Sunday

I look up at the early morning sky, split evenly between threatening and promising and throw out this question -- are we done already? Have you had your interminable pout and tantrum? Can we proceed to the gorgeousness of a warm spring?






Of course, the sky takes this opportunity to dump something on the ground -- for a few minutes. Then it looks okay again. For a while.

 (The daffodils stubbornly refuse to show their colorful faces until they get some honest sunshine, even as the day lilies continue their upward surge.)





I suppose if given the choice, I would pick what we had this year -- a wonderful early early spring and a somewhat cold and wet period thereafter. You're so sick of winter by March that you appreciate the sudden and unexpected pleasure of feeling warm and buoyant. Too, this period is only a clean up stage in yard work. It's too early to plant or even divide anything. If it has to be cool and wet -- early April is a good time for it.

But listen! The second half of April begins next Saturday and the Flower Factory, for decades now my faithful supplier of perennials, opens its doors then. And well it might! We are promised sunshine and warm air for this truly grand event.

In other words, I'm asked today to be patient. To ignore that pouting sky that throws down stuff on and off all day long. To work side by side with Ed when things settle down up there (the usual: we clear, throw chips, weed etc, with the active participation of the cheepers, whose scratching habit is ferocious right now). And occasionally to retreat and work on sprucing up the inside of the farmhouse (including rearranging furniture to accommodate the arrival of the small chairs and table for Snowdrop).

These then are the rhythms of this Sunday. (After a leisurely breakfast in the front room, with Ed gazing at the flower bed we installed this past week.)







An afternoon coffee break, recorded here because it brings color to an otherwise gray day...






And then very quickly, it's evening and Snowdrop arrives with her mom for Sunday dinner at the farmhouse.





I almost don't get the dinner plated. The girl wants to be involved!

Fine. Here's a bowl. And a spatula. Mix!






Am I doing a good job??






Dinner is  ready. Time to cut the bread. In the alternative, let's put Snowdrop in charge of the bread.






Snowdrop loves baguettes!






Dinner's fine too.






One last photo. Three generations. Missing is my younger girl. We'll get her in here soon enough!

Saturday

When I moved to the farmhouse now five years ago, I decided, with Ed's hard encouragement, to adhere to minimalist principles. Downsize yet again. Buy (almost) nothing new. Make do.

And it worked. The furniture I had was just fine. True, the kitchen table that Ed threw in doesn't expand and large family meals have required an awkward combination of several tables strung together to look like ... several tables strung together and yes, for various showers and family celebrations some people were without comfy chairs to sit on, but basically, we've done well. Inspired by this success, I continue to downsize. My library collection is one fourth what it once was. Useless kitchen gadgets (sometimes but rarely missed) have done well on Craigslist. In the alternative, Goodwill is just 3.1 miles away.

I like to think we add flowers outside, but nothing inside.

Then along came Snowdrop.

The crib. Of course she needed a crib! And a high chair. And a changing table. And so on. I'd forgotten how children swallow stuff and they grow, too, so that yesterday's stuff is put aside for the next one, should there be a next one, and the next incarnation of stuff makes its way into the house.

I try to keep it simple. But the fact is, if a child spends a lot of time in your house, you'll want to make it a good place for her to be.

Today I announced that Snowdrop really will need a small table and a chair. Ed groans at this. Let's look at Craigslist! We do that. I don't like anything.
How about if I built her a picnic table with benches?
Nice of you, but it wont look good.
How about if you pull up a wee chair to the coffee table?

I laugh at that. Our so called coffee table is a whopping 24 by 24 inches. It serves as a resting place for Ed's computer, his stack of unread mail and a dining table come suppertime for the two of us. The image of fitting in Snowdrop's crayons and paper is kind of funny.

We rearrange things to make room for the wee table and chairs. The farmhouse is small, but it will take on another piece of "stuff." Ed shakes his head. Minimalism, diminished yet again! In exchange, I promise to give up another shelf of books and the walker Snowdrop rejected long ago.

We are determined to live an uncluttered life.


But this does not hold true for our great outdoors!

True, we wake up yet again to a hard frost -- near record lows -- but I know this will be the last one and so I walk out at sunrise with a bounce to my step.

Besides, it's going to be sunny! Sunshine makes up for the cold.

(From behind the willow...)






(It's cold, Java... I know, Henny.)






(This better be the last of it!)






We eat breakfast in the sun room.






And then we work outdoors. Oh, do we work! It never warms up beyond the upper thirties F (no more than 4C), but I shed everything, down to a light sweater.

We pull weeds, we unload wood chips and we expand (that's right, expand) the new flower bed that will run along the front of the property. For the first time, I will be growing plants that aren't just for us to see (all our other flower fields are within the farmette courtyard, so unless you come up to the end of our driveway, you would not know they are there).

I don't have many photos. It's dirty work and the camera deserves a respite inside. Just this one, of, well, nothing, really. Ed is rebuilding my bean trellis. I'm pulling weeds.






But it's a magnificent day and Ed had to listen to me say more than once -- isn't life grand?
To which he'll respond -- Yes gorgeous, in the most non-emotive voice he can muster.


A brief coffee and cookie break (just at home)...





And then we continue.

It's after six when we finally throw down the pitchfork, the rake, the clipping shears. And of course, this was the day I was to cook something other than the simple, the straightforward.

Well fine. Roll up the sleeves and get to it. With a special thanks to Yotam Ottolenghi, whose recipe (from Plenty More) I follow, using eggs from our girls.






It's a Parmesan cauliflower cake...

(Before it goes in...)






(After it comes out...)






Late supper. Long day. Beautiful day. Flower beds waiting now. In all their readiness.

Friday

It's the end of a week. And, we are in the final push to get us out of the more challenging aspects of early spring: it's the last in the string of cold and gray days. And the little girl is near the end of her sniffles. And me? I just move into each day as it presents itself, even as I am very glad that we're facing better days ahead.

But first, the wake up: a dusting of snow, again! But it's not too cold. This is silly stuff. Even the flowers don't much care about the inconvenience.






The cheepers too seem oblivious: this is like a sprinkle of pepper on the sweet cake of spring.






Breakfast. Lovely. Cheerful.






And then I sit back for a few minutes and think about cooking.

I'd just responded to an email from Pani Karolina (my Warsaw architect-designer extraordinaire) and it had caused me to reflect on how I prepare food these days. Pani Karolina had asked if, in order to save money (the renovation is coming in over budget -- what a surprise), I wanted to eliminate the installation of a stove. Cooktop -- yes. But am I really going to bake or grill or in other ways fuss with major food preparation in Warsaw?

Well, the answer is obvious -- I may or may not, but if I hope to sell the apartment at some point to someone who buys it for its completeness and wonderfulness (no further work required!), it's got to have a stove. And who knows? Maybe I'll even use it!

And this lead me to wonder if, in recent years, I've gone too much in the direction of simplifying dinner preparations. I still take at least an hour (on Sundays -- more than that) to prepare dinner each night, but I've concluded that Ed doesn't much care if I finesse a meal and so if there are corners to cut -- I cut them.

But this, I think, is a mistake. I recall the famous words of my friend Patrizia in Parma, who was shocked that I shouldn't dress with care, just because the people I see in the course of the day don't particularly notice. Don't you want to do it for yourself? For the way you feel in all ways? -- she had asked.

And so today, I took greater care with planning the menu for the week ahead. I picked up cookbooks before going to the store. I thought about the lessons I had learned over the years about preparing and presenting dishes.

And that felt really really good.


In the afternoon, I am with Snowdrop.

My younger daughter had asked -- why don't you try pigtails on her? Today I did.






I suppose the one issue is that suddenly, the girl looks... like a girl! Did we bypass toddlerhood?






Suddenly, I am the east European babcia singing --

Wasn't it yesterday
When they were small?

Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze...






Late, late afternoon, the winds pick up, but the skies clear a little. You want to go outside, Snowdrop? Does she ever!

(At the coffee shop.)






And in the evening, she is at the farmhouse.

Snowdrop, do you want to go outside?
!!






In the house again, the girl picks up her favorite books and some unusual ways of reading them.






And she finds some new books too - variations on the very first stories that caught her attention.






And of course, she makes a beeline for the airplane and the train with the funny wooden passengers on board.






When did she become so certain of her own mind? So good at figuring out her own path?

One of the unexpected bonuses of being a grandparent is that it brings you down a notch in terms of your ideas and beliefs about raising children. If you thought you got it right (or wrong) with your own kids, this new line of progeny teaches you that actually, you haven't figured out anything at all. And in my opinion, that humility is a very good thing indeed!

variations on a melody

Honestly, it is like that -- each day is a pretty little piece of music that repeats itself with slight twists and detours and the occasional crescendo, but it is a familiar set of notes, that do not change greatly from day to day.

But if you want my blunt opinion, I will be quite happy when the next three cold days pass and we are back to the warmth of a true spring.

This morning, after breakfast...





I stay home and study the apartment plans Pani Karolina sent me. You'll remember perhaps that she is the person who is boldly and bravely leading the renovation team that will be transforming my Warsaw apartment from something horrible to something quite lovely (that's the goal anyway). Right now, two students are still residing there with their big musical instruments, but this does not mean that nothing is being done: plans are hatched, project proposals reviewed. Doing this at a distance means that I have to have a good deal of trust. I cannot be concerned with every detail. And in fact, I have plenty of trust: I assume Pani Karolina understands what I want and has the good sense and good taste to create a very lovely interior. I'll not show the plans just yet, but I do want to note here that I studied them with some degree of care today.

(Ed comes in to show me the haul of eggs for this morning. The green looks better when placed next to the white and brown.)






And then, of course, it is time to care for Snowdrop.

Our games are, in part, predictable. There is always, for example, a time when she and I make tea.

Grandma! It's ready! The kettle is whistling! Now, grandma, now!!






And then she'll run run run run run!






These days, there is the Hyde Park Corner speech, told from her chair.






Sitting with penguins is de rigeur as well.






There will be, for a while yet I'm sure, that painstakingly delicate task of turning single pages of a book, though today there is a change of material.





This is a big book that belongs to her dad, who has, for a long time now, loved baseball. Snowdrop will surely know a lot more about the game than I do and I think she has already been to more games than I have in my life. (That perhaps could be misinterpreted to mean that she is a regular at our local ballpark. She really isn't -- it's just that she and I come to sports with different histories and cultural imperatives. I'm sure she will never be as avid a ski jump watcher as I have been in my time. Ski jumping is big in Poland.)

But I smile, too, at how subtle a baby sitter's influence can be. It's no secret that I love train travel. I don't think it will be long before she boards some train car of some sort in her young life. And in the meanwhile, she and I can be excited about toy versions of this experience.






Though of course, I am as excited when she picks up a ball (the girl goes big!) and tosses is at me with great pride.






Should I be less excited to see her take a step toward texting and driving (she's sitting at the driver's seat after all)? No! I prefer to think she's catching up on her novel while in a parking lot, while her friends? partner? children? (children?!?) shop.






Today's song was well sung, though with some tough bars as the little girl is still ovecomming her sniffles. Tomorrow? Oh, you can never tell! There will be a variation or two. For sure.

habits

In recent years, I've not been photographing the birds that come to call at the farmette each spring. I don't use a telephoto lens and, too, I'm not a real birdwatcher. I don't much care if I've spotted one type over another. I just like their chipper music and their occasional blast of color.

And this is why I made a quick exception today -- the day is wet, gray, not too warm. That cardinal that came for a morning visit? He looks like he could be a featured model in a beautiful early spring canvas.






And speaking of birds and color, I hereby announce that our new hens have finally given us their first egg. It came from Henny -- our Easter Egger girl (yes, that really is what she is called, unless she is an Ameraucana breed, but I don't think so). How do I know it's hers? Well, we've been warned: she lays color tinted eggs.

In Henny's case, the egg color is an unfortunate pale green. Actually, let's be honest here: it's a downright ugly green. It recalls to you the Dr. Seuss book, Green Eggs and Ham, only of course, the inside of a Henny green egg is the same as a regular brown or white egg. All eggs start off being white, but as they pass through the chicken's oviduct, some breeds throw out a pigment -- genetically predetermined for the duration of a hen's egg laying career. Henny's has a brown tint to is as well -- a real charmer, no?






Henny, couldn't you do something just a tad more cheerful?

As is our habit on rushed and gray mornings, we eat breakfast in the kitchen.






I look out with longing at the porch. This stalled spring is not what you want to see after a season of little snow and dull colors outside. Never mind -- a few more days and we'll be on our way again to full blown spring.


I'm at Snowdrop's home in time for her breakfast and bath routines. The little girl is bouncy today! On the chair, off the chair, then on again, expounding.






The cats watch her from a distance (as is their habit). When one parades close by, she offers him her penguin toy, but he will have none of it.






She is used to this haughtiness on their part. She turns away and finds a more enthusiastic audience elsewhere -- in grandma.

She picks up a remote control and starts her game of running with it from one room to the next. They say toddlers don't really know how to run. Those who say this have not seen Snowdrop on the go.






This is when I know it's time to suggest an outing. You need only ask -- "want to go for a walk?" -- and her whole demeanor changes. We hunt for shoes, jackets, a penguin companion. She is so anxious that the expedition not be derailed -- that she did not misunderstand, that it really is an outing, yes, right now, outside, yes, yes!

She breathes a sigh of relief once I put her in the stroller.

It's not exactly inviting outside, but it's just a tad warmer than yesterday (in the mid forties) and the rains have acquiesced -- holding back until we're done with our hour long adventure. Yes, we do go to the distant coffee shop and you might think that this is why Snowdrop loves the walks so much, but I don't believe that. She shows no impatience as we stroll through the neighborhood. She is interested in what she sees. And she seems happy to listen to the songs that I sing during our walks. They're always the same: going there it's this, coming back it's that.

At the coffee shop, we go through all our usual habits -- the waiting, the ordering, the picking up of the high chair...






I almost don't bother taking out the camera -- same old crumb eating image, after all -- but honestly, it always makes me smile to see Snowdrop so captivated by someone at another table. This is what deserves a photo.





The two women who catch her attention are delighted by her and I see that this at once pleases her and causes her to turn just a little more shy than she used to be. I tell them that we have this habit of coming down here -- an excuse for me to sip an espresso and for her to get a bit of another world in her day. The women are school teachers and we all wonder if modeling patience and quietness and yes, friendliness in a cafe stays with a child (they argue vehemently that it does). Snowdrop does display her best manners this morning by waiting patiently by the stroller, penguin in hand, until I am ready to put on her jacket and swing her inside.

I don't know a parent or a grandparent who does not want a child to be polite and respectful. Snowdrop is surely on her way to being aware of her environment and of the expectations that come with participating in something that is inherently an adult activity. (At home, she has her pranks that she loves playing on me to get a reaction going. Even at this age, the girl seems to sense that this is okay for home, but not for a coffee shop.)


In the evening, the rains threatened again, but another truck came by and dumped its load of chips on our driveway. We have to make a dent in distributing the shredded bark and so I heave loads onto crucial spots, while the cheepers watch, hoping that below that load of timber there would be a pot of gold. Or in the alternative -- worms. Or at the very least -- stale bread.

Tuesday

It's an "on the one hand" kind of day.  For example -- on the one hand, we wake up to brilliant sunshine. On the other hand, there is a deep frost. The kind that flowers love to hate.






But, the cheepers are not unhappy. No snow, little wind and a row of seeds thrown down in a way that allows them all to eat without squabbling.






But the flowers hate the cold. It doesn't matter that we'll climb into the forties F. Right now, it's in the twenties and that's just not kind to fragile blooms.






Well, but there is that sunshine! Let's focus on that for a bit.






As I drive to Snowdrop's home and the frost slowly melts off the windshield, I decide that my love of sunshine trumps the disdain I have for such cool weather in April.

But I dress Snowdrop warmly.

(She shows off an old chair that was given to her by her granddad. She especially likes to load every conceivable penguin -- and there are many -- onto it, but I refrained from taking that photo -- it's all penguin fur and little evidence of the girl herself. Here she is with only one bird on her lap.)






But what she especially loves is to stand on the chair and articulate. Honestly, she reminds me of someone standing above the populace on Hyde Park Corner in London, shouting her message to all who pass by. She does not use her restaurant voice. And she is pretty convincing! Perhaps she's telling Wisconsin how to cast its collective ballot today?






And then she settles down to turning pages again and I think I've lost her for a long long while...





...until I think to say the magic words -- Snowdrop, should we go out for a walk now, while the sun is with us?

Really grandma? We can go out?? Really?!?






I do bundle the girl well. I didn't think I'd need a blanket for an April outing, but I do. I really do.






We pause at our favorite cafe and yes, she is eager for her scone nibble.






I remind her that we have to put the chair back after we use it -- it's all routine for us now and like every child -- this one loves familiar routines.






And just as we return home, the sun disappears and we are left with that "on the other hand" part of the day, where it's just too darn cold for April.


But you know, kids don't see this. Their joy comes from something entirely different. A warm interior -- yes, of course. And that's enough. What's outside -- I've never seen a toddler complain about the an April temp hovering below average.






I'll end with what looks to me like a moment of reflection. Snowdrop has a bit of a cold. All day long she takes it in stride. But here, she pauses and reflects. I love that about her (and I suppose every other 15 month old, for she is that age today)! She can reflect, then move on.






We learn things from each other, she and I. How good is that!