Sunday

It's late. The sun has long set, the skies are dark. The dinner dishes are stacked, Ed is dozing on the couch.

Typically, this is when I put the final touches on an Ocean post: I study the end day photos, I correct the text.

Not so today. I pushed nearly everything onto this late hour in favor of working outside before dusk set in. And so once again, I am scrambling to write something for you. Ocean has had to take a back seat to this most gorgeous day.



It starts with breakfast on the porch. It's still a little cool, but we don't mind! The sun's out! Life is so very good!






(Well, good if I can ignore the cheepers just outside the screen porch. Their claws can be fierce when they set their heart on a particular piece of yard.)






Here's a curious thing: This year, as last year, the early tulips were decimated by some hungry farmette resident. Possibly the groundhog, though we can't be sure. But for some reason, the later tulips (both this year and last year) escaped this tragic decapitation. So I think we may get a (reduced, but hey!) bloom out of the bulbs I planted last Fall after all!






I am spent. I've divided day lilies, I've transplanted dianthus, I've pruned the invasive monarda and coreopsis, I've planted a few newbies to the garden.

Yet non of this is work! There is a glow to this day for sure!


In the evening, Snowdrop and her parents are here for dinner. First thing's first: the little girl and I head out to the asparagus patch. Spaghetti primavera is no good without spring asparagus!







She brings the picked spears inside for all to share. (It always amazes me how small her hand is as compared to ahah's!)






Dinner on the porch. Snowdrop does not forget about her babies.






How beautiful it is outdoors tonight!






Snowdrop agrees.






I know we'll surely have some cooler days ahead, but I could never complain: not after this most perfectly glorious weekend! 

Earth Day

It is, in Wisconsin, the most beautiful of all April days: plenty of sunshine, warm enough to keep to a light sweater (and not even that if you're working), crisp, green and wonderful.

I do not pause. Once I'm up, I stay up, crazily moving through the day until now -- suppertime -- when I feel I can finally give it a rest.

And so it's a photo day on Ocean! Few words. No time for words. No need for words! It's Earth Day, and I celebrate it by being outside all day long. Though not for breakfast. Too cool in the early morning hours. We eat in the sun room.






Henny! Leave my flowers alone! Go scratch somewhere else! Oh, those cheepers!






Morning: I'm with my daughter and granddaughter at the downtown farmers market. The vendors line the blocks around the Capitol. It takes more than half an hour to make your way around.






When we're done, Snowdrop leaves her stroller for a romp on the Capitol grasses. Today, she is enthralled by the large trees.






Hide and seek!






I see that she would very much like to climb a tree. That wont work here, but at the farmette, low limbed trees abound!






She is handed a free construction hat at a store on the Square. Snowdrop loves hats.






And then I leave her to prodeed with her family weekend, while I turn my attention to my flower beds. There is a lot to do! (The cheepers are like loyal pups -- they follow me to whatever corner of the yard I'm in.)





I work   ALL   DAY   LONG. Digging. Weeding. Planting. Pruning.

Phew!

Pause to admire blooms on trees: they're everywhere now! Here's one of our young peach trees.






Here's a cherry -- so delicately fragrant!






(The cheepers follow.)






And the daffodils continue to dance and swing and sway...





I tell you, a gorgeous day. My muscles ache, my nails hands are caked in mud. A perfect day.

April 21st

I know many people look askance at birthdays and, too, at people who make a fuss over their own "special" day. It seems at once so self indulgent and irrelevant! Another one of those "me me me!" selfie moments, when in reality, the day is just a speck on the calendar of human existence. Shouldn't we be more humble about our own presence on the planet?

But here's another take on it: it is tough these days to find community. The Earth is crowded, people move from one place to the next, families break up, hunting and gathering seems so yesterday. So perhaps you could find in birthdays an excuse to get closer to people you most care about?

For me, there is another dimension: birthdays are personal. No one should care about the passing of your years. But you should care. Rather than drifting through life without thought to how the next year compares to the one before, isn't it good to be more deliberate about it?

I'm sixty-four today. I have sixty-four years of adventures, projects, mistakes, ambitions, feelings, springs, summers, falls, winters behind me. I'm beginning my sixty-fifth. To take the time to reflect, to be grateful, to look ahead -- to me, this is so cool! A birthday (for me) isn't a party day, it's a day to consider life once more. To find your personal reasons to smile. 

And if you can find a handful of loved ones to bounce around with -- well, that smile can turn into a mighty grin and you're on your way to the next year. Excited for the possibilities.

The morning dawns cool but with patches of sunshine. I used to joke that I do not recall an April 21st without at least a bit of sunshine in my day. This statement is less about my birthday of course, than about the weather patterns of the northern hemisphere where I've spent all my years: in April, clouds move through swiftly and even a rain spattered day can surprise you with moments of sunshine.

We eat breakfast in the sun room.

The goal after is to take stock, to set a plan for the weekend garden work. But I linger inside. There's no hurry today. This is the luxury that every birthday deserves (yet it's the one thing that's so tough to come by) -- to have on your hands idle time.

Outside, the daffodils steal it once again. Their gold is my gold today.





I dig and plant just one flower (in a vulnerable spot by the path to the house: here, the cheepers are especially prone to scratching). Tomorrow, I'll work harder.


My afternoon with Snowdrop is special, as her mommy joins us in our play. Adventuring is for the three of us (or perhaps the four of us, as my Chicago daughter calls just as we begin our stroll through the neighborhood: I feel especially rich being unexpectedly surrounded by the chatter of my three best girls!).

We visit the distant coffee shop...






(Where Snowdrop explains to her mommy what's what...)






And then we're off to the park. Snowdrop wont just stay with the kiddie swing these days. She now wants a turn on all possible swings.






A climb up on the life guard's beach chair...






And then we're off walking the neighborhood again, admiring all that's blooming right now.






And still our outdoor time is not over. We tidy up Snowdrop's garden at her home...






And then finally, we're indoors, where Snowdrop is extremely anxious to have me open birthday gifts. (I can help! I can do it!)






If not for my text and, too, that last photo, the post would not appear that different from any other late April Ocean post. So what's the big deal?

And yet it's different. I know the date inside out. April 21st. And indeed, the evening takes on some of those celebratory overtones. A drink out with just my daughter...






A dinner with Ed (a real selfie here, perhaps because we are doing an evening out -- a rarity for us)...






And an evening at home, like the two couch hounds that we are -- looking for something funny and wise on TV, but really, just taking in the last bit of a birthday. Mine, sure, but this doesn't make me unique or special. We all have birthdays. You, me, everybody. Happy birthdays to all of us!

Thursday

I do not understand how 55F (just shy of 13C) could feel so cold. It's not an unusual temperature for mid-April. It's rather average. This kind of weather just two months ago would felt like like a heat wave. But I can't shake the feeling that it's chilly.

I swap it with tomorrow: let me grocery shop this morning instead of Friday. And tomorrow -- well, I have to believe that I'll be more excited about working outside again.

But first, breakfast. A working breakfast of sorts, as I'm trying to put together a meal plan for next week and Ed is playing with some new gizmo that was just delivered for his machining project.






Outside -- well, everything is wet. We had significant rain last night and the daffodils are drooping.






There is a beauty to their wet petals of course and I have to admit that this is a far gentler weather downturn than in years past, when there would be wet snow shower that would bring down even the strongest of the daffodils.






Scotch, I'm sure is pleased. The chickens don't like excessive sunshine (did I mention that the skies are gray?) and the wet earth gives them plenty of scratching opportunities.






Well fine, but what will I tell Snowdrop when I pick her up from school? Too cold for a walk?

She wants to hear no such nonsense. Of course a walk is in order! She searches anxiously for the stroller...






Well fine. We're hardy stock. We can take a gust of cool wind. A brisk walk it is! With a pause at the playground. And then a very welcome pause at the wonderfully warm coffee shop. Once again, she turns down the high chair.






And finally we come home -- my home. The farmhouse. She knows every corner of it of course. She has her beloved play areas! But she knows it is a visit here. Home is elsewhere.






She plays with her babies.






Today, for the first time, she proclaims that she is mommy to them.






I need to take my baby to the playground -- she tells me.






Forget it, Snowdrop. It's your nap time.

When she wakes up, I take her to her home. Mommy's there. They settle in to read.







But Snowdrop wants to know about stuff. Like -- what's this book about?






I think back to books my daughters read when they were little. About animals. About children of war. About families. How much of what you listen to as a child shapes who you are? Is it significant that I never myself had a passion for rockets?

I go home and cook up a salad nicoise for supper. Tomorrow I'll not cook anything at all.

Wednesday

At long last, Ed bought himself something that will help him in the yard: a dump cart that he can attach to the old lawn mower (it's a riding mower, so you can use it as you would a tractor). This $129 acquisition took days and days of comparative research (this one has no ball bearings... this one will allow me to build up the sides with wooden boards... this one is made of sturdy plastic... this one has sides that drop down -- I have been listening to the virtues of one cart over the next for so long now, that I feel I know all there is to know about this two wheeled garden wonder).

Today he assembled the cart and so for the better part of the morning, instead of hiding from me lest I ask for his help in the garden, he follows me everywhere, asking repeatedly -- you sure you don't need more chips? Because I can haul them anywhere you want!

This is the theme of the day.

It tells you a lot about our lives right now: we are focused on the outdoors and we will remain focused on the outdoors for a solid month. We have lots to do!

But first, breakfast. In the sun room, because once again, we're eating early and it's still nippy outside.






But it promises to be a fine April day! A light sweater will suffice and when you work hard, even that seems superfluous.

It is still the season of daffodils. Today, the more exotic varieties (always last to bloom) are showing their pretty faces...






I love the doubles and I'm in awe of the triple-headed dancing girls...






Yet daffodils, for all their individual beauty are, to me, at their most sublime when viewed en masse. Like this...






Or this...





Their season is actually quite short (and shorter still when you have cheepers trampling and scratching the flower beds), but because they are the first, I am enchanted. Totally, completely enchanted.


I have a lot of planting to do in the next several weeks, but I am determined to finish the strawberry patch weeding first. And I've come across a headache of sorts: a huge clump of irises, right in the middle of the patch, that are overgrown with quack grass. Yesterday, while Snowdrop napped, I tried digging around the irises to stem the grass roots from spreading, but this morning, I gave up on this half-assed measure in favor of digging up the whole lot of them and disentangling several dozen tubular root systems from the noxious grass. I am grateful for my hovering buddy (Can I help? Will you need some wood chips after? Yes, Ed. Thank you, Ed.)

And this is how the clock tick tocks its way to noon. Snowdrop pick up time!

(She looks like a businesswoman, leaving her office, briefcase in hand!)






Snowdrop and I stroll over to the distant coffee shop -- all for the promise of a cookie bite.

She is so determined to be a big girl, that she now prefers the regular chairs over the kid high chair. It's funny to see her so low, but honestly, she seems quite happy there.






At the farmette, she considers her options. A few minutes outside!






A look at the flowers (Scotch wants to know: is there something in it for me?))...






A snack with the cheepers...






And inside the farmhouse we go. Ed's on the couch munching peanuts. She joins him, begging for a few. (My very observant granddaughter looks closely at him and asks: ahah, did you get a haircut? Indeed! I finally cornered him this morning, razor and scissors in hand!)






He never says no to her.






Evening. Ed is back to riding his bike again. Snowdrop watches him get ready. You can almost see the wheels spinning: soon I'll be doing Wednesday night bike rides too. I don't doubt it, Snowdrop. I don't doubt it.