Monday

If I were to draw out a theme from this day, I'd say I have been surrounded by a bunch of not so happy campers.

It snowed last night and indeed, it's still snowing. Not quite the blizzard others may be experiencing, but we will have a good half a foot of snow by the time it moves on. Yes, there will surely be a quick melt by the weekend. But hey, there is the "here and now!" No one is interested in more snow in the middle of March.

Most assuredly, this is bad news for the cheepers. They each, in their own time, made the trek from the barn to the garage. Who knows why. In the dead of winter, they rarely come out of the barn, but I suppose their chicken memories had them thinking about all the worms and sprouts they'd been foraging for the past several weeks. Maybe they thought if they could just handle the journey to the garage, all this cold white stuff would go away and the beautiful, rich, moist ground would swell with tasty treats for them again. So they took a deep breath and began their terrible march.






And then they huddled in the garage for the rest of the day. No magic wand took the snow away. Their dinosaur feet were cold. Incapable of managing the sudden coming of winter.

(Here are our sweet chickens, down to three, bonded by a deep desire to survive and feel part of a flock. A family of sorts. A band of sisters!)






At breakfast, Ed tells me that he really truly has to do his taxes. He's been saying this for days, but we are two days shy of his deadline, so I think he really truly must mean it.






Snowdrop, too, is less than excited by what the snowstorm has dumped on us. When I pick her up at school, she is bundled up in all her snow regalia. She is excited. She wants action!

But when I tell her that it is truly impossible, impracticable, and inadvisable to be pushing forth in a stroller in search of adventure, her sweet happy face crumbles.  Big fat tears spill onto her cold cheeks.
It's just too cold and snowy, little girl.
But I want an a'venture! With the stroller!

I would give her the world of course, but today I have to give her this unwelcome news: you cannot always get that what your heart craves.

At the farmhouse, she finds solace and happiness in going straight to her comfy play of putting the gaga character into the wheelchair and having ahah push the infirm gaga this way and that way.






Snowdrop finds happiness easily. The croissant snack thrills her, the tea set -- well, you know that it has as much healing power as a round of yoga for the sweet girl...






(Pretend sipping, pretend eating...)






Add to it a ball game with ahah (it's all apples and oranges!)...






...A few books,  and then her utterly joyous dancing (the "fish jig" is in constant competition with Abba's "dancing queen") and the day is made perfect again, the snow outside notwithstanding.






Nap is done. She asks for music. I'm about to turn on her favorites, but she shakes her head (she's good at adding emphasis to her words). No, I want zy'phone.

Okay, Snowdrop.






Dusk. I tell Ed that it would be a wonderful service to the cheepers if he could just shovel a way home for them. (I'd do it myself, but Snowdrop is still with us.) To keep their dinosaur paws from freezing over.
All the way to the barn? -- he asks.
It will take you five minutes. And it will make them so happy.

It does: five minutes. So happy.






It's a reminder for us, no? There are so many things that we can do for another living creature that would take so little time and would mean so much.

Late into the night we watch youtube clips on raising chicks. We're still considering guinea hens. Perhaps making the cheepers happy has gone to our heads.

Sunday

Some days I swear we are nothing more than just two people drifting on a raft heading nowhere in particular.

Take this day. Oh, I could go on about the weather: too cold, threat of snow tonight, too arctic, too wrong for the first day of daylight savings time. But honestly, there is a bit of sunshine, which lasts through our rather late breakfast...






So not too bad and especially not too bad when you think about the rest of the country east and north of the Mississippi -- it has blizzard warnings for the next few days!

And yet, something is holding us back. I say to Ed that a walk would be nice. He mumbles words that only under the most optimistic reading could be regarded as a "yes!"

Had I been insistent, he would have gone along, but I wasn't, and he didn't, and so we just stay home. He works, I work. I put a great deal of thought into my spring break trip (the week after this). He puts a great deal of thought into his machine design. The usual.

My theory: we are treading water until spring comes.

Thank goodness for the appearance of the young family tonight for our usual Sunday dinner! You can't just stumble along when Snowdrop bounds in and grabs her grocery cart and says  -- gaga, want to play?






Okay!






Dinner. Pasta and stuff. By the light of the early evening ! Oh, let's not forget that -- it is no longer pitch black at dinnertime!






After, Ed tries to catch the tail end of 60 Minutes on the TV. She wont let him. She wants to play.

They strike a compromise.






And in the end, he plays ball, she plays ball. Oh, does she play ball!





She calls it baseball. She calls all ball games baseball so far as I can tell. And why not? It's all grand. All of it. Even on a Sunday with no real meat to it. A pasta Sunday. Good enough. Really more than good enough.

Snowdrop would agree.

Saturday

If we spring forward in time tonight, shouldn't we spring forward into springlike weather?  Where is the fairness of below freezing temperatures all weekend long?

Still, with that little bit of sunshine in the morning, you can look up and down and all around and spring may seem not that far off after all.







Breakfast in the sun room, with the tulips that were such a pleasant acquisition yesterday!






And now the day proceeds in a non-weekend fashion: I pick up Snowdrop for a Saturday morning at the farmette.






She wants the outdoor time, but she knows it just doesn't feel great being out and about. Inside the farmhouse we go.
Hi ahah, what are you doing ahah?
I'm fixing the little vacuum because a mouse chewed up a whole big part of it.
Snowdrop stops and you can see her process this bit of information: what? that little creature that is so lovingly portrayed in all the kids' books can eat up a vacuum cleaner??
Look, Snowdrop -- it's just a little corner of the machine. No big deal. Ed -- must you be so honest about everything?

Snowdrop runs off to her play room, putting the thought of mice eating up vacuum cleaners to the side for now.







But she comes back to it. A mouse?






Mice like crumbs, I tell her and then I distract the girl with a new puzzle. She loves new puzzles! This one has magnets, which makes it pretty darn perfect. Ed takes the photo.






And it's the usual then... Music, dancing. With animals...






... with a book, too. She does not discriminate in her choice of dancing partners.






She dances with her whole happy heart.


So that is morning. But how do we treat the afternoon, Ed and I? What's to be done when the air is cold, the landscape so brown and uninviting?

Well, we have to search with eyes wide open. There! You see the sandhill cranes that appear nearly invisible in the fields to the east of us?






We take a walk in the county park just down the road. The little pond has clumps of ice at the sides, but I am not fooled: it's definitely priming itself  for the season just before us.






The big lake (Waubesa) is one full house: geese, ducks, they've all congregated to discuss the politics of life. Perhaps their own strife and struggle is greater than ours. Or maybe they are a content lot, appreciating each others' company, finding join in stuff that you and I can never even see or understand.





I say to Ed - maybe we should go down and study the lives and habitats of penguins.
He looks at me: maybe you should kayak down the Missouri River with me.
Maybe not.

Kids are kids. Mice are mice. Ducks are ducks. And gagas are gagas.

Friday

We are today twenty degrees below where we should be. I am not amused.

Too, last week's kitchen table flowers have come and gone and though my orchids are putting on a spectacular annual bloom, still, I feel this morning that we have no spring threads to hold on to while we tough out today's cold spell.

Which room is breakfast? Ed wants to know.
I give a shrug and he rewards me with an indifferent expression and a half eaten mango pointed toward the morning camera.






This beautiful meal of ours turns sulky today and I blame the weather.

I also blame myself. Where is that honorable cheer? The smile in the face of bad weather or tedious chores? The steadfast and deliberate calm that I espouse so much here, on Ocean?

I know what the problem is: I've been reading too much. Grumpy people with their grumpy blogs, criticizing and shaming everything and everyone who doesn't buy into their worldview... it's all so unpleasant to read and I know it's time for me to go on an Internet diet again.



It is my shopping day and I am pleased to see that tulips are on a $4 per bunch sale. There's a good reason to smile!

Friday also means that I bring Snowdrop to her own home after school. In good weather, this means that I take out her stroller and we walk to her house. But it's only 20F (-6C) and the occasional wind gusts bring tears to your eyes. And yet, Snowdrop is relentless: I want to go on an a'venture, gaga, I want to go on an a'venture!
Okay, we'll walk home and have a wee little adventure.

She seems satisfied with this, but as we approach her house, she starts balking at giving up so soon. So I offer her a choice and, using the clever strategy suggested by a commenter earlier in the week, I ask -- would you like to go to the park down the road, or would you like to go inside where it's nice and warm and where I have a croissant waiting for you? I'm fully aware that yesterday she had both, but today she has to choose. So, park or croissant?

This is her answer:






So much for trickery. I pull up my zipper snugly and remind Snowdrop that unlike her, I do not have a cap on, so this park adventure must be on the brief side.

On the swing, we have the following conversation -- I dare say one of the sweetest ones of the day (though truthfully, I'm choosing to read into it more good than was intended!):

It's cold. I wish I had taken my cap.
I have a cap. And my coat. And my nose. And my fingers. Gaga gas fingers and a nose, and a camera!
I smile at her: I always have my camera, Snowdrop.
You always have your Snowdrop, gaga!


Inside again. Oh, how one appreciates a good furnace after a walk to the park. Snowdrop, of course, is thrilled to find that there is indeed a croissant waiting for her. A bite and a dance:






Meanwhile, I check my computer to make sure the world hasn't imploded in the last few hours (even as later, I resolve to not check it so much during the day, because if the world implodes, finding out sooner rather than later wont make life any better for me or for anyone else). Snowdrop insists then on checking hers.






Kids say a great many disarming things, but I swear, today Snowdrop is on a roll. She tells me she has to bring her penguin to the table.
Bis (her nickname for penguin still occasionally pops up) is sad, she tells me.
Oh, that's too bad...
She turns to the penguin -- it's okay, little penguin, it's okay. She gives him a hug.






My week with the little one -- well, let me correct that, because she tells me repeatedly that she is a big girl now, so with the big little one, ends with a cold spell outside, but the warmest of feelings indoors. How good is that!






(At the end of my time with her -- with mommy home from work, coloring...)

Thursday

Unfortunately, the next few days are going to be just plain cold. This is where you get impatient with the weather. You want outdoor time. Snowdrop wants outdoor time. And here we are again, hovering near freezing: just above it today, just below it the days after.

Now I'm not going to let this spoil my spring thoughts. We are definitely done with winter and the daffodil buds are really getting big. Early spring in Wisconsin teaches you to be patient. To love the sun when it appears unexpectedly for a few hours. To take in a whiff of that damp soil, where so much is going on right now.

Cheepers! Quit scratching my garden!

Breakfast.






Afterwards, I scheme and plan trips for the rest of the calendar year. Seed and plant catalogues and airline and bed and breakfast websites are my friends in the early weeks of March.



When I pick up Snowdrop, there isn't a doubt that adventuring is on her mind again. I had stopped by the bakery to buy a croissant for her. And I am grateful that this is the hour when the sun makes its brief appearance. Croissant and swing -- that's just sheer joy for the little one!






At the farmhouse, we do things that do not include dancing. Yes we do, I'm sure of it! Here's a photo of her eating "mango tango" -- wait, that has a dance nickname in this household!






So it really is all about dance today, eh?






When she hears Ed at the door, she is bouncy with giggles and invitations: want to dance ahah? Want to dance with us?






She notices that he, as always, is barefooted and indeed, in shorts. Seconds later she has pulled off her own socks and pulled up her leggings.






Snowdrop wants so much to experiment and try out what she views as adult privileges!

Ed feels she should learn to polka. It's her heritage! He plays a few clips on youtube and yes, the girl is interested, but to her, dance is very much freestyle and without rules. She'll include her animal friends. She'll dance with a bowl, with a slipper even. So long as she decides who, when and how.





I suppose in there lies a life metaphor: we want the world on our own terms. We imitate, we try things on for size, and then in the end, we create something that is uniquely our own.


[After her nap, she cooks.
No, you don't cook in my kitchen gaga. She watches me hover. Be careful, gaga! It's very hot! Don't burn your finger gag! I look concerned. Don't worry gag!
The girl has empathy. The girl worries. The girl reaches for the perfect cooking experience. So beautiful. So Snowdrop!]






Night. I have to cook up cheeper eggs. Two of the hens are laying almost daily. That's a lot of eggs.

Roast a potato, mix up a salad, add some cheese. Farmhouse stuff. Our kind of fast food.

Wednesday

The last time I witnessed winds this strong on brilliant winter days (nonstop, one day after the next) was in Provence, with Ed, many years ago. I never thought that the Midwest was mistral territory, but we are in the second day of raging winds and sunny skies and so I have those Provencal images -- of pigs going crazy and hair standing on end (le vent qui rend fou -- the wind that drives you mad!).

We listen to it howling outside...






When I step out of the car at Snowdrop's school, I get punched with such a strong gust, that I tell myself this is not stroller weather. I'm hoping I can distract the little girl with this gorgeous sight (crocuses always pop up in the city a week or so earlier than at the farmette).





But Snowdrop is determined. When she sees me, she runs over with great excitement -- hi gaga hi gaga hi gaga! Let's go a'venturing!

And it really feels like an adventure to walk those neighborhood blocks while the winds hits us in the face or beats us on the back. However, to give me credit, I come prepared! A hair tie for a pony tail to keep the hair out of her face and a cap to keep her snug in case she decides she is up for the playground (which, as you perhaps have noticed, is by a lake, causing the winds to be that much stronger).

But first, a stop at the coffee shop. I am thrilled to see so much color on the walls! A brilliant idea to have these vibrant paintings on display in March!

(Snowdrop initially is distracted by the view to the lake outside...)






(When asked which painting she likes best, she picks the most color-filled canvas.)






And she is undeterred. I want to go to the playground! 
Okay, Snowdrop. Just don't get blown away! 
The girl really does love that swing.






For the car ride back to the farmette I had taken off her warm jacket (it is sunny, the car is too warm for it). When I unload her, I tell her to run to the farmhouse. But she sees Ed by the barn and she runs to him instead.

A piece of barn roofing is hanging on for dear life and Ed is about to fix it. She loves the ladder, though she is herself too cautious to climb even the lowest rungs.






We admire the fresh eggs in the barn instead. Thank you, Henny, thank you Scotch.






Which brings me to the subject of this morning's discussion.
Ed had asked: should we get some guinea hens?
Whaaat?
Listen to this... And he reads me some glowing paragraphs about the hens on the Mother Jones website.
I am both incredulous and fascinated.

What's the draw? Well, guinea hens lay eggs, sure -- smaller ones than chicken eggs, but what really makes them an outstanding farm bird is that they eat bugs. Box elder beetles, Japanese beetles, ticks, all kinds of pesky bugs. (We have at the moment our annual influx of box elder beetles in the farmhouse and they are terribly annoying and of course, the Japanese beetles destroyed our grapes last year, so the temptation is great.)

Of course, every farm animal comes with a price tag and it's not one that's measured in dollars.
Guinea hens are loud. Some say they pester the chickens. And whereas chickens seem to know instinctively the boundaries of your piece of land, guinea fowl can roam. Indeed, they can and do fly. Right into your neighbor's yard (and may I remind you that we may be getting many new neighbors this spring to the north of us). And, as one commenter wrote: they are one stupid animal.

Still, might there be a real benefit to having them around? We're tossing this around, though perhaps with less force than the winds that are turning things upside down outside.

But in the farmhouse, all is warm, all is calm and Snowdrop spends many minutes doing here what she seems to love so much -- drinking her pretend tea.






In my view, Snowdrop is very tied to the rhythm of a day. Her mood changes as we move through it. After a nap, she takes a while to come around to her previous energy levels. This is the time when she most loves listening to story books and this is the time when she eventually makes her way back to her toy characters, which she arranges in endless configurations. And yes, there is always a story that accompanies these arrangements. Snowdrop is a born story teller.





As the sun moves toward the horizon, the winds die down. There is a sudden quiet that is both unexpected and peaceful. I think to myself -- why would we add noisy guinea hens to this quiet landscape?

I suppose the answer is obvious: for no reason except that there are hens out there that could find happiness here.

Ah, life! You can't really predict what will happen if you follow one imperative and ignore another. Maybe for the most basic decisions, we should just flip a coin.