Wednesday

Today was to be a day of no obligation. No commitment, no rules, no lists, no schedules. (Unexpectedly, Snowdrop had an activity for the afternoon and so I did not need to pick her up, nor bring her to the farmhouse.)

So you'd think I'd turn this day on its belly and cavort left and right with the freedom that it offered! You'd think I would do something big -- explore the world, take Ed out on a breakfast date (hey, that would be very big!), or read a whole book, or write a whole book! Days with nothing scheduled are so rare -- use it well, use it creatively!

Well, okay, but first I must clip the garden (oh, that counting habit has really stuck: 450 spent lily blooms this morning).





So many colors in an August garden! Is there any color that's missing? Sure -- it's a rare flower bed that will have a true blue in the second half of summer.






You do have to be very careful when you snip spent blooms. For example, if you move fast and your head is covered with mosquito netting, you can very well miss this:





What, you're not seeing it? She blends well into the background, warts and all!

Okay, garden work done! Pots watered! (Yep, from wet weeks, we have moved to a dry week: pots don't like dry weeks.) Lilies cleared!





Breakfast? For the first time since I can remember, Ed is not hungry, not even for fruit. Too much pizza last night!
I'll keep you company -- he offers.

Well fine -- I may as well buck my own trend and eat something that is not oatmeal. It would be cool to have a bakery within spittin' distance, but the closest good croissant is 15 minutes away by car, so I reach for a bread product that is now two days old -- Snowdrop was to have it for snack but hey, it's now available! Heat it for a few secs in the oven, add tasty jam, and with eyes closed, you can pretend it's just baked.





From the porch, looking out... (This is why we linger for such a long time over breakfast!)





Ed has a scheduled lunch meeting and so now is my time to truly soar into new levels of solo adventuring!

Instead, I fill a bucket with soapy water, climb up on the porch roof and scrub the window panes clean.

It so happens that the pollen in the air really clings to glass and despite torrential downpours, our glass roof has a thin coating of plant dust. I'm sure no one would notice or care, but we know it's there and I really do love a sparkly clear glass roof. So I scrub.

On the upside, it takes a mosquito a very long time to discover that there is a human form way up high in the sky and so none reach me until the very end and by that time it's too late -- I've done my work. (In other words, I have a lovely hour working outside without bug interference.)

Too, and more importantly, I get an aerial view of my flower beds. For instance, here's a look at the Great Bed that borders the path to the sheep shed and barn.





This is the time to sing to yourself (not necessarily quietly -- on the roof, the world is yours)! Predictably, I stick with this beautiful old number:

Later, much later, Ed and I zip over to the farm up the road to pick up what will be our August staple:





It's incredible corn! Really, you cannot compare it to the stuff you buy elsewhere. And right now it is at its best -- young, tender and sweet.

The storms that were predicted for this evening moved elsewhere and so Ed is out biking (as is his habit on summer Wednesday evenings). And it strikes me that I ought to bike too! A short but intense loop! Up the scenic rural road, to check on how a favorite prairie is faring.





We live in a beautiful spot. We really do. Every once in a while, Ed asks -- do you want to move somewhere where there are no mosquitoes? He isn't really serious, but were I to waffle, we'd push the thought one step further. Of course, I gasp in horror and remind him that my family is here (which he well knows).

But honestly, we do love our small corner of the planet. We wish there weren't the mosquitoes -- this is true. But we cope and wiggle our way around them. Bugs are everywhere. We've had tremendous mosquito encounters in Canadian Rockies, in New York's Adirondacks, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. And if it's not mosquitoes, then I'll find other reasons why one place is less perfect than another.

But forget the bugs. Look instead at what else this place has to offer each and every day: beauty, peace, seasonal change. And family nearby. Pretty close to ideal, don't you think?

Tuesday

What changes when July morphs into August? Little stuff: the garden shifts to a deeper set of colors, but with fewer blooms. I walk with snippers to take out not only spent flower heads, but also stalks that in many places are completely bare now.

Still, the garden feels luxurious.





And I'm certainly not at the end of the lily run. 481 snipped blooms this morning!





What else changes? The light is still intense and if the days are shorter, I don't notice it. I'm working outside a tad later this morning and I feel the heat of that August sunshine.

(Scotch, I liked you a heck of a lot more before you upped your pecking of poor Henny, who hides from you all the time now...)






Breakfast, on the porch, but also in the company of a skype visit with Ed's colleague and friend (there is a computer on the table...)






And shortly after, I'm off to pick up Snowdrop...






There is no doubt that today is a great day for the pool.





It remains reasonably calm, which surprises me no end! Does August mean that the summer programs are finished and the buses are no longer bringing hordes of energetic kids this way?


At the farmette now, Snowdrop appears to have forgotten about her sweater and I smile to myself as she continues to play, oblivious of her "bare arms."





(Ha! No sweater!)






... until she remembers. Ah well -- small steps!


I try to rush things a bit today because we have important plans! For me, the first of August will always stand for a birthday -- my older daughter is 36 today.

Thirty-six?! I remember when she was just short of three (we were in England for the summer, I was pregnant with her younger sister) -- in other words, close to Snowdrop's age!






Oh! Let's compare two pool shots: one of Snowdrop, from today, the other of her mommy, 33 years ago at a bed and breakfast pool in York (where the temps were... nippy!).











For Snowdrop, it's mommy's birthday. So... special mommy time is in order....






And then we all go out for dinner. (Ed and I, on his motorbike -- a chance for a selfie once we get off!)






Snowdrop is a bit wired tonight. But why should we be surprised? She's had a packed day once more and she is terribly hungry for a good meal.





Here's a group shot...






And a quieter moment...





Another month, another birthday, another beautiful summer day. Tomorrow, I am slowing down considerably, because after that -- well, the month is one huge whirligig of happenings!

Monday

Life isn't linear and neither is the evolution of a garden. There will be surprises in both, life and garden.

One surprise this morning is that there seems to be a lot to do outside. Picking spent lilies, I'm counting and the numbers seem high.  (Total for today: 586.)

Never mind -- everything's so beautiful right now: the lilies are mingling with the rest and it is such a happy camaraderie!





(The cheepers always keep me company for all my morning tasks. Well, two of them do. Henny is still hiding out in the coop. Possibly she is terrified of Scotch, but, too, she is brooding, believing that becoming a mommy will do away with all her problems with acceptance and inclusion.)






(The Great Bed, still strong, even if it is the last day of July...)






(The front bed, dainty and playful...)






Breakfast.






View to the yard from our table on the porch...






And very quickly it's noon and I'm scurrying to the bakery to pick up croissants (for Snowdrop) and cookies (for Ed) and now I am at the little girl's school.

She wears that look of a girl who was let down by a friend. And she was. Oh, to you and me, it's a nonevent, right? Snowdrop walked out with a tiny, really tiny sticker of a bird with a big yellow beak. A classmate, leaving at the same time, reached over to try to pull the sticker from Snowdrop's hand. Snowdrop uttered several words of surprise, but the girl persisted. The mother finally suggested that it might be Snowdrop's turn to play with said sticker. The girl eventually gave up her grip, but the teeny sticker was damaged. Snowdrop's face here expresses her disappointment.





And now I remember what it's like to care deeply about the way kids treat each other out there on the playground of life. It's not that I think kids are born knowing how to do right by their friends. But if you witness something that you don't think is a good move on the part of your kid, why wouldn't you use this as a teaching opportunity? Why wouldn't you intervene and express dismay?

Oh, I know: it's just a (ripped now) sticker. I've heard the arguments: let the kids work it out. And they will. But I have to say, if I ever saw Snowdrop (or decades earlier my daughters) grab and destroy something precious belonging to another, I would be appalled.

I am so old school in this.

(Snowdrop, at the cafe, contemplating life...)






(She has a snack. She rebounds.)





Snowdrop has had a very busy weekend and she is visibly tired. But the pool gloriously revives her.





(She asks to wear her water shoes in the pool. Sure, little one!)






Her vim and vigor are restored.






Later, we drive back to the farmhouse. I tell the little one that the fields are now mostly harvested and stacked into bales of hay. I haven't seen any sandhill cranes this morning. Perhaps they've moved on?

Snowdrop doesn't buy it. Kids have eternal hope and this girl's no different.

And today, she is rewarded: at least two of the graceful birds have returned.






At the farmhouse. Snowdrop has had such a long day, but she is driven to her babies nonetheless. Ice cream for everyone!





(Feelings of mommy love...)





You rarely see that serious look of duty and responsibility on this two year old's face. I'm thinking -- it's so easy just to relish in Snowdrop smiles. But honestly, don't you want your charge to live through her woes and tribulations on your time, so that you can guide her to a better place? Out of deep waters and onto safer terrain?

And the summer sun keeps on shining and the flowers keep on blooming...

Sunday

Every photographer I know prefers the early or late hours for picture taking. By the time the summer sun is nearing its noon zenith, the light is too strong, too full of contrast. The subtlety has gone out the door.

My garden work was later than on a typical day and so I really was a reluctant picture taker today. And still, as always, I am pleasantly surprised. Enchanted actually! The day is brilliant, the lilies are not ready to give up (I pick 431 spent ones today), the patterns of shade and light are audacious and  lovely!






This indeed is summer!






The Great Bed has a back row of flowers that you rarely see here, as they're snuggle behind the tall monardas. Let's poke in and take a look: you can tell that we're on the final blooms. Each stalk has many snipped off buds.






The front road bed moves between shade and light as the sun sweeps a grand arc to the south, occasionally disappearing behind tall maple branches. These gorgeous lilies too are near their final days.





Though my work now is mostly with lilies, I see that they're sharing quite a bit of space with the phloxes and sunflowers. Once we figured out how to successfully stake the tallest plants (the mock sunflowers), they've come to require no work during the bloom period, though they'll benefit from a pruning job when the flowers are past their prime.






Breakfast is very late. But very luxurious, as we both are done with our outdoor work! [Ed has taken on the task of managing the japanese beetle population. He has set up traps in the new orchard and by the grapes and each day he empties them and disposes of the thousands of bugs that accumulate there. It's not a fun job, but he is hoping to save the grapes and eventually make a dent in the beetle swell at the farmette.]






As for our afternoon -- I don't know where the hours disappeared. Truly, I do not know. Finishing the farmhouse cleaning -- sure, a little of that. And eventually I begin dinner preparations -- yes, of course. But I feel the day moved far too quickly from afternoon to evening. Sundays have that uncanny habit of speeding up the clock on me.

Dinner is for a slightly larger crowd and once more, there is a lot of "local" on the table. Okay, the shrimp -- they're not Wisconsin. But the tomatoes and basil that accompany them are! As is, of course, the corn. And the arugula and lettuces. Dessert, too is every bit our own: sour cherry frozen yogurt. (And the cream in the chocolate sauce is definitely from our state's dairy herds!)

But we begin our meal with my nod still to Parma. I make fried bread pockets for the prosciutto, I bring out the Aperol and Prosecco for our summer spritzes. Olives, cheese -- yes, Wisconsin cheese, but I'm feeling like one foot of my meal preparation is still dangling in Parma's kitchens.






Snowdrop climbs up on a high stool and participates. Olives? yum! Fried bread and prosciutto? Is there more??






And cheese. Ahah shares.






As I work on dinner, my daughter takes out an album of photos that I took when she was just Snowdrop's age. Such a lovely set of memories, recalled now on this summer evening, with glasses of iced spritzes at the side...






Dinner. Always a happy event!






And the girl today is hungry!






But we all leave room for the sour cherry ice cream. It's just so good and so evocative of a Wisconsin summer out by the great Lake Michigan, where most of the cherries grow.











Can I have more of the chocolate sauce?
The girl knows the good combinations in life!






The night is cool and beautiful. Full of fireflies and stars. Twinkling, winking at us, reminding me and you that summer always does come around, delivering its singular joys.