Wednesday

I am awake and up before the light takes over the night sky. What time is it? Four thirty? Close to five? I work on a few emails and I watch as the darkness yields to a dense fog outside. Eventually I go outside to let the cheepers out. The fog has crept into the farmette too and the world feels wet and clammy, but not unpleasant.






The farmers' fields to the east and north of us are lost in the thick air and there is a calmness to the landscape that I quite like.






I look at the flower beds -- they're doing well! They loved their day of gentle rain!

What's blooming? Well, I can appreciate the peonies that are close to popping their buds.






But honestly, the lilac continues to take center stage. Here it is again, still sagging, still beautiful.






...equally beautiful when brought into the house. (Breakfast is in the kitchen. The book is a new one that I just acquired for Snowdrop.)






My morning today is, in fact, with Snowdrop and I arrive just when she has finished breakfast. I love to surprise her with fruit toward the end of a meal and I happen to have some strawberries in my bag... Here you go, little one.






After her bath, she is still drying out...






But very very quickly she pushes for an outing. She brings her shoes. She brings my shoes. I work on teaching her the word "later."

She settles in for a period of play in the kitchen, with child-sized kitchen utensils.






They fascinate her no end and she spends a productive half hour putting them into the wire basket and taking them out again.






And throwing them on the floor.
Now, what have I done here?


 



And arranging them on her chair.






I love her creative approach to play! It is like that of an older child, except more secretive, because I cannot really tell what's on her mind -- I can only guess.


And eventually I say -- you're dry! Let's go! 
Really, grandma? Really?? Here are your shoes again...
Actually, those are your daddy's shoes, but thank you anyway!






My daughter, who has been working upstairs, takes a pause and joins us for the walk and this of course delights Snowdrop! So much so that she wants to stand in the stroller, facing us, enjoying the camaraderie. Let's strap you in, little girl.







We go 'round the lesser lake and we stop at the cafe, where Snowdrop shows off to her mom that she knows darn well where the high chair is.






And she knows that we put it back after our turn with it.






Meanwhile, back at the farmette, Ed is spending quality time with the cheepers (who have grown to be quite affectionate with him).






This is our day. Nothing unusual. So very sublime.

Tuesday

We woke up to rain. I was happy to hear it splashing not too gently on the roof. All the new plantings need a rather steady drenching of water in their initial stages of adaptation. I don't mind standing over them with a hose, but this natural shower of rain is much nicer.

When I went out to open the coop for the cheepers, the rain had died down to a gentle drizzle. I noticed the crab apple had lost most of its petals. How quickly everything changes! One month ago, the farmette landscape was entirely brown! Now, we're past the bloom of the fruit trees and nearly done with the daffodils.






I spend about an hour cleaning up the main raspberry field. We had gone to great trouble tidying it several years ago and if I don't prune it back, it will become a jungle again. The drizzle turns into steady rain again, but I continue. Somehow, it feels good to be out here, working in Ed's now very wet jacket.

The rain makes the lilac branches sag. Beauty isn't diminished by a heavy load. One should remember that.






When I see the yard in this bounty of sagging limbs and half hidden structures, I am nearly always reminded of the initially very beautiful but ultimately tremendously sad movie that I saw many decades ago -- the Garden of the Finzi Continis. I was young, I had just moved to the States and I was a bit overwhelmed by what I had left behind, both in terms of history and, too, the visual magnificence of the gardens, fields and forests of my childhood. I went to see the film in New York, where I now was living and though it is set mainly in the gardens of a Jewish family in Italy and the theme ties a sort of coming of age story to the encroaching fascism of the prewar era, I saw in it every powerful emotion, festering in a bucolic idle, even as very little happened from one scene to the next. Eventually, outside forces (Mussolini) ripped raw the peace and tranquility of the setting. Without that horrible intervention, there would have been great continuity in the gardens, the occasional romantic yearning, a game of tennis among friends.





Maybe it's that the soundtrack of the movie so parallels the one in the farmette's gardens: it is here as it was there one of constant birdsong. We have so many trees and with trees come the birds.

Most of what I plant grows, as you know, in a hidden from view courtyard. It's secretive and calm, moving forward with serenity, without fanfare.

(Did you ever see our crumbling main entrance? We haven't fixed it yet. Maybe we never will.)





If there will be no intervention that would undo the peace here, it will be like this year after year -- the most important event being the planting of something new, the trimming of branches, a glance at a grandchild, a lilac bending its branches after a rainfall.



We don't eat breakfast outside. It's in the 50sF (low teens C) and the front room seems right for a wet and cool day.






We watch the cheepers venture out toward the front of the house. They rarely come here and never go near the road. If you drive by, you might wonder what crazy people let their chickens roam free in this fashion, but the cheepers know that their center is in the court yard. Not here. And certainly not by the road.






I work inside again and in the afternoon, I run through my list of errands, appointments and even a quiet drink with law school friends.

Dinner is at the farmhouse -- we have guests (another set of Ed friends), but I have no time to cook dinner for them and so I merely bring home Thai take out.

If every week had a few days like this one, I would be delighted. Snowdrop may want to be outdoors every waking hour, but sometimes, I just like to have time inside, looking out.

Monday

You could not have a day as different as today was, when compared to yesterday. Oh, I don't mean to imply that today was worse, though one could argue that gray skies are by definition less colorful than a sparkling blue, especially as a backdrop to May blossoms and delicate greens. So yes, we have the gray skies and you needed a sweater if you were to sit outdoors, but I didn't spend much time outdoors -- and in this lies the great difference. (Nor did I see Snowdrop who is for a couple of days still under the care of the young parents and their visiting guest.) My planting done (except for our veggie garden, but it remains too cold to plant tomatoes), I now move into the maintenance stage of yard work -- a much more "day to day, let's decide as we go along" type of thing.

No maintenance today. I catch up, instead, with life on the inside.

Sure, I let the cheepers out.






Yes, I admire the lilacs.






And the cascading phlox.






And we even eat breakfast on the porch, because it's just so pretty out there.






(Ed claims the garden is beautiful when the crab apple petals fall to create a snowlike cover over the path...)






But then I hide inside. (An appropriate yard analogue: Ed's mom's bronze figurine, hiding in our woodland garden.)






By late afternoon I feel absolutely sick with inactivity. The last days were so intense and difficult (and thus beautiful), and suddenly, I am sitting in at the kitchen table all day catching up on paperwork, casting an eye at Ed who is in the courtyard, fixing, in turn, my car's shock tower, rosie the moped's starting mechanism, and my bike's tires. Ever since Snowdrop came into this world, I've biked so little, Normandy to the contrary notwithstanding, that I can't even remember my bicycle's pet name!

Time to get going!

Late, and under the threat of rain, I let go of my computer, mount my bike and pedal over to the library to return due videos (we are that rare breed that chooses library videos over a subscription to Netflix).

It's not a long ride. But it's hilly. I feel good about that. I can still wrestle the difficult. And that's a good thing.

a mother's Sunday

While lingering over a very prolonged and very late breakfast on the porch, Ed says -- this could well be the most beautiful day of the year. The crab apple is at its peak, the lilac is blossoming, the sun is out, the air is pleasantly warm...

So true.

It is, of course Mother's Day and I hope that if you are a mom, you're feeling good about all that you have done in that role, because I'm sure it's a lot. I hope, too, that you have a chance to smile today at the joys that went along with all that hard work. And if you're not a mom, well, you surely had one in your own life in some small or large fashion. You can muse a bit about that connection. I hope, in the end, the day brought you many smiles and pleasant thoughts.



Because of all this good weather, I am, once more, in the yard shortly after 6. I want to finish planting today! I start with the front bed and work my way inward.

After putting in the last plant (for now; flower fields are always a work in progress), I am tempted to take a photo of the entire bed, but the field is too long and it runs parallel to the road and so it doesn't lend itself to a good panorama. So for now, I'll just include a photo of what's blooming there and of course, it's sort of a cheat, because these two (the gaura and the lavender) were planted with buds ready to pop. Still, they are awfully pretty at this early hour of the morning.






I'm not the only one working at this hour. In the fields to our east, the truck farmers are tilling and planting as well...






This is our day! The one where the outside world is so very inviting!

(Perhaps the best perspective right now is one that acknowledges the lilac by the farmhouse. I didn't plant it -- it's old and though I keep trimming it each year, I have to work with what I have there. I have no complaints. It's a great bloomer with a heady perfume and the cheepers love hiding underneath its bushy twigs.)






(That is, when they are not messing with my plants.)






(I mind it less when they go after the little buds in the pots: those always grow back. Here's Butter enjoying a salad of alyssum.)






Our own breakfast is exquisite.






Since it's Mother's Day, I hand the camera over to Ed -- somehow I feel it's right to be part of the breakfast post today.





If there is one flaw to this beautiful set of minutes, it's that the gang of five chooses this time to come look for grub. Hawks. Typically, I do not worry once the trees have dense foliage. The girls know to hide. But this group is particularly aggressive. A few of them settle on the silo and I hear a racket there. Do they go after the pair of doves that live inside? I hear a cooing sound for the rest of the afternoon. Is it a sad mother who has lost her chicks? Or is it a content mother, glad that everyone is safe?

Too, Henny has just finished laying and there is a skittish innocence about that girl! The hawks are in the yard and two land on the barn right when she leaves the coop. I'm out shouting and waving my arms and the big birds eventually leave. Our girls are safe.

The day picks up its gentle rhythm again.






In the evening, the young family and my daughter's visiting friend are here for dinner. It's time to use farmette bounty: eggs for baking, rhubarb that is exploding right now.






Everything's ready just as our guests arrive...






We take the meal outside to the porch.






And it's glorious -- it really is (though I do miss my younger daughter -- but hey, I'll be seeing her and her husband soon!).  Snowdrop loves shrimp and they are part of dinner. But honestly, since she arrived, she has wanted so very badly to walk the land. She reminds us, plaintively, passionately.

Finally, she walks. First with her mom and friend...





Later, with her dad too. How she adores that stroll through the flower fields, under the willow, around the barn and up by the raspberries! Perhaps almost as much as I do.

She is at first reluctant to get back in her high chair, but when rhubarb and strawberry "pudding cake" with whipped cream are put before her, Snowdrop digs in with joyful enthusiasm.





I'll end with that  phrase -- joyful enthusiasm. Those are good words that quite accurately describe my own mothering adventures. Grandmothering as well!

work Saturday

What drives people to work so hard at something that they do not have to do? Sure, you want to have a pretty yard if you are lucky enough to have one. But who would spend long hours day after day without pause or interruption bending, digging, heaving, pulling, and digging some more without a need for it? If the yard looked plenty good without that extra effort?

I would.






I don't know why. As I set out in the morning, I know it's going to be tough work. And I know that the farmette meets my definition of sublime without the additional extensions of flower beds, I know, I know! And yet, the draw is so huge, so powerful that I swear, I'd neglect all responsibilities and life's tasks and pleasures (and I have done this in my younger years) just so that I can be out there digging, planting.

(Lilac's blooming!)






(And so are the first irises!)






The only explanation I can offer is that there is a heretofore unidentified gene for this kind of madness. One that skips generations, because my daughters don't have it and my parents didn't have it. But my grandfather did and maybe Snowdrop does (or else she's just humoring me by picking up a clump of dirt, holding it tightly, oh so tightly, as if it represented all her deepest passions).

In any case, today, I was up with the cheeprs at 6. I worked on the flower beds until 8. I went back to bed and slept for another hour. Then we had a (late) breakfast.






And by 10am, I was out again...


 








... and I did not come inside (not to eat, to drink, to check my phone, or to exhale) until after 5.


(Ed, bringing in the asparagus for dinner.)






Am I tired? Yes, of course and so there is a real danger that the blog post will be hurried and raw. But it hardly matters. The farmette grew today by leaps and bounds! And somehow, in some hard to describe way, I grew with it.
 

hot Friday

It was not so hot when I went out at 6 to let the cheepers out and to plant a few more flowers. I wore my fleece.

Still, the promise of a warm day lead me to take our breakfast outside onto the porch.
You sure? Ed asks...
Yes, it's so good to look out on the yard!






And it is. Though there is a downside to sitting out in such close proximity to the flower fields. The cheepers hear us and they very much want to be close to wherever we are. (Here they are, rushing toward our voices.)






They don't seem to mind that they can't actually be on the porch. They work the soil close by and I have to endure watching their claws scratch at the roots of my plants. Ed reminds me that the actual damage is insignificant. But I think that's because I do a lot of damage control after they've barrelled through the yard.  Ah well... on balance there is more benefit (the fertilizing, the bug control, the joy of watching them be free and productive and yes, happy).

And what's blooming at the farmette? Well, this morning, before the heat wave, I have the usual suspects.






Much of the color is in the potted annuals.






Though as you can see, not only there.

I have for you a chicken's perspective on one of the beds. I'm cleaning up some of the pots, the cheepers, as always, are keeping me company.






And in the late afternoon, Snowdrop comes over.






It is by now so warm that I feel we should feast outside and picnic on the grass! I have picnic stuff ready. Off we go in the wagon (which she now loves!).






In the young fruit orchard, we spread out her baby quilt, lay out a tea towel and arrange the foods. They're not complicated -- it's just an afternoon snack after all. But we have that joy of eating outside, on the ground...






I tell her that if she looks up, she can see the expanse of the willow against a deep blue sky.






We smell the white lilacs, spin around the property in the wagon and eventually return home, where grandpa Ed makes sure she has her upside down moment.






In the evening, there is dinner. She loves corn on the cob!






And she loves salmon and really, all the veggies and fruits known to us.

After, we play.





And we walk outside then again and the whiff of the lilac is so strong that I tell Snowdrop to just stand still and inhale deeply.

It is a fitting way to end a day.