with an eye toward spring

No, I'm not rushing the seasons. Yes I know we're not even in the middle of February. Sure there will be cold days before winter officially ends. Heck, there was a frost in May last year.

Still, it surely feels wonderful to wake up to a sunny day and to watch the temperatures hover near the 40F (just over 4C) mark!

So I wont call today's farmhouse cleaning a Sunday ritual, I'll call it spring cleaning!

A late, sunny breakfast.






And then I ask Ed -- do you want to do some spring yard work?

No, I don't mean the real clean up stuff that happens when the ground thaws. But there are late winter things we can do. Pruning for example.





And yes, that's Ed feeling perfectly comfortable in shorts. (I do not understand his internal temperature regulation, truly I don't.)

I have to say, the wind is rather gusty, so it actually feels a tad on the chilly side. I'm in a puffy jacket and I regret not wearing a warm cap. So we don't work too hard or too long. A few limbs out front, a glance at the flower bed there, some talk of how to expand it and then we're done.

But rather than retreating inside, I propose a walk down to where the new development work has begun. We're still perplexed as to why the trees are being chopped down. We've studied the plans for the new neighborhood and the trees grow in what is designated as a nature area. We make our way through very muddy terrain.

They're piling wood chips from the felled trees just at our property line. We have no idea what they propose to do with them.






Oh, a deer is heading our way. She, too, is wondering what happened to the line of trees that gave her shelter as she made her way to our yard.






("Where are the trees?")






She saunters off.






Since it's Sunday, there is, of course, no work activity in the fields. A few odd pieces of equipment have been left behind, but mostly the area is empty. Until we spot a red truck coming this way.

I run to meet up with the driver. We're hungry for an update!

He doesn't know much beyond what we already are seeing. He is on the construction crew and today his kids are along for the ride so that they can see the work that dad has been doing this week.






But he does tell us that he thinks that we can cart off a load of chips if we're hurting for some.

We are always in need of wood chips! Always. The challenge will be to get anything through the mud right now.

We return to the farmhouse. I have a dinner to prepare, Ed has some odd jobs to do. The sky is still cloudless, the air so very reminiscent of an early, super early spring day.





You can't complain when you're handed this prize in February. You just can't.


Evening. The young family is here for dinner. Snowdrop immediately hits her tea party table. Of course she does! It's been... four days!






But she can't be away from the epicenter of fun: the kitchen. And she loves tonight's foods! Asparagus! A treat right up there with cookies, croissants and raisins!






Lovely dinner...






(Sharing dessert raisins with ahah.)






Lovely night, lovely thoughts of spring.

Saturday

Every day offers its surprises.

Take the weather: we have above freezing temps in the week before us. In February? Unusual. (And very much appreciated!)

(But the sun stays hidden. Breakfast is in the front room.)





The unpredictability of life! It's always so apparent to me! You think you have it all figured out? You know what's coming? Really??


In the late morning, I go over to Snowdrop's home. I'm to pick up the little girl and her mom so that we can drive downtown to the performing arts center.  We'll be going to listen to Klezmer music for children (you don't know it? Jewish music with Eastern European origins. It's like hearing something from Poland, only different! Of course, the forced movement of Jewish populations in the last century transformed this music. Think Klezmer with Mexican influence in Texas, or Klezmer with jazz influence in New York.)

I arrive at Snowdrop's home. She is ready.
Mommy, where are you? Come down mommy!







Coat on, little girl!






At the performing arts center, Snowdrop is again fascinated by the skylight.






And the music thrills her!






She wears herself out with her enthusiasm!






Applause applause! Yeah!






I return the girl and her mommy home.


Afternoon at the farmhouse. Ed and I try to Get Things Done! But somehow it's not all falling together. It's as if you had the simplest leggo structure to put together and you were absolutely sure that a crucial piece was missing. And your partner in the building project firmly believed that you had the wrong sketch before you.
It's not the piece, it's the plan!
You don't see it, but it's the piece! There's nothing wrong with the plan!


Somewhere down the line Ed suggests that we go to Candina's chocolate shop -- a pleasant country drive to a chocolatier that we both love.
I'll buy you a box of chocolates, gorgeous.

I know, of course, what he's up to. First of all, he wants to get us off the "leggo plan versus missing piece" discussion. Too, he doesn't really want to get sucked into the whole Valentine's Day game and he's doing the preemptive move: get her chocolates now.

I'm agreeable. Not because I am desperate for chocolates, but because I think it's cool that every now and then Ed wants to be the good guy in the game of relational shenanigans, even as he presents a stern front of indifference to it all.

We enter the chocolate shop. Ed sits down as I put in my special chocolate request to the clerk. He happens to be positioned right by a rack of Valentine's Day cards.
If you've got nothing to do, you might pick out a card for me...
You want a card?
Only if you want to get me a card.
So you want a card, right?
Not if you're not into it.
Okay, I'll get you a card. Which one?
Oh for goodness sake: you decide!
But which one do you want???
Pick one that best expresses your feelings!

That's just such a funny statement on my part. "Best expresses your feelings..." Does Ed really probe into his feelings to examine them carefully enough to see which card best expresses what's there?






But I offer no help. I pick the chocolates, he picks the card. Here's the winning combo:






But I tell him he's not done.
Whaaat? I got the card!
It's blank inside. You need to write something. 
Do you have a pencil?
A pencil?
So that if I get it wrong and you don't like it, we can erase and start all over.
I'll like it if it expresses your feelings...
How about something like "you're difficult but I adore you anyway?"
I give him a hard look.

In the end, he does write, and with a pen, and it's sweet as can be. I'll let that stay between him and me.






I must mention that earlier, before the chocolates and the card, Ed and I went to the garden expo. Yes, that! And it was fine. We spoke to one set of experts about red aphids invading my mock sunflowers and the beetles invading our grapes and cherries and then on a less troubled note, we went back to the Minnesota couple who come here to sell their lily bulbs. We'd bought some bulbs last year and they were wonderful. Today, in a nod to our imminent (well sort of) planting season, we buy some more.

But I have no photos of that. Instead, I'll leave you with a picture of something that another vendor brought down all the way from Seattle. Vases. Lovely ones that show off each stem of a flower (or vegetable or fruit and herb!) combination.  We did not buy any because they were pricey and because we felt that they were not fitting with the more traditional style of the farmhouse. But my oh my, do I admire these presentations! I love bringing flowers (and then some!) into the house. Perhaps in these months of rampant words and acts of violence and cruelty, we need flowers more than ever to help elevate our spirits.

Beauty, goodness, kindness. Flowers, fruits and vegetables. Grown with hard work, presented with exquisite artistic flair. The kind you have to welcome from far and wide.

Friday

It is the most regular of regular Fridays! Like clockwork! (And a happy clock it is.)

See that bit of sunlight? It's enough to put a smile on a face! (See that smile on his face?)





Grocery shopping -- on schedule! And rising temperatures, so that by the time I'm to pick up Snowdrop, it's above freezing. Stroller time!

I want to go see the snowmen -- she tells me. (We had passed by three hefty guys the last time we walked home from school.)
Um, sorry little one. They toppled over. Snowmen melt when it gets warmer. (And we wonder where she had picked up that sweet "um" before starting in on a sentence!)

We play at her home today.

Drawing. On the blackboard this time.






Faces, rainbows and who knows what else...






(Sunshine on the stairs! Sunshine, sunshine everywhere!)






(Pretend washing is nearly as much fun as the real thing.)






Dusk. My daughter is home now and we spend some time looking over their family album. We munch on nuts and sip our drinks and revel in the sweet quiet of this Snow Moon evening.






So perfectly regular and so perfectly wonderful.

Thursday

Some small thought propelled me last night to go down to the basement and open up a box that I keep of travel journals.

Between the ages of 10 and about 45 I was a prolific journal writer. But as I neared my 50th birthday, I took all my adult journals and threw them into the garbage bin of the Bagels Forever bakery. I just couldn't stand the idea that those journals -- full of pathos but also half truths -- would someday be read by someone. I hated the indulgent tone, the inability to step back from my own inner turmoil, the emotional tailspin -- all of it. I never regretted getting rid of all that stuff.

But I kept my youthful journals -- they're so funny! -- and I also kept my travel journals. These travel books (and there are dozens of them) are rather factual: I did this, we ate there, she did that and the other did something else.

I don't think I ever reread any of them. They just sat there. Until last night.

The one I reached for is from the year 1984. I was pregnant with my younger girl and my older daughter was just two and ten months (so just a bit older than Snowdrop). We packed our bags and traveled to the UK, as my then husband had research to do in Cambridge.

We lived in England for nearly three months and my daily notes on this are not unlike my travel posts on Ocean, only without the photos and with less careful writing. You could say it was like a practice blog!

What was interesting in the rereading was, of course, the comparison -- of being a mommy then and a grandma now of similarly aged girls. But what I really enjoyed, too, was the description of travel way back then -- without phones (always in search of public booths to make inquiries), without the internet (endless trips to bookstores and to tourist offices to do get information, searching constantly for that elusive decent meal given our tight budget and love of fresh and honest foods, finding miserable b&bs and even worse rental flats because there just wasn't the information that we have now). It was so much harder then and I'd like to say that it didn't matter, that it was all grand, even as I see that it wasn't all grand. The highs were effervescent and rhapsodic. The lows required taking a deep breath and moving forward.



And now here we are, thirty three years later and it's not cold and drizzly (as it seemed to be daily in the summer of 1984 in the UK) but bitter cold and very sunny. I am a bit shocked to see the cheepers out and about. They must be restless!






Breakfast in the sun room.






I then take a quick look at the beginning of the construction to the north of us. We cannot figure out why they are taking down the row of trees (toward the left, where you see trucks and stumps), but I suppose developments require pristine land surfaces. Ah well, we're hoping that there'll be a prairie restoration in one of the designated nature spots.






Noon. I pick up Snowdrop and take her to the bakery again (it's a poor substitute for what she would really love -- a romp outside, but again, it's just too cold!). She is, in fact, thrilled with her cheesy croissant.






I mean, really -- yum!






At home, she brings a toy croissant for ahah, possibly because we didn't bring any of the real thing back with us.






And then she draws with him. At the table...






... on the floor.






And eventually she returns to her play foods, today doing her favorite pretend game: cooking at her little stove and "chatting" on the phone (which she improvises with the TV remote control).







Evening. She wakes up from nap, I bring her downstairs. Ed is sprawled out on the floor. She's puzzled, but only a little. Ed is an unpredictable player in the farmette deck of cards.
I explain: he's stretching his back. (He played volley ball last night. Uff!)
Snowdrop wiggles out of my grasp: I stretch my back too! -- she tells me.

(Snowdrop, stretching her back.)





It looks to me like you want to do yoga. (Snowdrop has a yoga lesson in school each week I've told.) Do you want me to roll out my yoga mat?
Yes!

I don't really know what yoga she does in school, but there's an old reliable pose that you can always ask her to do and she'll get right to it.

(Snowdrop does "downward dog.")






She remembers, however, that I promised the guitar after her nap. I bring it to her.

(Snowdrop, yoga mat, and guitar.)






(Can you do downward dog with guitar on yoga mat at age two? You bet!)






(Showing off poses that I have never seen or heard of.)






(That ever recurring smile!)






Oh life... How we love it when there are reasons to share a smile!

Wednesday

At last! The pillows Ed and I use became so lumpy, so terribly uncomfortable that I convinced Ed we needed new ones. They came in the mail yesterday.

Perhaps Ed hadn't been fully paying attention when I pushed my new pillow proposal because even though I had heard an "oh fine, go ahead and get them," in the end he decided to cling to his old lumpy one. And so I have two new pillows and he has none. And the bed looks oddly skewed but I do not mind! A night on good, soft pillows -- heaven!

The moral of this little story: you do not appreciate the small details of daily life (eg. a soft pillow) until you lose them. And when you lay your head down on that soft pillow again, the night is exquisitely sublime!

I could not get myself to rise out of bed until 9, which surely is some sort of record for me.

Breakfast is, therefore, late.






As we linger over this grand morning meal, we begin to hear it -- the rumble. The bing bing bing of a truck mvoing backwards. More rumble.

The construction to the west and north of us has begun.

Ed had worked tirelessly to stall the development that's slated to go in on the acres and acres of farmland all around us. And it wasn't only because he hated the idea of construction noise and a development closing in on us. The more he met with scientists and those who studied wetland ecosystems, the more obvious it became that this particular development is going to have a detrimental impact on the water quality of the streams that feed our (once) beautiful lakes.

I've written about our appearances at public hearings. And indeed, the development was stalled for many many years. But in the end, the location could not be ignored: it's just too good (don't we know it!) and the developer danced visions of sugarplums before the eyes of the decisionmakers urging them to move ahead with the building plan. He received approval late last year and today we hear the movement of an army of trucks.

On the upside, the years of struggle weren't for naught. The plan now is much saner than the original one put forth by the developer. Green spaces abound and there is more than a nod to a new urbanism, with bike paths, community gardens, buffer zones, parks and this part I find terribly amusing -- even names of streets that presumably have some marketing appeal: Arugula Road, Radicchio Lane, Spinach Street. I kid you not!

From a personal standpoint, the development, to me, offers many upsides. The idea of having sidewalks and parks nearby thrills me. Snowdrop loves to go out exploring and I have not liked taking her out on the rural roads. Each time a car approaches I feel compelled to step into the ditch.

I tell Ed that we must look at the bright side of it, but of course, Ed is a consummate lover of the natural world. Even though we had mainly cultivated lands around us, nonetheless, we had our share of flowers and crops from the truck farmers. Concrete to him is a poor alternative.


When I pick up Snowdrop, it's still very chilly outside. There will be a warmup later this week, but today, the air feels winter-cold. Not that she appears to notice.






I need indoor distractions for us and so I tell her we're going to the store to pick up a big box of crayons. (She has a little set and I know that a kid her age can well be satisfied with 24 colors, but I have this childhood longing for that magnificent set of 64!) While at the store, I throw in some stars -- you know the kind: our teachers used them to reward our schoolwork decades ago, when kids still thought that getting a star on a paper was big stuff.

But when we come to the farmhouse, first thing's first. I give her what has become her very favorite snack: a fresh, cheesy herbed croissant.






And as she is happily munching away at it, I tell her about the trucks that are rumbling nearby.
I hear it!  -- she tells me with excitement. Indeed. I had paused the car just before pulling into the driveway so that she could see it too: a plethora of trucks.






I suppose you could add this to the upside: Snowdrop will, in the course of spring, have many an opportunity to see trucks in action.



And now -- play time!

Within a minute of being on the ground, Snowdrop discovers every single new item in the house. Colorful index cards! Woah! A pack of alphabet cards! Yes!






Two new books! Let's read!

But eventually she returns to her favorite toys. She takes command of her play space (after cajoling ahah to sit down with us). This goes here, that she needs for over there...






For a while, she and Ed build, but then Snowdrop remembers that it's been a while since she's played with her grocery cart. She pats Ed on the back and tells him -- be right back, ahah!






An important component of playing "grocery shopping" is, for her, finding and putting on her necklace. Purse goes on crook of elbow and away she goes!






Snowdrop is in a joyful mood! She gathers up the scattered pinwheels and she dances as we blow on their tails and make them spin. (When do we lose that giddiness that a two year old so freely expresses? That pleasure in just watching a pinwheel twirl?)






To settle her into a prenap mood, I take out the sticky stars. She colors a sky with rainbow hues and ever so carefully, manipulates each little star into a special place on the page.






Outside, the skies clear and the late afternoon sun recedes, ever so slowly, and the farmette lands take on their honey tone.






Snowdrop wakes up to music. Mine, hers, it's all so fantastic for her.






After she leaves, the house grows quiet. It's going to be a cold night. On the upside, it will be studded with stars. A lunar eclipse, a comet and a full moon will fill our dark country skies on Friday. But tonight, we'll have the stars. And a nearly full moon shining brightly over us all.