Thursday

Well, the end of the week will not be calm at the farmette. Sometime last night, possibly when I was entering the first stages of sleep, I offered to cook dinner for the company visitors and of course, for their hosts at Tormach this Friday. This was confirmed just a few minutes ago and since I am with Snowdrop now and tomorrow afternoon, and I have an evening out with the visiting delegation tonight, that leaves me only with a half a day (tomorrow) to shop and cook. For 17 people. Gulp.

I think I can do it!

But Ocean will have to take a back seat in the next hours.

I offer you just a few photos.

Breakfast on a cool but beautiful morning on the porch.






And a glance at the garden, because Ed and I did spend some time this morning tidying things up -- snipping, carting away piles of spent weeds and plants -- the normal September stuff one does (and that we neglected due to this summer's heavier presence of bugs).






Apart from the yellow stock of mock sunflowers (several different varieties) and emergent asters, the color right now is in the annuals. And they are, as always, eye catching.






The weather is so nice that I take the stroller to pick up Snowdrop at school. I never know if she'll be too tired to walk home.

Today, she is not too tired. She reaches for her little bunny rabbit...






... and gives the stroller a light push.






Maybe a sweater, Snowdrop? Oh, look! A sign telling us there are schoolchildren present. Indeed there are! And you're one of them!






At home now. Snowdrop, did you take off your socks in school?
(What must be going through her head) Let me try to remember... did I?






Play ball, read books, feed penguins. Favorite routines. Always making sure I am not too far away, watching, assisting with the next move, the newest idea. A toddler is independent, but she wants you there to catch her falls.

And to play ball.






In the evening, I feast on Chinese food.

The moon is very bright tonight. The full harvest moon doesn't really shine down on us until tomorrow, but we wont see it then -- storms and rain are in the forecast -- and so we take it in now. No photo to show you its luminosity but just imagine how grand it must be. Or step outside and see for yourself. Be dazzled. And then take out those extra blankets from your closet and keep them near your bed. It's getting chilly out there!

Wednesday

It will be an unusually busy set of days for Ed, as a team of factory heads is in town to discuss future product development for the company with which he is so intimately affiliated. I am, therefore, very happy to have the big Amazon box delivered before either of us scatters for the day.

You could call it my early Christmas present for Snowdrop, though honestly, I am not the only grandma out there who wants so much to provide her grandchild with the tools and toys of childhood. A bike belongs to those for sure.

In my own childhood, in the Polish village where I lived with my grandparents the first years (and nearly every summer) of my life, you had to bring with you from the city anything you would want to have there. That's a lot harder than clicking on Amazon and reaching for your credit card. Still, there was always a bicycle for me to ride and I made heavy use of it, even though there were no firm roads to navigate -- just packed tracks and meadow paths. I rode them all.

I don't think Snowdrop is quite at the age where she can take off and explore on her own (and the idea of her biking anywhere that's not a dedicated bike path terrifies me no end, as bicycles and cars are not a happy mix here), but I have been wondering for a while now how she would take to a balance bike -- a two wheeler that comes without pedals and that is designated for the 18 months - 5 years age range.

Well now, the little one is 20 months old and winter is fast approaching. If not now, then we'll have to wait until next spring.

And so I buy the bike and it comes this morning and Ed, who will probably assemble many kid bikes in his lifetime (and whose first youthful jobs were all about fixing bikes at New York City bike shops), mumbles -- well, if you had to buy a new one, I'll give you this much: it's really well designed.

And then we eat breakfast...




And he takes off and I take off and the bike waits for Snowdrop's arrival after school.


Later, much later, I reflect on the bike and the girl: did she love it? I wouldn't quite go that far. But she tried it.





And protested heavily when I wanted to leave it outside. It belongs to her world!

Predictably, she wants her animals to ride it.






That's a tough request to honor, so we put it aside for now and she goes back to her three favorite activities -- having a book read to her (conveniently, I happen to have one about bikes...), playing with foods...






... and throwing a ball.






I'm happy that she does periodically come back to the bike and she definitely likes the feel of the helmet.






(Dancing is with her "hat" on...)






Growing confident is a process. She can decide for herself how far she wants to take bike riding this year.


In the late afternoon, she goes back again and again to her helmet.






She has me ride her bike up and around the farmhouse. She giggles at the sight. I don't blame her: big gaga, little bike.


Late in the day, she and I take a walk into the fields to the east of us. We look over at the strips of flowers - the last of the crop for this season's markets.





Snowdrop takes it in, like she does countless other experiences she confronts each day. Every walk is an opportunity and a lesson, sometimes in something so simple as in our walk today: avoiding mud, cars, and thistle.

She trusts the grownups in her life.

We go back. She solves puzzles and scribbles in my notebooks.

And finally, Ed is home and she is just tickled to see him.





He has his weekly bike ride and he is late for it, but the little one coaxes him to a ball game and as you will have guessed -- he does not say no to her.

We are rewarded with a nearly 100% catching of his throws.






With lots and lots of giggles throughout.





I think about my childhood years. Not the really really young stuff (who can remember?), but elementary school. Tomboy years -- where catching ball and riding a skateboard gave me perhaps the day's finest moments.

Ed comes back late from his bike ride. I go out with a flashlight to find tomatoes in our patch for his supper. I notice that the moon, two days short of being full, shines brightly over us tonight. Over you as well, I hope.

Tuesday

Once again I was given a label by Ed -- or perhaps you'd call it an anti-label: You're just not a capitalist! A shake of his head and we move on to other topics.

What prompted this was my enthusiasm for the nearly finished apartment in Warsaw. The architect/designer solved all problems that the apartment presented, furnished the wee space in a way that made it seem luminous and not so wee and as I admired the latest batch of photos from her I said: I enjoyed working through this so much that honestly, I should just buy and flip apartments with Pani Karolina for a (maybe) profitable hobby.

Ed said -- splendid idea! So sell this one and move on to the next!
Oh, but I could never sell this one! I'm invested in the detail! I want to enjoy it for at least five years!

I suppose those with real entrepreneurial blood don't get personally invested in their product. They spin it off and move on to the next one. That's so not me!

Too many years in (communist) Poland... he tells me, shaking his head.

I don't disagree.






It storms and rains and storms again. I suppose we could eat breakfast on the porch, but why would we? The intimacy of the kitchen is suddenly so appealing that I know from now until late April, I'll spend my waking hours thinking how to keep myself this cozy and warm.



In the afternoon, I pick Snowdrop up at school and take her to her own home. She is always delighted to "rediscover" her toys, as if the parting with them had been long and hard. A run to the kitchen...






Wait a minute, Snowdrop. Turn around. Ah, I see that someone has looked after you well! Slippers to warm your toes! 






Okay -- go back to your sorting and mixing of (toy) foods! Only let's throw a sweater on you. Don't you feel the coming of Fall?

(She ignores my preoccupation with the weather and examines the pretend juice container. To my knowledge, she hasn't had juice in her life. Hmmm... a bottle with oranges on it. Magically inserted through the narrow neck? That's a puzzler!)






(Now strawberry yogurt -- that's familiar!)






And bis! In every waking hour of her day, there must be a bis (a penguin)!






In the late afternoon, I walk over with the little one to the nearby coffee shop. She loves the unexpected pick-me-up.






We leave too many crumbs on the floor and so I ask for a broom to sweep things up. Snowdrop insists on helping.






The girl is ambitious. I'm properly impressed!


In the evening, Snowdrop's mom coaxes me out for a predinner drink. Just the two of us. I see her daily of course, but you can't pause and reflect much when you're passing a child over to the parent and filling her (or him) in with details of the day. So this is special.






It's a grand ending to a full day.

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!