Thursday

I would divide this day into thirds, of very unequal proportions. The first waking hours are with Ed, at the farmhouse, then of course, the bulk of the working day belongs to Snowdrop, in her home and finally, the last third is with Ed again, though not necessarily at home.

If I look at time in this way, I notice that the parts that are fluid and intact are with Snowdrop. We follow routines. We move (most often seamlessly) from one set of activities to the next, she eats, we walk, she sleeps, I drink tea, we play some more and then her parents return and it's time for me to go home.

The other parts of my waking hours have only two anchors in them: breakfast and dinner. Everything else is unpredictable and though it all may appear on Ocean as rather flat, for me, these highly flexible hours are anything but bland.

Take this morning: there wasn't much of one today, but it tilted toward the leisurely though serious side. We lingered for a while over breakfast of course...






(To the commenter who asked about the door to the porch, well, to the naked eye it looks rather like a standard patio door. To us it's a thing of great magnificence, possibly because it was a monstrously difficult installation. As some of you may remember, they send us a door that was too large and rather than wait for a new one, we chipped away at the house to make that behemoth fit. In the photo below you have a view from the kitchen, looking out. To me, that door brings the porch right into the house and that's just grand!)





So we eat and reflect on this and that, covering some of the usual -- chickens, house repairs, Tormach, travel. And for now, we come to the unfortunate conclusion that, given our stubbornness about destinations, we're likely to split travel and chicken care between the two of us in the coming year.

On the upside, I have to admit that we do spend a large amount of time together at the farmette, so it's not as if we need travel as a way to reconnect in some intimate fashion. But, it would be lovely to put on the table an idea that sparked enthusiasm in Ed's face and of course, he wishes the same -- that I would show some real enthusiasm for his proposals.


The last set of hours today offers the bulk of our shared time and it follows immediately  after Snowdrop care: Ed and I set out together for the local farmers market, the library, Home Depot, and finally -- dinner out, at Braserrie V, where we sit at the bar and have what we always have -- a shared Belgian salad and moules frites. (Even if you're no fan of mussels, you surely would enjoy the Belgian fires. You can't get me to eat fries unless they're over and beyond the ordinary. These are over and beyond the ordinary.)






Most likely there are plenty of couples who envision something grander for a "date night out." But dinners out are so rare for us that it feels like we've traveled half the globe simply by going out in the evening to eat. Our second anchor has shifted after all, from its typical resting place at the farmhouse and that's significant! As Ed blurted out, when I asked if we should do something special afterwards (and I meant something as simple as renting a movie from the library) -- dinner out is enough! And honestly, I know exactly what he meant. (He did admit that this sounded somewhat unromantic and so he backpedaled and we got a movie at the library and we tried to watch it and of course it wasn't very good so we retreated to our evening standard -- a set of hours on the couch where we alternate between commenting on the state of life, dozing, reading, writing and eating squares of dark chocolate.)


Out of order here on Ocean, but so very orderly for me, for her as well -- are my hours with Snowdrop.






If I keep repeating myself that she is "so spirited!" it's because it's true. Another commenter predicted that she'd be walking in two or three weeks and maybe that will happen -- I don't remember how these things work: do babies stand and sway forever waiting for that magic impulse to take steps forward ? That doesn't seem like Snowdrop -- she plunges with such force and vigor into her next challenge that I can't imagine she'll ever just stand. The next stage for her is always just a stepping stone to the one after that.






I don't take her out for a long walk. We keep it down to a mere ten minute stroll (rather than the usual hour or more). There are storms brewing and you know my feelings about storms. But the abbreviated walk means Snowdrop has no "down time" today. She is just one small hurricane of energy and charm!






It's late. Ed's snoring on the couch, I'm finishing up a post. Except for the claps of thunder and the pounding rain on the roof top, I'd say we're in for a fairly standard night. And that's a good thing.

Wednesday

Once more, we have summer in September. Warm sunshine pulls you outdoors, especially in the morning when the light breeze camouflages the warm air.

But again, this isn't the day for yard work. There is just enough time to admire the flowers that keep bringing sprigs of joy to the landscape. The lilies of course...






And, too, the lavender, which has had a fantastic run this year. As if our summer vaguely approximated what you'd find in southern France, or Spain.






There is also plenty of time for a breakfast on the porch...






...though our chatter again strays toward the topic of spring camping trips (with the now ingrained stubbornness, both on his part and mine), and then to the work I have to now do on the patio doors. There is a lot. It will take the better part of several days.

Well, okay. I'd been enjoying the doors so much! I needle Ed on this point, since he'd been very reluctant to move ahead with this project.
Wont you admit that it was a great idea to put them in? 
It was a lot of work.
That's because you spread it out over months, so that it seems you worked on it for months!
Okay, maybe...
But aren't they beautiful?
You need to seal them soon...
But aren't they beautiful??
Yes...


One quick task, before I head off to Snowdrop's home: I get up on the porch glass roof and sweep off the summer debris. I do this with some pleasure, in part because you really do feel like the world is yours to behold and admire from up high.






And finally it's Snowdrop time! I don't have many photos for you, because the girl is leapfrogging into new stages of growth and development and frankly, my hands are constantly occupied with catching her, redirecting her, showing her another way.






Every piece of furniture is a pull-up opportunity...






... every object a chewing toy. Teeth are coming in, unsupported standing and walking are her self-imposed homework for tonight, and through all this, she is sounding up a storm -- practicing sounds and letters as if there was a deadline and she just had to get somewhere on time.

So I'm busy. Though I do catch her sweet face in the few moments when she pauses, considering her next move.






And, too, I can take out the camera when she is set to eat. (Yes, she is pulling out her Finnish look today, which is not inappropriate, given that at least one spec of ancestral genetic material has some vague link to the people of that country.)






Of course, we take a walk, around the little lake again and I have to think it's our last of the very warm (but so windy!) walks, though of course, you never know. Fall almost always offers up a few delightfully sunny days and this one is delivering a trunk load of them.






And then I am home and Ed goes off to bike and I tend to chickens and the patterns are so familiar -- doesn't every summer Wednesday evening end like this? Ah, but it's not summer. You and I know this. It's just a palate cleanser, getting us ready for our next course. And even though there's a glorious fall still before us, everyone who lives in the Upper Midwest is already thinking about winter.

Tuesday

Summer comes back for a day today. Sunny, warm -- bring out the shorts and sundresses again!

But our routines are fall routines: early wake up, later sunrise...






And early breakfast. But on the porch once more!






The flowers outside are fall blooms too. The obvious purple asters...






...and this year, the shy and tardy gaura, which held off blooming all summer long. Until now.





Never mind, I'll take her whenever she presents herself!


No time for yard work today. I hop on Rosie and go to the young family's home, where Snowdrop is just waking up. Bath time!

...and drying out time in the warm sun.






And then we play.






I have a chance to study her as she moves from one activity to another, crawling this way and that, testing her impish adventurousness on me.






How much does she understand? And if the answer is -- a lot! -- then why can't I recall my own years of babyhood or even toddlerhood? I have some vivid memories of a stroller ride or, at the age of three, a morning arrival at my all-day nursery school in Warsaw. But that's a later period of course. Crawling? First steps? We all have had some version of this and yet it's all wedged into the corners of our information cloud inside our heads and it cannot be recalled.






And that's all the more curious, because we know now that these early years, months even, are such an important age. Formative, foundation-laying. My responses to Snowdrop matter, even if in a few years, she'll have moved on and this period of play will be recalled only through stories parents (and grandparents!) tell her.






In the meantime, downstairs, the two cats (out of the three in the household) are enjoying the sun as well. Lucas and Virgil are incredibly affectionate with each other. Is Snowdrop picking up their sweet vibes? I have to think yes...






It's time for the little one to take in that summer weather. In the afternoon, we take a longer walk. To the zoo!


 



I'm not sure if she likes the animals better than the children who come here to view them. Let's just say she likes both. A lot!






Such a day it is!

When I return to the farmette, Ed displays the finished patio door project (well, finished but for my part - which is to stain the wood trim). Too, most of the grass is mowed. The guy is on a roll!

I look around at the peripheral farmette gardens. Not bad!






Everything moves forward. With pleasant surprises along the way.


We go out to lock up the cheepers. Oh! They're both hiding now. In the garage. We take them to the coop and talk about perhaps moving the whole operation closer to the farmhouse. Will they be more confident closer to us?

It's a warm evening. A glorious evening. I'll remember it later on... say in January.

if it's Monday...

The new routine is that Snowdrop will be spending at least part of Monday at the farmette. It's a superb way to begin the week and you couldn't ask for a nicer day today. We're stuck in that classic glorious September weather and honestly, I cannot get enough of it.

I do have a few small chores to do around the farmette and so as Ed begins the delicate work of building a frame for the new patio door...






... I go back to my garden work, surveying the flower fields...






... and picking some spaces for the last of the bulbs I have for planting. Immediately after breakfast (on the porch again!)...






... the cheepers and I set to work.



("where are we going to dig?")



And then Snowdrop arrives and this is not the time to go indoors! Instead, we make our way to one of my favorite farmette spots -- the place where my younger daughter was married more than a year ago, under the great big willow and Snowdrop and I spend some beautiful moments playing in the grass with the swaying branches.













Too, she and I feed the two hens the remains of a blueberry bagel she had been chomping on yesterday. She was very excited about the possibility of petting the hens, but these girls, though not afraid, usually prefer to give a wide berth to the outstretched hand. Someday you'll be able to feed Scotch worms from a spade, but not today, I tell her.






In the late afternoon, grandpa Ed returns to the hammering and sawing. Snowdrop is highly interested in the project and there is definitely an "I want to try that!" look in her eye. Again, not today, Snowdrop. But, she is distracted...







... by the carpentry work...





 ... and we spend not a small amount of time watching nails go in.


Of course, now that she crawls, there is no keeping the girl in one place. She has the will to explore.








Late in the day, Snowdrop and I go for a walk in her own neighborhood and it is again a grand promenade around the little lake.



("let's get going, grandma!")



The day passes so quickly! A few more moments of play in her room...






... and then, a spirited chase of her favorite buddies, the three cats...






(But as Virgil, the cat, prepares to run, she gets diverted by something more interesting: daddy's slippers.)





... and our day is done.

At home, Ed is still working on the door. I fix a supper of eggs and local oyster mushrooms. We lock up the hens, noting that Butter has returned to spending the evening on the fence by the coop. She's erasing memories. We're vigilant. The hens don't known this (or maybe they do?), but the predator returned last night and dug up the land around the coop. We're working hard to keep them safe.

The day was beautiful. The evening is quiet. And that's such a good thing.

circles

If you think you've heard a version of this conversation before, well, that means your memory reaches as far back as a year ago.

I don't think I want to do a canoe trip on the upper Missouri...
(With genuine surprise and disappointment) Why not? It's perfect! We've found the outfitters, there are no rapids...
The book we ordered second hand? I've been reading it. The author talks about the known dangers...
Dangers? What dangers?!
Rattlesnakes, for one...
(Looking up venomous snake bite statistics on the internet)... a few thousand per year and only a half dozen deaths. In the whole country!
It's not that I think I'm going to die from a snake bite, but it's one of those things you're likely to encounter. Like bears if you go up to Canada. 
You're not going to go because of rattlesnakes?
The guy also talks about meth labs, overturned cars and junk in the river, mud banks if the river is low, not many places to camp when the river is high...
We read accounts of good trips there!
But he writes about the down sides...
You did this before our last camping trip and see how beautiful it was? Didn't you have a great time?
I did, but that's because nothing went wrong. We didn't have any major mishaps. It was insanely perfect. This one's not likely to be that perfect. 
Your ride on Rosie is more dangerous than a canoe trip on the upper Missouri!
I don't try to talk you out of your boredom with Europe...
We had been to Sorede so many times -- same thing again and again...
And when we camp, we do the same thing: we pitch a tent, you boil water, we open pouches of "curry in a hurry"...
Small stuff! The big stuff is always different and new.

So our spring adventure, on the table since our last Adirondack adventure, suddenly is off the table because I do not want to go.

Haven't we been down this path before?!


I let the cheepers out at around seven in the morning and I note that the thermometer is registering temperatures in the forties. Yes, there's a morning chill in the air, but I hardly notice it. It's a beautiful early fall day!







We clean the farmhouse and then pause for breakfast...






...and after, we throw ourselves into work outside. I dig out more of the weeds and old strawberries and it takes many hours before I'm satisfied with my progress. Ed looks at the pile of spent plants.
It was such work planting them all!
Yes, but they never gave us more than a handful of berries. And now they're simply old and invasive. 

Indeed. In the first years, we didn't weed them because we tried throwing netting over the whole patch to keep birds out. Netting, weeds, runners -- all got tangled and the animals found their way inside anyway. This year we removed the netting, but it was too late: most of the plants were getting too old and the weeds, new plants, old plants all meshed together into one huge chaotic mess.

Plant, pull out, plant something else. Try a new spot. Try a new crop. Or a new version of an old crop in a new place. This is out way of growing food.

Our tomatoes, though abundant enough to fill our large freezer this year, nonetheless need to be moved next year. The soil needs to be refreshed -- our stuff is coming in smaller, less robust. So it's back to the re-digging of a veggie field that had been in use before I moved here. We'll have to start work on that bed next week to get it ready for a spring planting.

Still, as I continue to dig and pull, dig and pull all day long, I think that these are not full circles. We're spinning out toward a greater understanding of our limitations and our possibilities. I think that this is good, even if honestly, sometimes it seems like we're merely spinning ourselves silly and in effect, staying quite still.

Let me leave you with just one garden photo -- of a gaura stem against sprigs of lavender. Ed tells me -- I thought the garden stops blooming right about now... and yet, look at all the flowers around us!
I am in total agreement: there is much to admire!







In the evening, the young family comes for dinner and we eat an old family spaghetti dish -- making use of our garden tomatoes of course. Snowdrop has had a long and busy day, but she continues to be in high spirits. We cook together.






And then, for the first time at our Sunday dinners, Snowdrop joins us at the table. She's not eating with us yet, but she will be soon!






She takes her task of being a full dinner participant very seriously.






And we do too! It's a beautiful evening. Yes, we needed our sweaters, but no one is complaining. At all.

Saturday

Well, it's cold enough to turn on the heat in the house and to eat indoors. In the sun room! Now there's a seasonal change if I ever saw one!







And after, I walk over with my daughter and Snowdrop to the Capitol Square farmers market. The little girl turns chatty (la la, bvvvv, ga, bvvv!)  and serious, all at once.






There is so much to take in! Every pause is an opportunity to admire something new. Chard, for example.






It's chilly, but the sun is out. I come home after to an Ed who is ready to do some farmete work -- after munching on the almond croissant from the market (bits of it were exceptionally popular with the two hens).






We work hard, all afternoon. Ed fixes my bike, his own motorcycle, carts chips. I dig up the oldest, messiest, most neglected strawberry bed -- the one that used to provide berries to chipmunks, birds and the woodchuck until it passed its fruit-bearing stage. A project like this is a feast for the cheepers and predictably, they follow me all afternoon long.






The rains, the warmer sunshine -- all this has been good for the garden of course, and the plants continue to throw out the occasional blooms. There are the colonies of gold and the emerging purple asters...






But, too, we're clearly not done yet with the roses and the lilies. They're rare now, but you can surely spot them!






I divide and move irises and plant more bulbs and it is a most perfect day for it. I think Wisconsin should hold the gold medal for its Fall weather and this year, we're surely off to a grand start.


In the early evening, Snowdrop comes to the farmhouse for a visit while her parents attend to various social obligations.

Yep, happy with that beard!






... and getting very bold in staying upright!






The week-end -- a concept not readily identifiable by the newly retired me prior to Snowdrop -- seems now very much a weekend. The schedule changes, the hours hold no predictable structure. And despite the digging, the work around the farmette, despite it all, that kind of shift in gears gives me a pause, so that I can start the work week -- not my work week of course! -- with a fresh hop and skip into Snowdrop's world.

But for now, I just enjoy the loosey goosey evening hours with the sweet little girl with berries on her pants, dangles on her shirt and outstretched arms for the world before her.