Monday

Who knew chickens could keep secrets?!

We had resigned ourselves to the fact that only old Butter reliably (or fairly reliably) delivers an egg. The rest? Well, Scotch is probably too old. Henny -- she seemed to have turned into a brooder who sat on one egg forever hoping it would hatch and then appeared to just give up on the whole project. Java -- well, she's our big hen who takes up a lot of space in the coop, producing nothing in return.  (She's the only one that spreads herself nicely inside each evening; the other three have to be gathered from their high perches up in trees and forced inside. I kid you not.)

We feed our cheepers, we give them space to roam, they appear to be happy, but this summer, we have few eggs to show for our efforts.

That is until at breakfast...






... I say to Ed: you know, Henny is hiding her eggs. Right at this time, when Snowdrop was here yesterday and we went to give the girls some bread, Henny was nowhere to be seen. She was clearly sitting on eggs. Somewhere.

Ed goes out to investigate.

Henny daintily prances out of the garage.

It doesn't take long to find a stack of eight green eggs there. We're quite sure there are such piles elsewhere.

We've got a chicken who is an egg illusionist. Or an egg con artist. Or just simply sneaky.


Let's switch focus. Here's a report on the garden: the front bed is looking good still...






... as is the bed just before the porch.






The rest of the beds mostly have that early fall look -- so clearly evidenced in this photo of Snowdrop's run through them upon her arrival after school.






I don't have to guess where she's heading. Yep, for the tomatoes.






Though she is content to take her haul and do her munching inside.






She always seems tired after all her hours at school, but once in the house, she gets her second and third winds. Dance! With pinwheel!











After her nap, she sets up snack time for her best friend animals. Snowdrop is terribly invested in making sure all her stuffies eat a good bit of yogurt.






But as Ed goes out to do some work outside, she, too, must go outside.






We pick weeds, she picks flowers.






And her pinwheel spins and the winds blow bugs away.





Happy. Yes, the girl is correct, I think, in describing herself thus.

Sunday

The ever lovely Snowdrop, who'll sleep late and long at home, wakes up at the farmhouse shortly after dawn and by 7:20 she clamors to come down. Well, that's fine. I'm up with the cheepers anyway.

The little girl is just a bit under the weather -- an expected thing, given her first exposure to school this year -- but you would never know it for the enthusiasm she brings downstairs!

It's too early for all of us to sit down to a farmhouse breakfast and so I give her her beloved yoyo's (aka yogurts) first and, too, her bath and even now it still seems a tad early to rouse grandpa Ed and so we take a little stroll outside.






She's fine with that, but I'm not. Still too buggy for my liking. We give the cheepers their scraps of bread and come back inside and guess what -- the big guy is up and willing to play and that just makes the little girl so happy.


Play ball? 
Yes....





And then I tell her that she can join us now for our regular old breakfast and her cup is beyond full!

Yeah, I like everything you guys eat!





Everything!





She is to go back home this morning, but I give her parents just a little more time to sleep in -- they're the ones rising early all week to get her to school on time -- and Snowdrop of course is in full play mode now. We dance...





... she reads...

You say that's a cake, grandma? Do we have cake?





She is an absolute delight (says unbiased grandma nina).


Snowdrop returns home. And now, Ed and I have this hankering to head out. Jefferson, a town just about 30 miles to our east, hosts the annual Wisconsin sheep and wool festival. We've been to it before (Ocean is a good reminder of such things!), but that was seven years ago and you, of course, know that I've recently taken up thinking sheepish thoughts and making up sheeply rhymes. Basically, I find sheep lovely to behold and terrifically interesting to inspect up close.






 Sheep, about to be herded by the ever brilliant border collies.






The collies, anxious to get to their job.






The preparation at the festival, the excitement...











The competition.











The sheep.






We must stop meeting like this!





Ed and I watch the sheering demonstration.

Come on out, babe!






I got her in position!






... Get that wool off!






There!






Me, I like to keep my wooly face wooly!






The festival is about sheep, but it is also about their coats and the yarn we spin.

This spinner struck me as so beautifully fitted to the task...






And there are vendors, selling everything imaginable related to sheep. We don't ignore them. We buy five chunks of sheep cheese.

And there are the lambs. These are not yet a day old.






mom, nudging...






And oh, those hairstyles!






Finally, the herding competition...






The end of a full day. Should I buy Snowdrop a t-shirt? No, I mean -- what are the chances of her loving sheep all the way into adulthood?





Sheep like to sleep.
Goodnight sheep!
Goodnight, good night...
Goodnight!

Saturday

A wet morning. Was it just the other day when I complained of the ground being too dry? And it's a September rain -- one for which I hunt down my jacket. It's cool out there.

Ed is unfazed.
Aren't you cold? Don't you want your jacket?

I know it's a ridiculous question: he only has one jacket and uses it when it is really chilly. Cold, to him, is often all in the head and clearly it's not in his head on this September morning.





I study the weather maps. The rains may pass in time for me to do a late market run with my daughter and Snowdrop. We wait.

And they do pass. By 11, the sky reveals patches of blue.

(The soy field to the south of the farmette is just beginning to turn gold.)






Snowdrop is excited to be going out. Of course she is. Adventure lies behind this door!






Your toy cookie can stay home.
Okay okay, but let's go go go go go!






At the market, I stand back a little as my daughter makes her purchases. Cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers. Kale, cheese, basil. I could be in any number of places on this planet, at a market just like this one, and this scene would be as lovely, grounded in that beautiful act of transferring food from the hands of someone who grows it to someone who'll appreciate its value.






Me, I'm delighted to still find one or two vendors selling corn. And my usual oyster mushrooms. And this week, I cannot resist the flowers. $6 for a huge bundle of them -- the best deal on the square!


 



Gaga, I don't think this stroller is big enough for me and the flowers!






At the end of our walk around the square, Snowdrop has her reward of freedom to run...






Though honestly, she is just as happy helping push the stroller, loaded with foods and flowers.






Early afternoon. Snowdrop and mom return home and I return to the farmhouse and join Ed for a rousing session of butterfly watching from our perch on the porch.






We had had mild ambitions to do a hike, or perhaps stop by a local fair, but we do none of it. The afternoon is the type you wish you had more of when you rush from one thing to the next.

But by evening, we rouse ourselves again because Snowdrop is about to be our guest for supper and a sleepover.

Eat, play, throw balls and stuffies with ah-ah and finally, pj's...





... and bedtime.

Will she do her usual and wake with the farmhouse dawn? Will she pester us to get the day started then?

I'll let you know tomorrow. Right now, all is calm. The storms have passed and if you were to step outside, you'd see a beautiful sky studded with stars. Goodnight, goodnight, sleep well, sleep tight.

Friday

In the morning, Ed says -- you know, I looked at Snowdrop's animals all lined up, waiting for her on the orange couch and I thought -- that's just so pretty. Picture worthy.

I think it speaks more to him being charmed by the little one's felt presence at the farmhouse, but okay, I take the photo.






It's a mixed weather day and the bugs are still menacing enough to keep me away from doing yard work, but perhaps that's a good thing, since it is Friday and both Ed and I have full days before us.

But first breakfast. A very yellow breakfast, down to his scrambled eggs.






Ah, yellow! It's such a color of Fall... And I have plenty of it to admire -- right by the porch, to cover up the now spent daylilies.






In fact, the porch side garden looks amazingly vibrant, for being so neglected for such a long spell (because of the bugs) by me.






Soon. The air will cool, this cycle of pesky mosquitoes will come to an end and outdoor work will be part of our routines again.

In the meantime, I do a rather quick grocery store trip and then I hurry with the stroller to Snowdrop's school. A second week of school behind her!


This afternoon, we play in her own home and predictably, she wants a rousing game of ball...







... then she wants to feed her penguin toy cookies






I tell her that I bought a couple of pairs of slippers for her use at the farmhouse (from Zappos, where returns are easy) and I want to try them to see which ones fit best.

She is happy to do this. Very happy.






Too happy. What? We're not keeping both? I can't play with all these lovely new slippers? Really? (It's as if I were taking away her most treasured penguin.)

Snowdrop, let's read a book and put you down for a nap...
Eat nuts!

Sweet, sweet girl. It's not meal time, but something made her think of snacking on nuts. 

Okay, you can have a couple of nuts.
More nuts!
Okay, just one more.
One more!
That was one more.
One more!
Upstairs to bed. Sleep well little one.



Late afternoon. She is her reliable cheerful self.






And I think -- there is a dry spell: no rain cloud at the horizon. And it's not too hot. We haven't gone out to explore the neighborhood for such a long time. Are you up for it, little one? She is!

We do our old routine -- one that belonged to the earlier months of summer: up the street to the distant coffee shop (where it's all about independence now) ...







Then past the lesser lake, with Snowdrop still helping to push the stroller, me singing as we walk, so that a passerby will note: a singing walk! ...all the way to the playground. And here, she has clearly had some practice since out last visit back in July. She climbs, she slides...






... and as before, she experiences the joy of flying high.






I'll end with that. Our grandchildren happy, soaring -- you can't do better than that.