Saturday

Nothing about this day follows a predicted path. I had low ambitions and images of many hours on the porch reading about bizarre rules of French grammar. That was not to be.

Early morning: a bit wet, but with signs of a clearing. A touch cool, but with promises of something more summer like.






I look around the garden, pull a random weed and go back to the farmhouse to sleep.






But not for long: the one detail that is in the calendar for this day and that must be taken care of is a visit to the Dane County Water Resource Engineering facilities where the distribution of native plants is  taking place. This is a project that I don't fully understand but approve of nonetheless. It involves growing and selling native species and I signed on to participate all the way back in January. You had to decide which of the natives you wanted and agree to pay ahead (the charges are slight compared to what plants typically cost) and then to show up at a specific hour on a specific day (today) to pick up what was grown for you.

In other words, quite early in the morning, right after breakfast...






... Ed and I find ourselves stuffing some 36 tiny plants into the trunk of the car.

And this starts a chain of events that is so typical for us: one thing leads to the next and before you know it we own ten goats, forty frogs and eighty pine trees that need a home. Okay, it wasn't quite that outlandish, but it did lead us to decide that as long as we're in the planting mode again, we should expand the roadside flower field, grow another row of grapes (the first is doing so well! Shouldn't we capitalize on our successes??) and generally toil at ambitious planting on a day that was supposed to be, well, more relaxed.






And the evening? Another turnaround. Snowdrop's mom suggests that I stop by if I'm in the area and of course, since I live only 9 minutes away, you could say I am always in the area. So I take out old rose-ah-roo (my moped) and zip on over. To a joyous, giggly girl.


 



And yes: we look at The Book. She has seen many photos of herself, but never in a book.






I watch Snowdrop play and I am just so in awe of how quickly she changes. When I saw her just a few days back, she seemed one way. Today, she appears to have leapt into a brand new stage of life. Or is it that everything else around me moves slowly, so that her growth seems rapid fire by comparison?






As I ride rosie home, I think how a child is like a June evening -- you leave in sunlight, you come back with the possibility of rain, or the other way around. Before your eyes, everything's transformed.






At home, the cheepers are underfoot still, wanting their evening treat. The air is cool, the evening is absolutely stunning.

Friday

I was sitting on the porch, enjoying an espresso and cookie treat and reading about some obscure rules of French grammar ...






... when the Fed Ex truck pulled up and the photo book I had made for Snowdrop arrived. Blurb, the company I use for all the photo books I make (well, that's all of three so far) is so exquisite that the finished product truly does look (and smell!) like something from a classy book shop, almost regardless of what's inside (though it does help that it's about Paris and a little girl moving through her ten days there).





I did make an error with the cover: the photo there is not centered and it bothers the heck out of me. That and the one missing punctuation mark inside! Never mind. This book shall be for Snowdrop to play with. I'll order another corrected version to keep on a higher bookshelf.


Honestly, this delivery is just about the most important story to this day. Yes, the weather outside is glorious, yes, it beckons, but as it's Friday, I devote the morning to meal planning and grocery shopping and after -- well, there is that time on the porch when the book arrived, but you already know about that.


But I don't want to neglect the loveliness of the garden and so let me include the sunrise walk to the coop.

(We're on a flight path for planes coming in from the west. This means that every hour or two you can look up and wave to the passengers coming to Madison. Welcome home! Or, if you're from elsewhere -- I hope your visit allows you to taste this city's unique beauty!)






(Perhaps the prettiest aspect to a sunrise is when I catch it in places where the early light pokes through unexpectedly.)






Now, about today's flowers. There are the ever gorgeous yellows, so well matched to the farmhouse:






Too much yellow? Roll out the pink then! A new batch of peonies, ready to explode.






Ah, there's our porch table. Looking in from the western flower bed.






Too, I want to acknowledge the beautiful breakfast we had today (it's beautiful because of what's just beyond the screen porch and because the person sharing the meal with me is kind enough to do this every day, even when, as today, he is in a rush to get going).





And that's it! I end the post with breakfast. How about that!

hard work and new ideas

Three acres of land forces you to work hard, but it also allows you to gain new insights into life and hatch new ideas about directions you may want to follow.

Today, all three were evident.

It was an easy start to the day: neither of us had to be anywhere at all at any particular time -- a rare phenomenon now that my schedule includes so much of Snowdrop and Ed's schedule includes continued work on his machine designs.

My morning walk to the coop allowed me to really take in the Siberian irises -- I know I've been pumping them up here, on Ocean, but it struck me that I lump them together for you as if they were one. In fact, just in the blue family of Siberians, I have so much variety in my flower beds, that I could talk about those alone and fill up a day's quota of farmette flowers.

Some examples:
















A sunrise for you, though perhaps not of the conventional kind...






Breakfast on the porch.






We discuss the day's project: the clearing of the grape vines and tidying and planting of last year's vegetable plot. We'd moved the tomatoes to a new bed -- here:






Now comes the time to do something with the old veggie plot. It's heavily infested with bind weed and we'd considered various ways of eradicating the weed, preferably keeping the plot organic. The idea that finally stuck was to smother it with a fast growing cover crop -- buckwheat!

And here's where original plans begin to emerge: what if we were successful with our newest devotion to buckwheat? What if it was easy to grow? And would attract bees? Might we then attract bee keepers to throw down some hives for that exquisite buckwheat honey? And perhaps we could plow the northern fields (which I tried to coax into a prairie but gave up to weeds and grasses in the last few years)? Or better yet, borrow some goats, set them to pasture there, then plow and plant buckwheat? What if??

For now though, there is the hard work part: clearing the grapes and the plot, sowing the buckwheat -- we spend a good handful of hours on this. And it is hard, hard work.
















But it looks good now and we see grapes in their formative stage. (Maybe we should concentrate our efforts on grape production? What if?)






As to thoughts on life -- where do they come in? Well, of course, we admit that we don't know much about anything. We don't really understand goats (though we think they eat everything in sight), and we barely know a few things about bees, and we are just learning about buckwheat. Doesn't it sometimes seem like we humans fumble and stumble, rather than proceeding in some systematic fashion toward enriching our lives on this small planet we call home? Aren't we uniquely capable of making mistakes, even as we speak with cocky certainty about what's right and what's wrong? Is our greatest talent the massive production of irrelevant opinions? Shouldn't we spend more time observing? Learning?






So that's the life's thoughts part, generated while digging out quack grasses and then, in a more peaceful moment -- while throwing water with a hose over the buckwheat planted field.


In the late afternoon, we motorcycle our way over to the local farmers market. Perhaps this is a ho hum image for you, but for me, seeing the first local strawberries is just so wonderful. We've arrived!





We pick up the usual curds and the last of the asparagus, the berries and, too, the first sugar snap peas.

Oh, it's good to be a Wisconsinite right now! (All the more so since I read that Europe and especially France have had record rainfalls this month. Sort of like Texas. It is so completely unfair to have good weather here while it is so putrid elsewhere! I'm sure we'll have our comeuppance, but this year, spring has been truly perfect.)

(My one rose.)






(The second day lily. Fragrant. Lovely.)






(Evening.)

a day in two parts

Picture this: by some not too late morning hour, I had let the cheepers out, I'd inspected the garden, stalked fallen iris, pulled some weeds, I'd eaten breakfast, addressed security issues that arose in my Warsaw apartment, I'd purchased 25 pounds of buckwheat seed at the farmers' coop, gone to a doctor's office for a check up, argued with an Apple rep in the store about a frayed chord replacement, and given Snowdrop a bath.

On the other hand, after about two p.m., I read some stuff on the internet and contemplated starting a new book on my kindle. That's it.

Some days are like that -- bottom heavy and top light, or the other way around.

Let me load you with some photos -- all from the morning, of course. Because in addition to running this way and that, I had great contemplative moments in the early morning garden...

(This deeply yellow iris is like a dollop of fresh butter on a stalk.)






(The siberians, on the other hand, are like lemon drops, especially when coupled with the dainty, lupine-like Baptisia Carolina. Two yellow irises, so different, yet both so lovely, don't you think?)






And I had a sublime breakfast on the porch, during which Ed read out loud an article on bumble bees (we are happy to report that our bumble bee population appears to be thriving)...






And, too, I went out for a beautiful walk with Snowdrop. Let me focus on that, because after today, there will be a brief pause in Snowdrop reports, as her family has a busy set of days before them and they include the little girl, so that in fact, I wont see her again until Sunday.

As usual, after her bath, the little one tries to convince me that going out would be a fine idea.


 



We are in the thick of summer-like weather and so I'm happy to say the magic words to her -- let's go! Ah, how lovely it is to sometimes play the role of wish granter to a very young one! We so often are tasked with redirecting, restraining, stifling the impulse to explore! Today, I could tell her again and again -- sure, go for it.


We go to the small park by the lesser lake. And she does go for it. Initially.






But then she hears voices. A couple of moms show up with their young kids. The moms sit down at a picnic table to chat, the kids run down to the beach to play.


Snowdrop is fascinated by the acts and behaviors of other children. I've lost her to these kids. She is completely focused on what they're doing.






Oh, I entice her with a session on the swing (which she loves), but you can see that she does not want to lose her focus on the others.






And so when I say -- let's go down to the beach to see what's going on down there, she offers no protest. We take off our shoes and the sand is warm, so warm, but she doesn't play in it, doesn't pick up fistfuls like she did at the Luxembourg Gardens. She just watches the antics of the preschool set.






But then, there's something that is nearly as exciting as the social scene by the water. There is the water itself. I'm not a fan of Madison's lakes right now. I think we have turned our heads and let them become anything but fresh bodies of water. Still, the other kids are splashing wildly and my mental calculus tells me that letting her splash knee deep is fine (much to Ed's amusement, I wash her down again when we get home).






But I cannot keep her to the water's edge.






She just wants more. And I tell myself that if I am that good grandmother I want to be, I will find her more -- a lake that is clean and fresh and beautiful, because I had that water in my young life -- a river where I could sit down as a child and watch the water ripple its way across a sandy bottom.






I finally do entice her away from the lake. Would you like to go to the coffee shop? -- I ask. I think she is still hoping for that strawberry tart. She takes my hand and we walk to the cafe that happens to be just by the park.

I give her a piece of an oatmeal raisin cookie. She's fine with it.






It's as if she is telling me -- I'm okay with this... but can I again have that creme patisserie someday? It's a silent conversation and I respond with a nod -- and it signifies just this: Snowdrop, I make a great creme patisserie. There's Paris, yes, of course, but there's also grandma's great creme patisserie.






We go home, where she plays with her flapping squirrel, looking back every now and then to make sure the little critter is flapping properly.







Really? Nothing else? Okay, an iris against the delicate pink coral bells.

Tuesday in four very short chapters

Early Morning

Wake up to the promise of sunshine.






It's not a forever and ever promise: the stormy clouds will come, the rain will descend -- all that. But in the wee hours of the morning, the golden light is warm and welcoming.





I spend an hour in the new orchard, clearing bind weed from around the young trees and examining our grape vines. I'm surprised to see them thriving: they grow in the distant corner of the farmette and it truly is an "out of sight out of mind" affair. The vines need more attention than we've given them. I do a half assed weeding job this morning and make a note to return here in the next couple of days.


What blooms capture my attention today? Oh, without a doubt this beautiful, first of the season day lily!






No, I wont ignore the noble iris...






And I'm so appreciative of the pots of annuals that line the walkway to the farmhouse...






But still, the first day lily signals to me that transition from spring to summer.


Finally: breakfast. On the porch.






Snowdrop is Snowdrop

I whisk the little girl away for a walk (much to her delight) as soon as I arrive to care for her. Rain is in the forecast and I can tell by the skies that they mean business. 

We make it all the way to the distant coffee shop and I smile to myself in recalling all the times I had taken Snowdrop here in preparation for the cafes she was sure to encounter on her trip to Paris. Well, in fact, she really did not encounter a single cafe there. Instead, she slept through one lunch and ate her way in the company of us all through many a meal thereafter. But no coffee shop.

But the little one did have her share of Parisian berry tarts and this must have spoiled her somewhat, because today, when I presented her with the typically coveted bits of apple cinnamon scone, she ate a small morsel, then looked decidedly unenthusiastic.






At home, she pulls me to the refrigerator and tries to open its great doors. She wants berries.

(Grandma tries to sneak on a hair clip.)






(Snowdrop catches me at it.)






What to do on a rainy day? Oh, dance, of course. Snowdrop loves, loves, loves to move to music. (The photos are on a self timer.) (Grandma is a little nutty.)


 












Not sure I can take you out in public, grandma.







Farmers


Nothing that we do on the farmette traces the work of real farmers whose livelihoods depend on the crops they grow. We're hobbyists. If all our tomatoes fail, we will still eat well this winter. The barn shields chickens in the cold or wet weather and, too, it shields an ancient John Deere, but we use that tractor mainly for cutting quack grass and for hauling boulders.


Still, today, we play the part of farners just a tiny bit more authentically: we have a half acre that had been cleared for the Laotian farmers who used it to supplement their other truck crop farming to the north and east of us. But this year, we just could not communicate well enough to get them to clear the field and plant it again. We'd set dates, no one would show up -- that kind of thing. 


In deciding that they simply did not have time to work this bit of land, we then had to make a decision as to what the next step should be. Weeds were already taking over. Our window of opportunity was rapidly closing in on us.


In the end, I drove out to the farmers' coop this afternoon and purchased some twenty three pounds of winter rye seed -- a very indifferent ground cover that's cheap and easy to apply.


We sowed the seeds...












(And I watched Butter follow along and pick some up after us...)


(Man, this stuff is good!)





And only then does it strike me that we should have, instead, put in buckwheat.


If you're Polish, you'll know buckwheat. We eat it by the truckloads there. (Or at least we did when I was growing up.) And the flowers it bears! Oh, the lovely pinkish white flowers that attract the beneficial insects we so want to invite to the farmette!


So tomorrow I'll wear my (imaginary) dungarees again, go back to the farmers co-op and bring back some buckwheat. 


Snowdrop at the farmette

In the evening, Snowdrop is with us at the farmette. It's a gorgeous time of day and predictably, she is delighted to be outside. With her ball.

Do you think the cheepers will play ball with me?






The terrain here is not exactly easy to navigate for a toddler. It's rough, uneven and twiggy and I am impressed that in these last two weeks, she has become confident and strong, so that moving across it is suddenly a breeze. 





And inside the farmhouse, she rediscovers her books and toys (but especially her books). These have been her true friends here -- the penguin line up, the Maisy stories, Slinky Malinky, oh, so many that I have used in the past months to help her manage hours of winter and early spring. She is just ecstatic to be with them again. At her table.






Ed comes in from his workshop and here, too, there is the joy of the familiar, the missed routines, the tumbles and upsidedown time.






I tell her we are to make pizza for supper and she is, as always, a great sous chef.

I think that's quite enough cheese, grandma!





And an even better consumer of the finished product.






There you have it: the day's four chapter. All short. All sweet.