Sunday

I look outside and I think -- in the last few weeks we moved from near summer temps, through fall appropriate brisk winds, to (coming next weekend) a wintry chill. And still the glorious sun continues to shine down on us, making this a gentle time: despite all that's going on at the political front, here we are, in that rural landscape of the Midwest, basking in seemingly perpetual sunshine!






I'm still picking up the pieces of a busy Fall. The yard is more or less ready for winter, but the house needs a thorough scrub. And so breakfast is late. Very late.






And then in the afternoon, I push us out for a walk.


The fields to the east are cut and a plow runs through them all day long...






We walk on. To the Nature Conservancy lands, where, at the side, cattle graze.






But the trail I'd been wanting to follow here is too overgrown. Ed says it's manageable, but he's way taller and still the grasses top his head.






(The extravagance is in the sky. The big beautiful Wisconsin sky...






We walk in awe of it.)






And eventually when the going gets too tough, we turn back.

I'm thinking -- we move together well, Ed and I. We like it, need it, look for it: movement.


In the evening, Ed goes out for a meeting of fellow bikers (all aging, all liking to scheme big, even as the biking adventures grow smaller, shorter...). It is the weekend's end and so the young family comes to the farmhouse for dinner.

Snowdrop is in a lovely mood!











(Showing her Eastern European roots?)






She loves loves LOVES everything about dinner, except the decorative green sprigs of fennel. She picks them out daintily and continues, totally satisfied.






Happiness. We all strive toward it and yet, sometimes I think that the younger we are, the easier it is for us to grab it when it rolls by.






It's a school night. The young family leaves.

Outside, the moon is as large, pink and beautiful as I've ever seen it.

It shines brightly...





on all of us tonight.

pause

You could say this is a day of pause for me. Catching up, cleaning, the yard work -- all of this filled my morning hours. But even so, I would not describe it as a day of great productivity. In fact, most of the afternoon hours I spent on the frustrating task of trying to fashion a holiday card for 2016. Funny, no?

I don't send out very many holiday cards, but I take the task of creating one seriously. It's not an easy job. Ed isn't a holiday guy and if you had to attach us to any tradition, you would have to remember that Ed's family is Jewish and mine -- well, it's a bit of a blank slate and so here I am thinking of how to write a card that is authentic, even as it has to have some elements of  beauty and a conveyance of good feeling -- with photos that support as much. I mean, the whole process is fraught with twists and turns and perhaps because I make too much of it, I am never happy with the end-product. But engaging in this project and working hard to convey love on what is ultimately a commercial piece of sillliness -- well, it's oddly rewarding and hugely important to me. And so I do it.

Go figure.


But first, I have a few hours of trying to be sympathetic to a sniffling Ed. (I did remind him many a time that I spent the whole week being sick and tending to Snowdrop and suffering through elections and cooking dinners, but then I decided I sounded a bit loopy so I calmed down and let him rest as if  he really was down and out, even though I don't think, just judging by the number of tissues he used as compared to me, that he was either fully down or out.)


After I cleaned the bathroom and tidied the kitchen, I asked Ed if he would like breakfast, permitting the possibility that he would not be able to slide downstairs for it. He said "yes, but just fruit."






That was just fine. Certainly not the first time that he turned down food early in the day. But I was amused that, as I rinsed breakfast dishes afterwards, he reached for stale baguette and bits of cheese to tide him over for the remainder of the morning.

After, I worked in the garden, fine-tuning it for the coming of winter. (Would you believe this little gem of a day lily?! Remarkable!)


 



I'll include a front view of our farmhouse. I rarely photograph it -- I focus on what's central to our life here and that would be the courtyard rather than this, but in late fall I give it a huge nod of appreciation, because it really looks pretty in the gold of the leaves that surround it (rather that rundown... which it is, but hey, we'll get to it one of these years!).






I'll end with a photo taken from my kitchen window. There are three birds in the pic -- two on the ground and one in the tree and it just seems so real, so representative of life around us.






Sleep well Scotch, Java. Sleep well old robin in the tree. Dream big, work hard, sleep soundly. It's life as we know it.

review and reflect

Is it the end of the week already? Does anyone else feel like this week contained three years of history in it?

Snowdrop's school is closed today for parent teacher conferences and so immediately after my breakfast with Ed...





... I go to the little one's home while her parents hurry off to school to get the lowdown on their child. That, of course, is for them to enjoy and feel proud about, but I will say this much -- all three teachers repeated again and again how happy, busy and joyful Snowdrop is.


During this Fall, the little one has spent a lot of time playing at the farmhouse in the afternoons. There are many reasons for it and she seems to love coming here. But this morning, I linger at her own home, curious to see what she likes to do there. And while at her house, I'm thinking -- it's time for a self release photo! They have the perfect set up for it and I used to do this all the time when Snowdrop was very little.

She enjoys it as much now.






I see that she also loves to study her mommy's cookbooks, which amuses me no end because her mom did the exact same thing when she was a toddler: study carefully the food photos and give labels to whatever ingredients she recognized.






Eventually, the fine (though increasingly cooler) weather beckons and I propose a walk. I don't think Snowdrop has ever turned down a walk. Shoes on, little girl!

Lately, Snowdrop has been intensely focused on babies -- her own photos and, too, the Duplo baby character in her Lego set. When I put on a Raffi song about "baby dear," she listens intently to the words that talk of comforting and loving a baby. Perhaps the sweetest phrase out of her mouth today come as I buckle her shoes and she snuggles into my shoulder and says -- "hi, Gaga dear!"



At the distant coffee shop -- which we haven't visited since school started -- she is so much older, more patient, more in control of her environment now.






She remembers to go for the high chair even though it's been such a long time since we've been here.





And of course, she knows how to coax a smile out of me as she waves her little finger and cajoles -- one more cookie please!



After our walk, we come back to the farmette. Again, she is only mildly interested in outdoor play on arrival. Very quickly, she heads for the house.






What is she into these weeks? Have her interests shifted? Definitely. She loves her Duplo-lego set, of course, especially the one with the coffee shop, which has the little kids eating, would you believe it -- baguettes.






But she is equally enthralled with trains and cars.






And always, always, she'll listen for music to dance to. One favorite is the song about going to, as she says "ahah's farm" (aka "on our way to grandpa's farm").







After this uniquely tumultuous week, I feel very much the need to take stock. Not only as to where Snowdrop is and what toys draw out her greatest creative interests, but, too, where we all are.

Winter is coming to the farmette. I pick up my first batch of spinach today from our farmers who deliver it to us all winter long. I'll be bringing in the annuals that I want to save tonight: we're finally expecting frost. And I'll be picking out books to read for the months ahead. And writing projects to return to. Like the squirrel that hoards nuts for the cold days before us, I hoard plans, ideas and thoughts.

Sometimes you have to shelve some rather antiquated stuff you've clung to for too long and find fresh directions. As I watch at this second Snowdrop manipulate an especially difficult (for her young hands) toy, I resist the temptation to insert myself into her play. You grow when you've experienced failure, not only success. The little one knows that instinctively. Me, I have to remind myself this basic truth every now and then.


Evening. Snowdrop is delighted to have Ed in the farmhouse. She doesn't know that he has now succumbed to what plagued me all week long -- the sniffles that a toddler passes on repeatedly when she first begins school. But Ed is Ed. I would have said -- go upstairs and sleep (for Ed, sleep cures most ailments). He doesn't do that. And the little girl is at his side, tickled to play "ahah's famrhouse" with him...






... to have him read to her....






Happy girl. Yes, I agree -- it's her defining characteristic.






It's getting dark. I ask her if she wants to go out with ahah to close up the coop. Of course she does.

It's a chance to listen to the night here, to find the moon, to look up at the crab apple and in the shadows of the night -- find a birds' nest.





Goodnight moon. Goodnight Snowdrop. Goodnight week. Hello a quiet evening.

Thursday

Two days after the election. Are we all adjusting to the new reality? Well, if you fill your days with routines that are the same today as they were last week, you really do have to stop thinking and rethinking what's what and instead, you concentrate on fitting in your usual two grocery stores and putting away the perishables ever so quickly so that you wont be late to pick up your granddaughter at school. Only when she sleeps briefly in the afternoon do you allow yourself the luxury of reflecting on what just happened.


Our morning dawned with a repeat of this most precious gift this year: perfect skies and perfect autumnal temperatures. I can't recall a November that has been this generous to us!






Breakfast. We exchange stories and opinion pieces that we've read in the press in our waking hours. The goal is to understand...






And then, frankly, I just rush. In the car, to one store, out and in, out and in again, another store, then run run run with the grocery bags, throw perishables in the fridge and dash to be at Snowdrop's school around noon.

This way, little girl! Snowdrop, this way!






The day is so beautiful! I'm all set to play outside with her at the farmette  and she's willing, but I sense that her mind is elsewhere.






Minutes into our play she hurries inside...






Okay, I get it. She's seen the grocery bags and the telltale sac with the baguette in it. Nothing else can compete.






"One more baguette (piece) please!"






Prenap book moment with ahah...






... and she's out.


In the late afternoon, after her nap, the air turns a bit chilly. Still, this is when Snowdrop remembers how much she loves the great outdoors here.

We go out, bundled against the wind. She knows how to call the cheepers for their share of bread and her sweet and loud voice is full of authority and conviction: "cheepers!!"

They come running.






But Snowdrop's main goal is not to hang with the cheepers. She wants to go to the "sheep shid" where ahah works.

We walk over. As always, he is as patient as can be, letting her take the lead in exploring this man cave of machines and computer screens.






Outside again.






I tell her I need to clear out the newly fallen seed pods. She's happy to direct things from the top of the farmette wagon.


 



Ed joins us and she shows him how strong and willing she is now.






Her newest challenge: to jump. High.
Almost there, Snowdrop!






Yeah, you got it!






Emboldened, she runs off toward the front yard. I coil in the summer hose. The two wild guys throw leaves at each other.






And in the front bed, the iris plant is just sending out a plethora of new blooms!






The sun has almost set...






Time to return inside...






Day is nearly done...






Just enough time for a short video that Ed finds for her about penguins.







Sometimes the mind wraps itself around things other than politics.

And that may be a very good thing indeed.