, period), I noted that I had all of 8 minutes to make it to another terminal and the bus station, and you know what? I did it! Ran, ran, ran, knocking people down left and right (O'Hare was very crowded), then on to the bus just as the driver was shutting the door and getting ready to pull out.


At home, Isis was so happy to see me that he stayed by my side all evening long. I ate chili prepared by Ed and then soon after I retired. Isis followed. I know I shall complain endlessly in the future about the cat taking up so much of my bed space, but on this night it felt snug and warm.

In the middle of the night, Ed had an insight about the porch roof and so at around 3 a.m. he climbed out there with flashlight and some tape (he's experimenting with a better way to seal off some of the trim; his excuse in doing it at such an odd hour? It was supposed to rain soon). That was interesting to observe for a few minutes;  otherwise, the night passed uneventfully. Meaning, Isis behaved.

In the morning, there is the matter of breakfast. Happy to be eating oatmeal again, in the kitchen today because I just can't get enough of that new light pouring in, even on a rather gloomy and wet (remember, Irish weather!) morning.

I did notice that Ed's hair has grown beyond the reasonable mess that it usually is.





Out come the scissors. Haircut time.






And then it's time to zip over to campus. It's Tuesday and that's a very busy day for me. Though not so busy that I can't produce at least one photo of the current state of the yard, looking toward the barn and sheep shed (for the new reader -- we do not have sheep; just a shed, converted by Ed into workable space of sorts).






And a shot toward the farmhouse -- all flush and pretty with light pouting in through the new glass porch roof.






Late, late in the evening, I point Rosie (the motor scooter)  toward home. It's just barely warm enough to be out on her, but I'm up for it. And as I swing by the lake, I note that the trip does come with rewards...





Most trips, even short ones on Rosie, do come with rewards.

And that's a good thing.