Sleepers, Wake!

Walking through my flower beds on a brilliant August morning, seeing that final burst of glory from the last of the day lilies, what comes to my head is, of all things, Bach's Cantata 140, Wachet Auf! (Play it, as you read along!)

Here is one translation of the lyrics:

Wake, awake, for night is flying,
The watchmen on the heights are crying;
Awake, Jerusalem, at last!
Midnight hears the welcome voices,
And the thrilling cry rejoices:
Come forth, ye virgins, night is past!
The Bridegroom comes, awake,
Your lamps with gladness take;
Hallelujah!

(Catherine Winkworth, 1865)

In fact, my association is a tad off base. I look at the day lily and I think -- trumpet sounds! Sleepers wake! But Wachet Auf hasn't a trumpet in the score. French horn, yes. Trumpet, no.






The other inaccuracy is to suggest day lilies are trumpet lilies.  In the world of flowers, there really is such a thing as a fragrant trumpet lily, but this -- the day lily, my day lily, or more accurately, the hemerocallis -- is not it.






In fact, the day lily should not be called a day lily at all, since its proper classification isn't that of a lily, but let's not fuss. Old habits die hard and what I grow in abundance in my yard is traditionally referred to as a day lily.






And as for the music in my head, well, when you join the lyrics, the melody and the urgent call to a glorious awakening, you have before you my love of these day lilies today, as I see them raise their faces so briefly, yet so gallantly toward the heavens! So the association stands: sleepers, wake!






As you can tell, I get very transported by my flowers!






Even as I've relaxed when the cheepers march through these beds.






Nearly all my flowers survived the cheeper scratching habits and honestly, the hens and their protector are so sweetly non intrusive these days that I have nothing but good words to say about them all.

So, this day surely stands in contrast to yesterday. Though it shares that sublime morning ritual of breakfast on the porch...






...but then it takes its own direction, including some work in the garden, some solid porch reading time, a fairly good game of tennis, a trip to the local farmers market, a dinner of market and farmette odds and ends (including the ever wonderful brined by Ed garden pickles!)...






... and finally, the day ends with getting myself organized for a brief getaway tomorrow to visit my younger girl and her husband up in Minneapolis.

that kind of a day

I don't know if others do this, but I have a rather childish habit of wishing for flawless days and lumping all things unpleasant into others. Rather than spacing things out, I create your classic miserable day that has not much to show for it (relatively speaking, that is; my life right now is blessed with very few really miserable episodes).

Today was slated to be such a day.

And so of course I let Ed sleep -- may as well, right? -- and I get up at sunrise to open up the coop. I make my way to where we usually place a dish for the stray cat, Cammie, hoping she'd come around before the cheepers found her food. (She didn't and they found it eventually and ate it all. I hope salmon and turkey giblets agrees with their diet.)

I step out on the grass and boom! I get hit in the head with a crusading wasp or some such insect. It's been a long time since a stinging hornet or bee got tangled in my hair but this one did and I had a sore head from the sting for the rest of the morning.

On the upside, it was a pretty sunrise!






Breakfast was delightful too...






...albeit abbreviated because I had a dental appointment. Now, your classic miserable day should have a root canal scheduled for it. But how about this: my root canal, done some 18 months ago, never healed properly (it flares up especially when I travel, which is somewhat frightening, as you really do not want to go searching for a good endodontist on, say, the Isle of Islay, though perhaps they use whisky to dull the pain, which might have its virtues). So I was scheduled to have it redone. If you dislike root canals, you're going to especially dislike retreatments, which use pain as the barometer of what the problem might be. (How about now: does this hurt?)

On the upside, I really like my endodontist and we exchanged some good stories about life's transitions, especially those pertaining to our children.

Afterwards, you'd think I'd settle down to a pleasant session of reading and writing on the porch. The weather is just perfect for it! But first of all, I really don't much care for the book I'm reading (it's junky; I love books that are gripping, leave you with a pleasant feeling at the end of it all and are well written -- it's a surprisingly rare combination, considering how many books are published each year) and second of all, it's also a good day to do the side mowing. (Side mowing is what I call the mowing of places where the big mower wont reach.)

I haven't done this since prior to the wedding.  We have a lot of wood chips on the property and when I work the hand mower over chipped areas, I send the damn things flying in all directions, many of them my way. I always forget to put on long pants (and they would have to be pretty thick to withstand the attack) and so I get my legs banged up from flying chunks of wood. (If you zoomed in closely on my legs in photos from the wedding, you would have noticed the bruises. There were many and no, they did not heal in time.)

On the upside, I racked up a good number of steps on my stepping app while pushing the hand mower.

Now, I could have resumed writing. Or picked up another book. But no -- I decided to work on my travel budget for the remaining trips I have scheduled for this year. That's never a pleasant task because the imagination always exceeds available resources and so the job is to scale down and make do (for the remaining trips, I'll be staying mostly in rooms with kitchens, or at places that offer half board).

On the upside, working on trip budgets does remind me that I do have travel in my life and after my beloveds and the farmette, nothing thrills me more than thinking ahead to a trip. It's a thrill that even Ed, who knows me too well, fails to fully understand. [Conversation this morning: so why go away if you like it here now? And me, for the umpteenth time: I'm programmed that way. I loved it when I was a teen, I love it as an adult. Time will tell if I will love it when I am so old that can no longer fully hear or see my environment.]

And so long as we're doing unfavorite tasks, I tell myself, why not downsize my book collection some more? I set a goal of 40 books that I will be giving later in the day to the library. That's not especially unpleasant, although it was rather discouraging to see how many of these books had a bookmark stuck in the middle -- as in: I bought the book on impulse and it was not good enough to finish.
 
At some point though, I say to myself -- enough! Time to exhale a little. And I take a look at my flower beds...











...and I do sit down on the porch. On the not so upside, I declined politely the endodontist's offered Vicodin and so, of course, I suffer the consequences.

sultry Tuesday

What projects, you ask. What's lurking there, waiting for my attention? Of course, the ever unfinished book project. Long time Ocean readers might say -- you clearly don't have it in you to finish that one. Maybe it's not a good project for you?

But the truth is, I've come to like the leisurely pace of writing. The task of forming complete texts has never been my livelihood, my career, my professional path. Like travel, I've done it because I love doing it in its own right. True, I am past the halfway point and so it would be doubly pleasant to get closer to the end. I thought a year of retirement might do the trick, but now I know that it will take twice that and, most importantly -- it doesn't matter.

Other projects do include bringing the farmette even closer to an aesthetic that we like, that I like: empty the insides more and keep the external spaces -- so carefully tended for the wedding! -- under vigilant control. That's less fun, especially outdoors, especially now, in the buggy days of August. But I continue to put in my hours there because I wont quickly forget how hard it was to reign in the tremendous proliferation of superfluous growth. I must keep on top of it!

Other projects are percolating. They need time to rise to the surface. I haven't yet given them much attention. They're ideas. Dormant at that.  But I will get to them! One day I will!

In the meantime, it is a sultry, gray day. I push Ed out to do chicken duty just after sunrise, then feel guilty and follow shortly after to tidy up the coop.


After breakfast...






...we take the time to spray our cedar oil mix again around the farmhouse, because it really does keep us sane even as the bugs in other parts of the farmette are crazily active right now. Ed mists, I zap the mosquitoes with a paddle.

The cheepers watch and follow us around...
















Isis the cat runs away -- he hates it when we walk around with a mosquito zapper. And the little and big frogs (we have many of both) watch from their curious perches throughout the yard.






Typically, this would have marked the end of the active part of our day. But in thinking about weed and sapling growth, it strikes me that I could, we could clear out the corner of the barn where the cheepers' coop stands.


Two hours of pulling out saplings and weeds and slapping at mosquitoes and I feel that we have paid our dues.

I take a look at the best of the blooms (in my mind, anyway)...






...and I again retreat to the porch, for one last round of reading and writing.


 



It was a very good day. My phone tells me I barely took 7,000 steps. Dumb stepper app. I feel I ran a marathon with a potato sack on my shoulders. Yep, a really good day.

rain?

Maybe because we still occasionally mist a little cedar oil around the entrance to the farmhouse. Or maybe it's that I keep the area well trimmed. Or maybe it's that once they found better digs, our mosquitoes decided to set up shop elsewhere. For whatever reason -- we have far fewer bugs around the farmette structures than, say, out in the open fields.

So that when I stood at dawn, admiring the sunrise (yes, yet again Ed slept through the cheepers' wake up and release hour), I was sufficiently bothered by mosquitoes there, that I did not linger.






I did some spot pruning early in the day, but not a lot. I worried that I would have to water the remaining flower beds later on and so I held back on gardening. To conserve enthusiasm for it.

Everything is so dry and the forecasters tell us that we only have a slight chance for rain -- today, if at all. Though in general, I rather love working in the garden, it does suck up the hours of a day rather quickly and I do want to move on to other projects. I've been stuck on the same routines since I've come back from Europe and everything else is growing cobwebs and collecting dust balls.

What morning photos do I have? Let me start with this little group: it's as if the wild and free has a close encounter with the elegant and sublime!






In general, it's been too cool this year for a boisterous lavender crop, but the plants are still trying to keep their spirits and stalks up. Take a look at the bushes that line the driveway:






This is a small bed that I completely neglect on Ocean (it's not as photogenic as the ones facing the courtyard) but it is one that everyone sees when they come to the farmhouse. In addition to the lavender, there are these guys:






One more note on the morning activities at the farmette: the white hen has recovered! She is laying again and her appetite and energy level have returned!






Phew! Enough wondering around outside. Breakfast time!






And later, there's a lucky break: the thin band of thundershowers passing over the state today? It comes straight at us and we have a nice, prolonged dousing of the farmette lands from above, without human intervention!

The cheepers don't like it and the mosquitoes probably view it as an opportunity to massively reproduce, but I am happy that we have added some nourishment to all things bright and beautiful. Even if it all looks a bit damp and gray for the afternoon. (As seen from the porch just now.)

Sunday

Sleepless night for both of us, though for different reasons. I'm thinking forward thoughts, he's preoccupied with a machining project. And so he sleeps through the chicken wake up time. I go out and open the coop.

Sunrise!






Retreat to sleep. And now we try for another start to the day. More coordinated. We clean the farmhouse. A real scrub down. It always makes me happy to see it refreshed!

A mini breakfast on the porch. Not a big meal. We have brunch plans! Just a small nibble now.






And now the celebration of my girl's birthday begins for me: we meet her and her husband downtown and we have a terrific meal together. Nothing feels more urban and out of the ordinary for me than a brunch out. It's a good way to fall into a festive frame of mind.






But after, Ed and I return to our old Sunday habits. I work in the yard (it's so dry! two hours spent on watering the new flower bed!). Ed naps. Presumably making him more alert for more machining work tonight.
















Ah, but then we regroup and come together again. Because my birthday girl and her husband are at the farmhouse for supper too. The pleasure of two meals in one day with them!

I set it it out on the porch...






A simple meal. Nothing extraordinary. Pasta with a homemade sauce. But it has "birthday" written all over it.





Which means gifts. Clothes for a bigger belly. And cookbooks!





And the rhubarb strawberry cake for dessert. Which a commenter asked about and let me tell you -- it has been immensely popular here, at the farmhouse, so I am happy to pass on the recipe. (You'll notice that the positioning of the fruit is entirely different here than in my past two cakes.)  Such a grand Sunday! For you as well, I hope.

Rhubarb Strawberry Pudding Cake (Gourmet, 2007)

1/4 c water
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
1/3 c plus 1/2 c sugar
2 c chopped fresh rhubarb stalks (I used a little more)
1 c. chopped fresh strawberries (again, a tiny bit more)
1 c flour
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 c whole milk
1 stick unslated butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 400.
Butter an 8 inch square glass or ceramic baking dish (I used regular cake pan)
Stir water, cornstarch and 1/3 c sugar in saucepan, then stir in rhubarb. Bring to simmer stirring constantly, then simmer, stirring occasionally, 3 minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in strawberries.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and remaining 1/2 c sugar in a bowl.

Whisk together egg, milk, butter and vanilla in large bowl, then whisk in flour mixture until just combined.

Reserve about 1/2 c fruit mixture, then add remainder to baking dish and pour batter over it (in my case -- I needed to distribute it evenly, as batter certainly wasn't a "pourable" consistency), spreading evenly. Drizzle reserved 1/2 c of fruit over batter. Bake until wooden pick comes out clean, 25 - 30 minutes (I baked it for 32 mins). Cool in pan on rack for 5 minutes before serving. 

weekend review

One of the toughest things to keep straight when you're retired is whether you're on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. The other days are obvious, but these three? Confusing. If you have set routines, it helps. I do the weekly grocery shopping on Friday (I once believed that produce is freshest then and so I got into the habit). Oftentimes I go to the farmers market with my daughter on Saturday. Sunday is family dinner night. Blessed routines!

Unless something reshuffles.

This weekend, there was a ton of reshuffling.

Sure, I shopped, but we ate leftovers that night (because there was a yummy salmon soup that needed to be finished) and that threw me off: you don't eat leftovers on a day you buy fresh produce.


Then, my daughter was out of town today (or was it yesterday?) In any case, no farmers market. And no other marker of what's what. So yesterday, I thought we were on Sunday, and the day before -- well, Saturday, because it precedes Sunday! And it didn't help that today (is it Saturday?), Ed had to go in for a special open house that his partner organized at their machining business. So it felt like Friday, because Ed only goes to meetings there on Fridays. Today really threw me for a loop!



(Isis on the porch with me)


And the chicken duty: that's totally confused right now. I know, I know, that has nothing to do with the days of the week, but it only adds to the mess in my head! I let the cheepers out today because it was one of those nights for Ed...



(before sunrise)


It doesn't help that he doesn't fully distinguish between night and day so that after the open house at his business, he fell asleep to make up for that sleepless night and so now I'm left wondering whether we're in the midst of a weekend day and if so, which day and if not, is it because it should be night?

At least there is the predictability of breakfast.





There is an easy way to restore balance in your soul: clip some coreopsis! I don't know if you know this flower -- it throws hundreds of blooms in early and mid summer and here's the thing -- it will keep on blooming if you dead head spent blooms. I have at least a dozen coreopsis plants. If each offers hundreds of blooms to dead head, well, you do the math.

Hours. I spent hours on the coreopsis project.

Then I baked a cake.

Our rhubarb is having its second wind (I blame the severe pruning job I did before the wedding). We already have more rhubarb compote stashed for the winter than I could possibly use. How about a rhubarb strawberry cake? (I know: a conventional pairing. But one that works!)






Time to retreat. Get some rest. Tomorrow it's my daughter's birthday. Well not really: just the celebration of it. The actual birthday was yesterday. I'm sure of that one. Ocean does not lie.




(today's flowers, including the yellow coreopsis))

cats and sails and flowers too

Cammie, the wandering cat came back today and I hurried to distract the cheepers with sunflower seeds so that I could put out cat food for her. When she saw me moving about, she did her usual disappearing act, but then she came back, found her food, licked herself clean then left again.

It's a warm and muggy day. So fitting for August. Breakfast was pokey...


 


...and then rushed as we glance at the time. How did it get to be so late?!

Both of us have things to do today. None of this lingering for hours nonsense. Ed's off to his techie group meeting, I'm off as well, to visit the cats at my daughter's house (she and her husband are gone for the day and I promised I'd peek in to make sure they haven't destroyed the house, each other, the world).

Well now, the hiding duo - the two cats recently added to the household - are a bit less shy today! After weeks of patient care (and some hissing and pouting on the part of the older cat already here), the shyer one, Virgil, comes out from under the chair...






...only to go under another chair -- one with much better viewing possibilities...






...and then, prompted by a tidbit of a treat, comes out altogether and meows his sweet meow, begging for another.






I think about Cammie and her wilder habitat and, too, about Isis who was himself once wild and now has turned into the cat with the sweetest personality on the planet. The erasure of fear brings out some stellar animal traits! I wonder why we, humans, so often are hell bent on promoting fear. And then are surprised when people hiss and spit on the perceived menace out there.

I spend a while on the porch reading this afternoon. It feels lazy, I know. It is lazy. I'm avoiding looking at my step counter. I take a few flower photos -- not too many. The riot of color is getting that August look of passing abundance.






Yes, still a mega-dose of color...












...but I can tell that it is slowly beginning to recede. In the weeks ahead, individual blooms will become much more important.












There is thunder outside. Maybe it will rain. My plants need rain.


Inside, Ed is making pickles from the multitude of cucumbers growing in our veggie plot.





Why the odd lettering on the pickle containers? They date back to years when Ed would take food stuffs on his sail boat and brave the ocean waters for weeks on end. Ed never throws away things that may become useful someday.

Evening. I make myself a drink I haven't had since last summer: an aperol spritz.





A toast to summer? Yes, okay, that. But also to my older girl who turns 33 today. Happy birthday dear one! And of course -- happy, happy year ahead! Smooth sailing, yes, I wish that for you: calm waters and a joyous ride!