reflection

I have a reflection on reading and writing. Skip over this section if you want. It's in blue. My day begins immediately after.

Writing

A few years back, some three moves ago, I lived in a neighborhood that had a fun book club going. We would devote an evening each month to eating desserts, drinking wine and talking about the chosen novel. A funny thing happened during these discussions. Inevitably talk would turn to actions taken, paths avoided, moods, personalities, life's indiscretions of the characters in whatever piece of writing was under review. Why didn't she simply take the job offer?? Couldn't he see that she was up to no good? If I were her, I would certainly have looked the other way! 

This is the power of the written word. If you read about an issue facing a character in the story, you want to fix it.

Ocean, of course, isn't a piece of fiction and so the temptation to want to fix something presented herein is especially irresistible, all the more so if your mind spins to possible ways of approaching a perplexing situation. (There are so many beautiful places in this country to hike in, why can't they come up with one???)

I usually smile when comments pour in addressing what appears to the reader (rarely to me) to be a real hand wringing problem. Oftentimes, I try to respond to individual suggestions. But after a while, I step back and let it go. Because there is one great big response that I ought to cut and paste into the text each time: what you're proposing, unless it's something so esoteric that two adult minds would not have been able to stumble upon it, we (or I) will have considered it and for reasons that are too laboriously tedious to articulate (nor should a good writer connect all the character dots for you anyway)  -- we let it go, or at least put it on the back burner.

People are who they are. In a work of fiction, we'll never fully understand what guided an author in those novels we read in book club to fashion the story line in the way that she or he did, but we read on anyway. Ocean, too, is a story. Nonfiction, but a story nonetheless. A happy one at that. Feel free to insert your own stories into the comments, or to let me know what strikes a chord (Snowdrop! cheepers! anything at all) or makes you smile, but honestly, to the question of why I do X and not Y -- well, I can't really answer that. 

Worry not! You do not have to fix anything! In our own way, following our own proclivities and predilections, Ed and I are okay! You can wince at our missteps, or you can marvel at how we move forward, given our striking differences and peculiar conversations (much as you would marvel why a novel twisted in this way or that) but honestly -- we're okay anyway!


Saturday

Well, the storms passed and the last of the big, menacing clouds moved east and north. The cheepers are very anxious to get out. It's a cool but promising morning.






Very cool, in fact, but with touches of autumnal loveliness.






And, finally, we get that beautiful sunshine. We eat breakfast in the sun room.






It's Saturday and so it's Capitol Square farmers market day. My daughter and Snowdrop are ready to go. And yes, they are loyal to our university town!






It's a longish walk from their home, but Snowdrop is full of chatter and excitement. So much to see, so much color to take in... In this photo, mommy's hand is reaching for peppers and Snowdrop's hand is reaching for, well, the whole table.






The sun is overhead now and we can shed our sweatshirts...






Oh, it really is a gorgeous day!

After the market, I don't stay long at Snowdrop's home. Just a few minutes...






We all have full days ahead and mine includes creating that new vegetable bed back at the farmette.

Ed and I lay down cardboard and cart load after load of chips...


 



 
... until we're satisfied that we've created enough room for some 90 tomato plants for next year.





Are you sure it's large enough? -- he asks...
You want to make more room, don't you...
Don't you?

Sometimes we make decisions based on nothing more than a moment's mood or inclination.

Evening. It's really cool again. We're out on the porch for an hour, but as the sun sinks lower, we're back indoors. Ed watches a video about cranes (not the ones that fly), I come back to Ocean writing. Home-made pizza for dinner. You could not possibly imagine a more ordinary evening. The kind we both love so very much.

Friday

There is a bit of a rush to this day, in part because I want a weekend with no rush at all.

Still, as I walk to let the cheepers out, I think -- the farmette never allows for complete madness. No matter what the day holds, there are always moments of calm and serenity.

This morning, the tranquility is in the landscape. Beyond the fields cultivated by truck farmers, we have the usual corn and soy. Whatever negative feelings I may have about monolithic crop production, on the upside, I surely have to acknowledge that soy in early autumn is quite beautiful.






Equally beautiful is the wetness in the fields around me. I go out to pick the last of the goldenrod for the kitchen table and I find the wild asparagus that grows in our "prairie" to be absolutely stunning after yesterday's rains.






The storms last night were terrifically strong. I smile now at how unruffled I am by them, so long as I am indoors. Not even a dozen years ago, I'd be the first to hide under the pillow when the crashing reached the highest crescendo. These days, it all seems so tame. When you've been on a mountaintop at a time of great lightening, or in a forest, or on a lake (and Ed and I have been caught by storms in all those places), any indoor shelter seems so terribly luxurious. And so it stormed last night. Yawn.


Two more photos of calm: a lingering day lily...






And then, of course, breakfast (the pic today highlights Ed's masterful steps; as I bragged earlier, they were made of accumulated plywood scraps and the odd brick found at the farmette.)






But if this morning should have been cooler, gentler, more autumnal after all that rain -- well, that didn't happen. By the time I came back from weekly grocery shopping, I found the air to be humid and too warm, with a perceptible threat of more storms ahead of us.

Never mind -- my afternoon and evening are with Snowdrop. Not on a mountaintop, not on a lake, but first in her home...






... and then later at the farmhouse.






The little girl and I spend a wonderful spell of time in the young orchard, just by the willow tree.






And the cheepers follow us and she is just in love with these two hens.







It is a wonderful moment.






I'll end with this photo of the girls -- one waving, the other two hovering. That's our farmette life right now: tall grasses, roaming hens, spent goldenrod, the coming of fall. And Snowdrop, taking it all in.

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.