Friday

I guess I do tend to overthink the garden a bit. For example, I counted snipped lily blooms today again. I couldn't help myself. I needed to know!

And guess what: I came up with 603 spent flowers that went straight into the bucket. 603?! Wasn't that yesterday's exact total?






Of course, each plant produces a varying number of flowers, oftentimes being light on blooms one day and heavy the next.





But the garden will be quieting down in the next weeks. August is not July. In August, the summer greens start to hint at post-summer golds.


I am out in the garden very early today. It's my grocery shopping day and if I'm to clip the whole place, well, I better be out with the bucket not too long after sunrise. I am rewarded with a different light... a lovely early morning light.

(Three pink flowers, having little in common but for the color...)






I'm standing somewhere in the Grand Bed, looking toward the farmhouse:






(Working the front bed by the road...)






Done! Breakfast at last. I nearly hurry through it!






Even as everything about the day -- the beautiful weather, the perfect views, the bug free porch -- invite us to linger... (Looking out from our place at the table...)






Off I go now! No cranes this morning, but there are other compensations...





And at noon, I am at Snowdrop's school. The kids had played under the sprinkler. The day is sunny and bright after all. (Just open your eyes going down the stairs, little one.)





Will she want to swim anyway?

She does. Gaga I can wear my swim suit from school!






Yes, and you can splash and shout like the best of them here!






At the farmhouse, when she naps, Ed and I take out computers to the porch, just to sit in that afternoon light and take in all that gold the is our outdoor world right now...






(She wakes up... Where is everyone?...)





Farmette summers... Even if you don't want to hang out in the fields with the bugs, you still find yourself drawn to that world of flowers and butterflies, of beautiful landscapes... (And yes, in the evening, when Ed and I ride out to play tennis, we see that the cranes have returned...)






They fill their stomachs with the grains, I fill my soul with these images. For the winter.





We open the farmhouse windows for the cool night breezes... Time to listen to the sounds of a summer night. Time to exhale.

Thursday

Abundance. It's a relative thing, isn't it?

No one would argue, however, that we have had an abundance of rain. Once again this morning, the flowers are dripping with moisture and the (abundant) bugs are enjoying their summer fling.

Never mind. I will ignore them.






To give myself a break, I was not going to do a thorough garden cleanup, but in the end, cursing myself for having started this game, I begin to count once more the spent lilies that I snip off and once you start counting, you may as well do all the beds because otherwise, what's the point.





It turns out that today I "only" snipped off 603 spent flowerheads. Abundant? Yes, very much so, but that's 100 less than yesterday! Is it because we're heading toward the end of July? Day lilies adore July and even though I have some early and late varieties in the mix, they could  be letting me know that their halcyon days are nearing an end.






Or, it could simply be that yesterday's absence of sunshine meant there was a reduced number of flowers (thus fewer spent blooms today).

No, no more counting in the future! Not everything requires a ready answer.





As I hose down the bucket I used, I glance at the nearby milkweed. Scores of little caterpillars (an abundant amount!) are clustered on several leaves. But wait -- monarch caterpillars work alone. Who are these guys?






They're tussock moth (or tiger moth) caterpillars. At breakfast, we speculate if their invasion is beneficial or a nuisance.






You can find both yes and no answers on the Internet. For now, we'll stay with the cup half full answer. As someone noted -- we're ready to welcome the monarchs...





... why reject the other milkweed eaters? True, they'll grow to be quite unattractive brown moths, but still, this, too is their home.


Time to pick up Snowdrop.





It should be a routine day of sunshine, snacks, swimming. And yes, we have all three.

(Sunshine)





(Snacks)





(Off to the pool!)






But perhaps because of the warm sun, the pool remains this quiet only for two minutes.





Afterwards -- total chaos. It really is hard for Snowdrop to find space to play and we spend a number of minutes just sitting in the shallow water, cooling off, watching...


Home now at the farmhouse. She eats her fruit snack. Talk about abundance! We are so very lucky to have so many fruits at our fingertips now. Her daily summer bowl always includes peaches, mango, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and her current beloveds -- cherries.






She eats them as rapidly as the tussock moth eats her milkweed leaf.

Just a few minutes of play, joyous play, because she is a joyous girl who loves a good tease...






And now the day is nearly over -- she naps, she leaves -- but wait: Ed and I still have an engagement with his friend and colleague, a guy who has shared many a meal with us out and about town. Today we're at Sardine, one of our favorites here, in Madison. (They're talking shop for a moment; I use this time to squeeze lemon on an oyster and do a "selfie.")






It's hard to imagine a richer day than this one. Perhaps one of the most valuable aspects of blogging for me is taking the time to remember the best moments. The kids' laughter in the pool, Snowdrop's delight in once more spotting the cranes on our drive home -- hi cranes!, she shouts to them with glee.





Too, snipping the last spent lily, or watching the sun stream over to the west of the porch in the late afternoon...






Finally, coming home from dinner, just as the sun is nearly ready to set... I get to roll it all back again, remembering what an abundance of happiness feels like on this brilliant summer day.

Wednesday

So how many day lily buds burst into full bloom each day here, at the farmette? Can you guess? (Ed's guess, and mind you, he lives here is 46.)

I speculated yesterday whether it would be fun (or a burden) to count how many spent blooms I snip in my morning garden rounds. Today, impulsively, I began to count.

One, two...  (I begin with the long roadside bed...)






Onto the driveway bed -- eighty-six, eighty-seven... Sorry, Ed, you're so off!





Indeed, I snip off more more than two hundred spent flowers in just the one bed to the front of the porch...





The Great Bed has the most diverse collection of flowers, but there are plenty of lilies there too...





Okay, done. All beds neatened. Only ninety minutes to do the job on this day, so the tally must have been less than, say yesterday.

And still, it is high: 702 blooms showed off their lovely colors yesterday, all of them clipped into several bucket-loads of spent blooms today.  (That does not count the lilies by Ed's sheep shed because I don't snip the blooms there. He doesn't care and, well, honestly -- they do eventually fall off on their own.)

Breakfast, at last.






With the deep satisfaction of having a well cared for garden. (Looking out from the porch...)






By the way, have I complained about the weather today? No? Well I should: sticky, with the perpetual rain in the forecast, and perhaps not surprisingly, we see again an upsurge in bugs.

It's quite frustrating to be in the thick of summer and to feel the constraints of the season in this way. The rains, the bugs -- these are not just farmette issues. We, in Wisconsin, endure the long winters for the gifts that come with summer. When those gifts are moderated in this way, we feel a tad cheated.

Well, never mind. On good weather days, Snowdrop and I spend our afternoons at the pool. If today doesn't lend itself to this -- she'll adjust.

And in any case, I made an appointment (on the suggestion of her parents) for the little girl to get a haircut at Lyndsy's haircut place (which conveniently is sandwiched between Snowdrop's school and the coffee shop).

I myself very much like longer hair (actually on both girls and boys!), but Snowdrop isn't making it easy to keep it that way. For the most part, pony tails irritate her and predictably, her fine golden hair (often sprayed by sun lotion or bug spray) looks like it has been through a hard period of play by midday. (Here she is today, waiting for a snack at the coffee shop.)





It's her third haircut at Lyndsy's and surprisingly, she remembers the routines well. If she was once even slightly apprehensive, not so today!





And as before, I have to say, Lyndsy does her a great service by giving her a terrific bob.





It's perfect for a delightfully active little girl!





I want to reward the little one with a trip to the playground and as always, she is enthusiastic about the swings...





But quite suddenly, we feel a light shower...





... and eventually, more than a shower...





We hurry back to the car and drive to the farmette, passing the beautiful field of harvested ...maybe  oats? -- with the cranes working their way majestically through the rows of fallen grain.

Snowdrop and I watch for a long while. How can you not love the image of these beautiful birds in the field of summer gold?





At the farmhouse -- dance, Snowdrop! dance to the polka music you've grown so fond of!






And later -- quiet play. Toy foods, beloved babies. You know what she's like.











Once again my daughter and I had planned to attend the Wednesday summer concert on the square tonight and once again it was cancelled because of the weather. As I drive Snowdrop home, the rains pound against the windshield. I am impressed that the little girl is not scared. Is she getting used to it?

A summer day in Wisconsin: 702 spent blooms, fistfuls of mosquitoes, a day of blinding rain.

I wouldn't live anywhere else.

Tuesday

One of these days I will count the number of spent day lilies I snip off each morning. I know the number varies, because today I worked far longer than the day before. Or, I could go out and count the number of open flowers, knowing that tomorrow they'll be filling my bucket and joining their fallen sisters in the compost pile.

This morning is partly sunny and the flower colors are once again brilliant.






The beds are at their finest.






I'm still fighting the mosquitoes, but it's not such an all out attack. And so I take greater care when working the fields. I'm not merely plowing through to get things done and to return safely inside.






New comers to the scene: the false sunflowers.






The pink cosmos is reaching great heights and once again I tell myself that in the future, I should keep to the shorter varieties. The tall stalks tumble without support.






Breakfast is very late.





So late, that at its end, I almost immediately head out to pick up Snowdrop.

(There they are again! Every day, same field, same band of brothers! Well, I suppose they could be a band of sisters, or couples out on a date. You can't really tell crane gender just by staring at them, except for the fact that the males tend to be somewhat taller.)






I pick up a happy girl. Or is she tired? She chooses her seat and waits for her snack...





Revived!

I ask her what next -- playground? Pool? I'm actually not sure what she'll say. It's not exceptionally warm and the skies have clouded over.

She hesitates, but only for a moment: pool!

Here is a rare glimpse of how Snowdrop would look were she not so attached to her sweater (she is changing into her swim stuff).





I remember my one and only baby sitting job: it was a big one -- I was a nanny to a little girl for several summers and the school year in between. My charge would only wear polo shirt dresses. Her family was quite prosperous and her mom was impeccably dressed, as was fitting for her Manhattan Fifth Avenue status. I'm sure she would have liked to see her daughter in something other than a polo shirt dress, but in all the time I lived with them, the girl would look in her closet, pretend to consider other options and then point to that same dress (well, she had several, but they were all basically the same).

I think she outgrew her devotion to that style quickly enough! In the same way, I'm certain that Snowdrop's sweater phase will pass.

In the pool now, happy as a little penguin!





But here's a surprise -- despite the slightly deteriorating weather, the pool is crazy popular today! Bus pull up, kids spill out. Again and again and again.

To me, the noise level alone is enough reason to retreat. Snowdrop feels differently. She makes friends with girls twice her size and though these are not enduring friendships, I see that they are important to her. She is a kid who loves adults and children alike. When she shares in their world, she is happy.

In other words, I have a really hard time getting her to leave.






Still, Snowdrop is not a sulker. We leave, she finds other reasons to be cheerful again.
Ahah, will you play ball with me?





And later...

Gaga, can I play the guitar?





It's too easy to want only this side of Snowdrop: her good cheer is so contagious! You have to remind yourself that you're most valuable to her in those other times -- when she proclaims "I am sad," or when she wants something that she cannot have. With a kid this happy, those opportunities do not present themselves very often. When they do, I always hope that I don't give in to the great desire to fix her mood, rather than listening carefully and figuring out how best to help her muster her own resources to get to a better place.

Later, so much later, after dinner, after a few news programs, Ed and I go out to play tennis. I was tired, he was ambivalent, but we go anyway. Because when we play on those courts hidden in a fragrant pine grove, the world slows down and any vestiges of worry are replaced by a feeling of peace, of time well spent.