back to the beginning

Part I

The morning:

Out at sunrise to open the coop.







Oh, but we do have a beautiful sky here in Wisconsin!






And a beautiful breakfast.






A morning with Snowdrop.







Penguin, this book is about a goose that sort of looks like you.






But I love you more...






Sleepy before her nap. Goodnight, rest well. I'll see you on Monday. I love you, Snowdrop!






And then I'm off.


Part II


My family history is full of the typical twists and turns, knots and tangles that you'll find in an extended family of anyone else. And the fact is, those twists and knots retain their convoluted shapes and consequences 'til the day you die. (That's right, Ed, we will forever be reaping the benefits and suffering the consequences of our positions within a family unit!) (Ed would like to think otherwise.)

The next three or four days for me are a classic example of this. My father died now almost three years ago. He had a small but very complicated estate (look back at my opening sentence here and you'll understand why). My sister and I (mostly my sister, with my passenger seat intrusions) have been trying to straighten things out and the last piece of it fell into place just this month, as his small country cottage (actually also my mother's, but she let go of her rights to it a while back, for complicated reasons -- see first sentence again) was sold to a lovely young family who, one hopes, will find the happiness that eluded my family there.

My sister and I have split the proceeds. If you think that this is tremendous, well yes, but in Poland, nearly everything is rather modestly priced. For example, with said sum of money, if I bargained well, I could purchase a garage spot on the fringes of the left bank of Paris (and Paris real estate is still undervalued as compared to other big cities of the world). I know because curiosity lead me to check. In Warsaw, you could buy a simple but pretty one bedroom apartment.

The deal is this: if I reinvest in Polish real estate (perhaps even European real estate, but my legal research need not go there because, for one thing, I have no need for a garage space on the left bank of Paris), I am spared a significant tax bite. But I must keep it for my own residential use, for at least five years.

And so I am buying an apartment in Warsaw.

Knowing that this was coming, I have been looking at Warsaw apartments for a long time. I do the search, my sister does the inspection. It's time to do a thumbs up or down on the final contender and so I am flying out to Warsaw to inspect the place that, if all goes well, henceforth will be my Polish residence.

I fly today, through Detroit and Amsterdam and I make no stops going there or coming back. I'll be in Warsaw until Sunday.

They say Polish people don't know how to leave their country. Maybe. But I think it's not just a Polish thing. I smiled when I read one of the many interviews with people standing in line to buy a lottery ticket in the latest lottery craziness. The man said -- if I win, I will hand out some twenty dollar bills to people and then I'll take the rest and go back to my home country -- Senegal, where I will be king!

I have more modest ambitions. Yes, it is likely that I'll travel to Warsaw more often than I have in the past. (And yes, I do know Poland is entering a difficult, politically charged period right now. It will pass.) But I wont give up on my ramblings to other parts of the world. Patrizia, I will come back to Parma this year! And whisky from the Isle of Islay will warm my soul come summertime. And most importantly, I wont forget that my heart rests with my home here, in the place of that beautiful sky and with the beloveds who are forever on this side of the ocean.

Anyway, that's the back story. Next post -- from Amsterdam. Or Poland.

Tuesday

We are not stuck in an Arctic rut, but I have to say, this morning's wake up temperature (1F, or -17C) did make me momentarily wonder if, perhaps due to some plate tectonic oddities, we're inching closer to the North Pole.

Well, it was a lovely sunrise.





The cheepers came out for a second, possibly because they knew that I had oatmeal raisin cookie bits in my pocket.

And then I buried myself under the quilt for a good hour to recover, only to torture myself some more by going out on the roof (windy!) to sweep the latest snow off the plates of glass.

I needed a very long, hot shower after that.

And a breakfast among flowers.





My morning was in the farmhouse and that was just lovely! On a sunny day, every corner of the place is bright and optimistic, as if telling us -- what's outside is beautiful, if you only give it a chance!


My afternoon is with Snowdrop. The girl is intense...






... curious,






... love filled,






... exuberant,






... spirited.






And indulgent.






(You'd agree if you knew how many times she let me sing "rock-a-bye Snowdrop, in grandma's lap..." this afternoon.)


I'm home now. The TV is on -- the President is making his yearly speech. I've cracked the last cheeper egg for supper, grated the last scrap of Parmiggiano Reggiano cheese. Outside, the crescent moon shines brightly over us tonight, here in the crisp and cold Upper Midwest. And that's such a beautiful thing.

Monday

Where did my morning go?! Did I let it slip away as I stared at the thermometer? (Morning reading: -7F, or -22C.) Did I lose it reading my gripping novel? Or when I dug in to try to understand the ins and outs of my retirement account? Certainly not spending time with the cheepers -- I cashed in on Ed's offer to open the coop this morning. He claims it's downright balmy out there. Fine -- enjoy!

I admire the view onto a frozen world from the kitchen window. The only delicate thing about the landscape right now is the appearance of patches of blue in the cold heavens above. (Though they disappear shortly after I take the photo.)






Breakfast -- we take our time with it. Among flowers again.






And then Snowdrop is here and she falls straight into her routines, which, if Ed is around, always begin with a climb up his belly.






And they include lots of walking. With shoes. With only one shoe. With no shoes -- I see it all.












In the afternoon, there is lunch, of course...






... and I let her pace all corners of the farmhouse some more. (That's a wine cooler, Snowdrop. You're too young.)






... and then I take a deep breath and take the girl outside for the drive to her home. I feel a surge of guilt -- the car, purchased quite used, does have this excellent luxury feature -- heated front seats. I turn the heaters off. It's not fair that I should have a warm behind while the little girl rests suspended in a car seat.

At her house, the explorations begin all over again. She is delightfully independent, but she listens closely to any explanation or instruction I may offer. (Just call her Christophena Robin and Penguin...)






It is evening all too soon. I feed her supper, I put her down for a late nap and I make my way back to the farmette.

It's snowing now -- that most sublime snowfall where every flake is lush, thick and magnificent. The air is still. The night is dark. The winter quiet has set in.

I'm glad I had to be out and about. It is, in fact, a beautiful winter night.

for the birds

You know it's going to be a brittle day when you wake up to 12F (-11C) outside and the thermometer decides to go down from there rather than up.

Neither Ed nor I wanted to let the cheepers out, but my sense of duty prevailed. (Ed always puts the girls away in the evening -- which truthfully involves only latching the coop, but still, it's dark and cold then and very uninviting.)

I haven't raised the camera toward the farmhouse recently. Today, it looked noble and grand. (And warm and welcoming.)





I told myself -- I'm not going out today again!

Idle promises. In fact, I did go out again, but that would come later.

It's Sunday, so farmhouse cleaning comes first. After, we sat down to a really flower filled breakfast. I mean, I brought every blooming thing to the table. The sun came out strongly then and you could imagine that spring was just around the bend.






I will report on nothing else today. I spent most of the hours preparing for next week (it will be an exceptionally busy one!) and looking out the kitchen window. Bands of robins would come to our trees, eat the apples and fly off and this was rather entertaining in a tame sort of way. (Do you see the awesome foursome here?)






And this is when I saw that the sunshine had enticed the cheepers out of the barn. I ran to greet them with more slabs of bread. Honestly, sunshine will make the deepest Arctic air feel grand. Or at least okay.





The evening was quiet. My daughter is away on a business trip and I hadn't the heart to drag my son-in-law and Snowdrop out for a farmhouse supper. Ed asked if I wanted to go bowling, but I told him the idea of stepping out in the dark and cold had absolutely no appeal. I did bemoan the missed exercise opportunity, but he assured me that bowling wasn't exactly aerobic. Perhaps he was feeling a tad lazy about it too.

To compensate, I did something I haven't done for well over a year -- a "yoga on youtube" session. If you want to test yourself to see how much you've aged from one year to the next, do yoga at yearly intervals.

I resolved to stretch more going forward.

I cooked up a hearty soup for the week and felt deeply grateful that the furnace in the farmhouse has never failed us. Yet.

Saturday

Though Saturdays are typically Snowdrop lite days, this one is a bit different as the young family needed extra help this weekend.

Besides, it's not as if there is a pull to do something outdoors. We are about twelve hours away from an Arctic blast and in the meantime, the temperatures hover at the freezing point and even the delicate snow shower doesn't improve the landscape greatly.

The birds are wonderful to watch. From the warm quiet of the farmhouse kitchen.






I do a quick sweep of the roof again so that we wont have a repeat of the frozen solid snow to contend with and again I feel so grateful for that hot shower that warms you so completely after you've been working outside in a t-shirt because you didn't want to bother with the clunky jacket.

We eat breakfast feeling buoyed by the flowers again. (Full disclosure: the potted colorful anemones are from Giverny, but they are not real.)






And then I hurry over to Snowdrop's home.

The little one is, unfortunately, convinced that someday, the real deal cats will open up their hearts to her. Here's Goldie, the most queenly one of all. Snowdrop knows that Goldie does not take well to an outpouring of even gentle affection from her... 






But the poor girl never stops trying. It rarely ends well and so the only thing I can do is distract Snowdrop from the queen herself.






It's easy enough.






In the late morning. I take Snowdrop to music class -- this is the third series of song and dance classes she has enrolled in (they're part of the national Music Together program) and I have to smile at how far she has come. If before she was a fairly passive participant, now she is stomping and clapping and shaking things like a real toddler. True, her rhythm is uniquely her own, but hey -- why be constrained by convention?! (No photos. Too much action, too many other children, too much dancing and clapping and swooshing.)


At home, she feels emboldened. If yesterday she was parading around with two, three toys clasped tightly in her hands, today, she carries a whole basket of treasures and scatters them behind her, like a little Gretel.






Snowdrop, who will be picking these up after you?
Is that a real question, grandma?






And the afternoon? Well, there is lunch. Her all time beloved food? Sections of those clementines that flood our supermarkets in the winter. (Can you tell which cheek she naps on?)

After eating, she plays.

I'm thinking she needs to be introduced to public transportation. She has too many positive feelings about cars.






And of course, she has so many positive feelings about penguins. Someone indulged her love this Christmas and gave her Mr. Penguin supreme (it didn't help that he was on sale at the grocery store where we all shop so I understand the temptation). I have to say, that image of Christopher Robin and Pooh Bear? Nothing, compared to Snowdrop trying to criss cross her home with Mr. Penguin in hand.






I leave you with a bunch of adorable (in my grandmotherly opinion!) Snowdrop expressions. The girl is a genius at working her face in ways that'll make me laugh.






I'll say -- are you a chipmunk, Snowdrop? And oftentimes, I'll get this:






Ask for a kissy face, and (sometimes) you'll get this:






Oh, the beautiful faces of childhood!






Toward evening, I wave good bye to the sweet girl and head to a chocolate store. Why? That's next week's story. For now, I'm driving on the country roads, thinking how sometimes even that, which has little going for it, can actually turn out to be quite beautiful.






At home, I cook comforting pasta. Not hand made tortelli, but still, a thick veggie pasta dish that truly lets you forget the weather outside.





Almost completely.

Friday

Looking outside, here's what I have before me: brittle, icy snow that's melting somewhat, but not completely. The ground looks like a holstein cow. It's raining. Not just drizzling -- raining. With a deep freeze hustling in later this weekend, we'll have an ice rink at the farmette. One big ice rink. And of course, there is fog.

Have I made my point?

On the upside, it's warm enough for me to have opened the window in the middle of the night. We listened to the owl who lives just out front in the tall trees that shield the farmhouse. She is a vocal creature and her sounds are soothing in an eerie sort of way. We'd never seen her, but she has been hooting up a storm since I moved here several years ago and I'll always associate that sound with warm nights and raised windows at the farmhouse.

Breakfast is among the colors of fruits and flowers. We are so very lucky to have a steady supply of both! (Right now, three of the orchids are blooming profusely, responding well to this year's long and mellow fall, where they soaked in the outdoor coolness that they need to rebloom for us in the winter months.)





And then I grocery shop.

I do think it's marketing genius to place flowers at the grocer's just at the entrance, where you come in having basically given up on seeing anything on your drive over that isn't a shade of brown or gray. I usually pick up the cheapest bunch right then and there, telling myself that color on the kitchen table is as important as nutritious food is in your kitchen cupboards.

Back at the farmette, I try to shovel away as much of the snow as I can, because really, I do not want a skating rink here come Sunday, but it's no use. It's just cold enough for it to remain stubbornly iced over. I throw down the shovel and head out to see Snowdrop.


Here she is -- finally managing a close encounter with the cats, something that she wants with all her sweet little heart. True, they're not the real cats -- they're pillows with the family's cat photos on them. No matter. Snowdrop loves them and they do not run away.







A conversation ensues. Okay, it's one sided. But it's delightful.






Another interesting moment, this time with a very worthwhile book!






Today, as yesterday and the day before, there is a lot of traipsing back and forth. Why use your hands when the teeth work equally well?






Lots of laughter. Especially around penguin.






Too, there is the issue of the horse. Forgive the gendered statement here, but many will tell you -- girls like horses. Case in point.






Yeah.






Evening comes. I drive home. The rains continue. The fog is dense. The heart is warm.