the pause

When I stepped outside to free the chickens (it was before 6, which feels too late for them and too early for me), I was surprised by how steamy the air felt. All day long, you felt the threat of rain.






And that was just so perfect. I needed a break from nonstop work outside.

Breakfast was still on the porch -- a lovely moment before the storms hit...






I knew we wouldn't be battered too hard, but still, I worried about the chickens. They appeared so oblivious to the threat of a dangerous thunder shower. Just before the rains pounded our courtyard, I ran out to hustle them into the garage. Next time, watch the weather patterns! -- I tell them, breathing a sigh of relief as they huddled around my moped.

It's not that we got nothing done. I did plant the beans and a few flowers and we worked on the raspberry fields a tiny bit and, too, we cleaned up the spaces around the writer's shed, pulling out great quantities of weeds and leaving behind only a peony, a lilac bush, a few lilies and a rambler rose.





The writer's what? -- some of you may ask, not knowing that before I agreed to move to the farmette (in 2011), Ed and I felt a compromise was a good idea: I'd come out to the farmette for a few days here and there. And I would spend my hours in a little hut that we built (with help). We called it the writer's shed, because I very much wanted to spend time there working on various writing projects.

Inside, it remains unfinished. For now. Someday we may come back to it. Because you just never know how you may want to position yourself in the future.. Maybe Ed will turn social and we'll take great pleasure in putting up guests who pass through.


And finally, we worked up the courage to confront our own inadequacies. They are so very evident in the new orchard. We planted baby fruit trees two years back. The deer destroyed most of them. The next year, we replanted them and added extras. Ed worked out a fencing system to protect them, but we got busy and only a few trees benefited from the fences. And so once again, the vast majority of trees was destroyed by deer.

We surveyed the damage closely today.

What's the next step? Scale down the orchard. Order just a few replacement trees. Take care of what we plant!

It isn't easy to be a farmetter...

But the rains slackened our pace and allowed us to catch a breath. And the chickens played in weeds and gobbled worms and ticks and sweet fresh leaves of weeds. How perfect is that!

Mother's Day

My daughters and I -- we have a floating Mother's Day celebration. It's often difficult to get us together on the designated day. I'm out of town, or, as in this year -- they're out and about. On the east coast, last I checked. So we stall it a little. And, too, I'm still flush with birthday celebrations. I can wait.

But this doesn't mean that I do not think of this Sunday as somehow mother-centered. The theme comes up. It's in my head. And when I talk to my own mom, or to my girls, we treat it as a day that truly does stand for something. We acknowledge it. We wouldn't think of not sending Mother's Day greetings.

But from the point of view of farmette work, it's just another day of intense gardening. It's warm. Too warm, Ed would comment. Perfect, from my perspective.



(at sunrise)




(a morning drink)




(it's Scotch's turn)


A porch breakfast. I tell Ed to snap a photo. You know, because it's Mother's Day.






And I tell the chickens to behave. I feel like I'm their designated mother. They dutifully leave three eggs for me, right on schedule.






Many, many years ago, working in the garden on Mother's Day was a real treat. A time to indulge my preoccupation with perennial flowers. These days, of course, I merely continue the work of yesterday and the day before.

And though I do pause to take in the heady smell of plum trees in bloom...






...and I smile as I watch the chickens attack a raspberry cane (be my guest! we have millions of them!)...






...I have to admit, when the time comes to work on the raspberry fields, I approach the task with a big sigh. Both Ed and I are so sick of this project that the digging, lifting and heaving seem especially difficult, draining, never ending.

It would be terrific if I could say we're almost done. We're not. I'd estimate we have a good seven days' work left. I only wish Ed hadn't reminded me that if the field isn't maintained, it'll turn into one huge area of weeds again. Fussing over flower beds is rewarding. Raspberry fields? Only mildly so.

Still, by dumping a lot of chips, we'll be keeping the weeds to a minimum. Let's hope I'm motivated to maintain the field for years on end. If not -- well, we gave it a push in the right direction.


In other Mother's Day news -- we did go to a gardening center to replace three of my many many lavender bushes. These guys had a rough winter and though most survived, I had a few casualties.

And then there is the matter of dinner. If ever a meal demonstrated what it means to be a mother, I think mine was a classic. I had told Ed I'd make chili for a couple of days. We have several bags of last year's tomatoes in the freezer and thoughts of planting new seedlings soon made me want to hurry up and use up last year's batch. But I lost my focus. In tracking my daughters' travels back from the east coast (such a motherly task!), I noted that they left their destination on time. Good! Maybe they'll beat the storms in Chicago. I chopped tomatoes and clicked on the website informing me of the progress of their flight. Until suddenly I got the dreaded screen telling me that there was no more information. Please call this number if you want to know more.

I call, chopping tomatoes all the while. A recording tells me their flight has been diverted. Why? Recordings don't answer whys. I chop more tomatoes. I click, call, click call. They are now in South Bend, Indiana. What now? Click, chop, call.

As I write this, I am able to piece together what must have happened. Bad weather, small plane, diversion. Ed asks -- why are you so intense about it? It's not as if flying is unsafe.  Well now, mothers don't turn off their tracking minds just because something is "safe." Mothers go into the heads of their children. They know that those children will be anxious about getting home on time for work, for husbands and fiances. When their children are (ostensibly) anxious, mothers are anxious. (I write about mothers and not father s because, well, it's Mother's Day.)

I chopped up so many frozen tomatoes tonight (calling the update line, watching radar maps, clicking, calling, clicking) that we have enough chili to for dinners through at least Thursday. Think of it as Mother's Day chili.

My daughters are on their final leg of their travels at last. The chickens are tucked and set for the night. Ed is scrubbing down the stove I managed to splatter with my distracted chili cooking. All's right with the world. For now. Today. On this Mother's Day.

Saturday

Again, a beautiful day before us! There is sunshine already by 6 and the hens are anxious to get out and test the lands to the back of the barn (they get much more adventurous on sunny days and that may or may not be a good thing!).











Breakfast on the porch again. Right after Ed conducts a successful catch and release of a huge bumble bee. If ever there is a mark of an approaching summer, wouldn't it be the sound of a bumble bee?





I completely appreciate this morning of utter loveliness. It's not a given that May should have such days. In fact, next week, I'd be surprised if we have a single morning breakfast outdoors. But for now, revel in it! It's absolutely stunning! The birds are a riot of song, the air is just right -- we find it hard to turn away from this porch moment of complete contentment.

Again it is a busy gardening day. Friends stop by for an early afternoon visit, so we do take a slight pause. Only for a few minutes.  All the other daylight hours are filled with the most important of all gardening activities: planting. And, of course, with shooing chickens off. And let's not forget about weeding. Not a day will go by this spring where I will not pull out at least 500 sprouting tree seeds, burdock roots, creeping charlie trails and today, in addition to all that, I finally give up on trying to contain the lilies of the valley at the side garden and pull the whole lot out -- to be transplanted later in the day by the barn. Near the chicken pen. Enjoy the (short lived) fragrance of this pretty flower, chickies!

Chickens. Oh, those chickens! Whitney is there every time I dig a new hole. Scotch hovers to the side, not wanting to appear dominant. Oreo is never as quick as the girls. Butter -- she's a happy-go-lucky chick. If there's digging, she'll partake. Maybe. To a point.

I can't say they are not at all destructive of my flowers. Something will catch one's fancy and she (or he) will nibble away. But it's a rare event. As the beds fill in, they find other places that have greater access to soil.

Isis watches all of this and I cannot tell whether he is accepting of the imposition, or reconciled, or still a tiny bit on edge. Was it coincidence that when the chickens got up from under the picnic table (their favorite resting place) to scratch and search, he spread out there himself, even though he has never shown interest in that place before?





And how about when he went over to the silo to chew on some blades of grass and Whitney followed him: was he okay with that? Or a little apprehensive?





As you can tell, the level of stress, here at the farmette, is rather low. We watch a humming bird come and go, I frown at the chicken that (deliberately?) knocks down the lupine bloom, I heave the hose to water the new plantings because there just hasn't been a lot of rain lately -- these are the issues that consume us now. Nothing more than that.

In the evening, late evening, we thrown down the tools, drink copious amounts of fizzy water and take long showers. It's a date night!

Since it's Saturday and we want to avoid crowds, we stay local. A new Indian restaurant opened just a couple of miles west of us and we want to keep them in business! And I take my laptop and he takes his magazine and you may not fully understand why this is such a wonderful date, but for us, it truly is that.

Friday

In the middle of the night, Ed wakes up and asks me -- have you noticed that the heater is cycling on and off?
Of course I haven't noticed. Sleep. I was right smack in the middle of it. And, too, we have a very quiet furnace.

I try to focus on the issue at hand. From what I can make out, it appears that on this warmest night of the year, the heater is turning itself on. Then immediately off. Then on again. Just for a few seconds. Then off. And it's bugging the heck out of Ed because it signifies a problem and he hasn't a clue as to what it could be.

Predictably, he's up and off to the basement.
He comes back after less than an hour.
Unbelievable. Really. Unbelievable. A bug in the condensate overflow line.

I only wish I could fully grasp the significance of all this. No matter. I glance outside. The skies are just at the point of mellow light that takes hold before the sun is up. Time to think of letting the chickens out. It's going to be a lovely morning!











The day runs away from me -- of course it does -- but not until we have our breakfast moment on the porch.







After that, it's grocery shopping time, followed by a full day of yard work. With the chickens following every movement of the hand shovel. 

It becomes obvious that any serious planting can take place only when the hens are resting. And they rest only after big eating extravaganzas.  So I work around their habits, zipping forward mainly in the hours when they pick clean their feathers or doze off for long naps under the picnic table. When they're up and alert, we hunt worms together.








By evening, I'm ready to throw down the shovel. But it's not a night for careful post writing. I can only note the basics, nothing more. Bedtime cannot come fast enough! I'm as tired as the hens are after a day of soil scratching. Until tomorrow then! To a good night of sleep!

higher still

We reached 82F (nearly 28C) today -- that was a first! Was it last September that I was this warm outside?

It was so unusual, so sudden and, looking ahead at the prognoses, so fleeting, that when we got up to open and freshen up the coop, we decided to stay out.

And this is how I find myself doing raspberry field (you can no longer call it a patch) work before 6 in the morning.






(The chipped area is the repaired field. Oreo and Butter are testing the raspberry leaves of a newly transplanted cane.)






We work hard and stop only because the thought of breakfast on the porch is so tempting me that I can't quite shake the image. (This photo is not of the breakfast table, but from the breakfast table, looking out.)











At midday, I ride Rosie (the moped) past fields to the east, still cultivated by a community of Laotian truck farmers.


 



I'm on my way to check in with my back therapist. It's my second and final visit, so that we may review the exercises that I really mean to be doing. My back is feeling too fine. If I had a twitch at least, I would have an ongoing reminder of how bad it could get. I would slow down and take heed. As it is, I have no twitch, ache or pull and so I continue to work. But, I have made at least one adjustment and it's a big one: I strap on knee pads when I head out to the yard. They remind me to get down rather than lean forward when I need to weed or plant. You gardeners out there, I strongly recommend them. $8.95 at Farm & Fleet.

Later in the afternoon, I have a wonderful iced tea break with a friend. So yes, I do have a bit of a respite. But immediately after, the garden beckons. Ed and I expand the flower bed and, too, we build a teepee for the soon to be planted purple beans...










And I finally tend to last year's strawberries. They are popping with new growth! I have no doubt that our chicks are going to go after the berries once they grow and ripen. For now, we have draped netting over most of the plants. Ha! As if that will keep chickens away! We'll surely have to adjust our game plan as the season unfolds.

Dusk. Take out pizza, I'm that tired. Head full of daffodils and summer mornings on the porch.

look around

There is so much to take in out there, in the fields and forests right now! So much to admire and find delightful! Not fair to pack it into a month or two! Not fair to create such intensity and then to move on to quieter times!

And it is intense now, in May. This morning again the clouds compete with the sun and though the clouds took hold for the bulk of the day, the morning was dazzling in the back and forth.






The chickens begin my day here, on Ocean. If you're used to seeing Ed at the breakfast table at the start of each post, I'm sure you've noticed that he has to take second billing now.






(I'm sure he'd like it fine if I just stayed with the chickens, but to me, a good day always has that kickstart from a morning meal together.)

After, I go shopping with my older girl. I know many moms enjoy shopping with daughters, but I am not much of a shopper so that we can never really play out this ritual. But, home ownership has turned my girl into a gardener and I promised that the first trip for perennials we'll do together. And I do love shopping for perennials.

And as if this wasn't enough, after finishing a run through the greenhouse with her, I convince Ed that he and I must do our annual pilgrimage to the place that eschews all annuals and panders to perennial addicts like me -- the Flower Factory.

Where will you put the new flowers -- Ed always asks. And each year the answer is the same: time to expand the flower beds!  Now, were I to start with a grand design, I probably would have planted everything differently. There would be order. Flowers would create a canvas of cohesion.

But it did not begin that way. It started small and grew incrementally and the only thing I will say in my defense is that I like garden chaos. Managed chaos, to be sure, but chaos, in the way that Monet's beds look only slightly orderly and cottage gardens look even less so.

I pick up the usuals: a few irises (bearded and Japanese), a few peonies (doubles and singles), a few daylilies (well, more than a few -- they are a staple of many of my beds), a few lavenders (for the chickens!), and Coreopsis and Gauras -- the cascading twinkling pink stars that stay with us all summer long (even though, unfortunately, they were a casualty of this last winter).






I place the pots on the picnic table. The chickens rest below. It is indeed a moment of pure bliss.

Later, Ed creates a trellis and we plant a Clematis vine against the sheep shed...






... and then we do spot work on a number of ongoing projects. The chickens follow us, always hoping that whatever project we undertake involves digging and therefore worms and sometimes it does and other times it does not...





















... and the day passed in this way, pleasantly, oh so very pleasantly, even though far far too quickly to fully take in all that's taking place around us. I'll leave you with just one more nubbin of beauty. Believe me, there is so much more! Just look around you! So much more!

work

When I work outside, sometimes I think my entire being is making up for lost time. So much of growing up focuses attention on the development of what's inside the head. And heart. The physical, except for dedicated athletes or wannabe athletes, is an afterthought. Oh, let me fit in yoga or a bike ride in between my desk job, driving to the store and cleaning up after the cat who happens to have an upset stomach.

If that is the case, then perhaps I shouldn't be surprised by how much I ache to work in the yard.

So many people would call it dull work. Mindless stuff. How're you going to stave off dementia if you don't exercise your brain more? I'd shrug my shoulders to that. I don't feel mentally lazy.

Oh! That smells of denial! People are forgetting their own first name and they wont admit to a weakened memory! What basis does one have for feeling alert?

Well, for one thing, I remembered my children's names. No prompt needed! Youngest One and Older Girl!

The more sympathetic among you will say -- it's not you, it's spring. Give yourself time. Come summer, you'll be running inside to cool down.  You said this yourself -- May is the gardening month supreme.

I understand that argument, but I don't buy it. I long to work outside even on the most dismal of dismal projects (eg. raspberry patch repair). I really do think I am just making up for decades of an indoor preoccupation.


Outdoor work defined this beautiful day. I am so focused on planting, on digging, on sowing, on weeding that I can't be bothered with photographing the cuteness of Scotch or Butter.  Well, with the exception of the time of our morning wake up routines.
















Ed flits in and out of my hours. There is breakfast -- we take it outside on the porch, but even here, my mind is on the annuals that need to go into pots today.






He then climbs the roof to make repairs...






...and I continue to shoo away chickens (it helps if I find worms for them; a meal like that zonks them out for a good half hour) so that I can do my work,  even as my hands crack  and my back threatens to stiffen and act up.






Evening comes early for me: I have a dinner date in town with old colleagues. Not a late into the night affair by any means. I'm on the road again as the sun draws closer to the horizon.





Home now. Checking the weather report for tomorrow. Only rains will keep me indoors. Or will they?

spoiled

 Sometimes it just happens. You're a parent, you need your kid to behave. You give a bribe. Maybe it's sweet, sugary and maybe it's excessive. You just want the kid to sit still, or go away, become invisible. So you hand over the treat.

I was reminded of this when I did my first of the season planting of new perennials. (After breakfast, of course).






Oh, the chickens were interested alright! It's as if everything up to now was just a prelude to bliss. They keep close to my hand shovel,  looking me right in the eye, hoping that I'll produce their caviar. Digging? You're digging? I want some of whatever it is that you're digging!





I should tell you this: I don't know how the weather was in your neck of the woods, but here, at the farmette, it was a brilliant day. Windy, true, but when the temps stay in the fifties, I'm not going to complain.

And so it's not surprising that I should set out to plant a few things. Slowly at first. It's a bit of a risk after all -- you don't know if the warm weather will last.

So I pause to let them feast on worms. In fact, I help them a bit here. Scotch gets one first from me, because she is the most tentative. But the others get their share. And before you know it, I've abandoned my plants and I'm digging for chickens -- finding worms for them. Ridiculous?

And this makes them sleepy. They nearly always nap after a big meal. Secretly, I'm thrilled: it's like your toddler has finally settled for a while! Wonderful! I can plant!






In the afternoon, Ed and I get back to raspberry patch repair (dig, pull, remove weeds) and the chicks are there as well and this time they need no assistance. When we stir up the dirt in this way, there are so many bugs and worms that it is easy for them to get their fill. And I'm thinking -- what a good life! Eat, nap. Eat, nap. Food readily available, in amounts that would satisfy a million chickens (I exaggerate; or maybe not...).

Does this create spoiled chickens? When is a happy chicken one who is too well provided for?

I'm not worried. They dig, they eat and they make us smile. And maybe somewhere in that chicken face, there's a smile as well.






To complete the post, let me put up a few photos that describe so well the last details of a sunny May day: 1. Oreo and Scotch, resting after a particularly worm-filled morning; 2. collecting eggs, with Isis in for the ride; 3. bringing outside the wintered-over geranium pots; and lastly -- 4. the farmhouse, finally putting on her spring cloak of greenery, with just a few early flowers. It's such a favorite image for me that I keep returning to it in the course of a day. So, here they are, all four snapshots:




















Think how much has changed in a month!