Thursday

I got a message from Aggie, the asparagus farmer who comes to our local farmers market each Thursday. The market starts its season today, but she wont be there. It's been too chilly -- she writes. There is no asparagus.

We weren't supposed to get a day of rain, but we got one anyway. The kittens came around asking for food...




... and I have to juggle their demands with the arrival of their mother who is feeding another litter of young ones who knows where. She is not on great terms with her two winter kittens (she hisses at them when they come near, curious to see what she is eating). Possibly she is protecting the next generation. Or, she knows they are more limber than she is. Or, cats grow out of love over time.

Breakfast.





I have a list of outdoor projects to attend to, but I do very little. I wait for the rain to stop. And wait.

And wait.



Okay. The drizzle is almost imperceptible. Ed, let's go to the Flower Factory. I need some calamintha plants and I'm afraid they'll sell out.

I'm not really afraid they'll sell out. I'm sure their traffic is low right now. You don't think about planting when it's drizzly and just 50f (10c) outside. But staying home and waiting for the weather to improve is like standing in the path of a glacier and waiting for it to melt. It's not gonna happen before your eyes. So we head out.

Predictably, there aren't many people shopping for perennials today. In all the decades I've been coming here, it's never been so cold and, well, as the weatherperson described it on our local station -- gloomy. We have had a week of gloomy weather.





Still, walking through the greenhouse, it's easy to get inspired. The weather will change. The flowers will keep on growing.

We pull our wagon of plants to the checkout hut. Thank you for coming today. Just don't plant these immediately. The soil should dry out a little.

Yes, we should all dry out a little.


I pick up a Snowdrop who is deeply asleep at her going home time. The girl who hasn't napped at home for years has been dozing off daily in school in recent months. And that's a good thing, even as she is a tough one to get moving after a nap.






At the farmhouse, a snack and a book revive her. She is full of play!






(She is at work in a store full of blankets. Can I buy one? They're not for sale, gaga.)






In the last half hour, I read her a book that she'd resisted for a while now. And of course she loves it.






Totally. From its plot, she spins her own story.






In the evening, the drizzle stops. You can see a distant break in the clouds. The air is fresh, wiped clean, ready for a fresh start.

Wednesday

Better, but not good enough! (Yes, still groaning about the weather here, in the Upper Midwest!) Cool and gray beats cold and wet, but still, I'm not rushing to go out and work that land.

(the uneaten tulips are hanging in there! just one day of sunshine and they will explode!)






We eat breakfast in the kitchen. It seems we are always eating breakfast in the kitchen. Same food, same kitchen.






Not that I should mind: a warm room is such a wonderfully seductive thing. You drink your frothy coffee, you catch up on your reading. Or ticket buying. Yes, travel is in the air. Not this month, but next month. It's complicated, exciting and it requires preparation.

And eventually, Ed will look up from his computer and say -- we really should do some work outside...

(God, it's hard to work the soil with Tomato around: she needs to check out every bit of dirt for worms. Happy, he just crows. loudly.)






I pick up an excited Snowdrop. She is full of good stories from the day, but the one that really strikes a chord is her recount of May Day celebrations (no, it was not about the international labor movement, it was about giving May baskets to friends).

The first of May.... I'd been so preoccupied with the end of April, that I did not give a proper nod to the coming of May. My mom reminded me that it would often be cold in Poland on May 1st, but those are never my memories of this date. When I think about the first day of May these days, I think of planting gardens and sunshine. Indeed, of May baskets and folk songs. Of apple blossoms and lilac.

Our crab apple isn't quite blooming and the lilac has a good week or two to go, but he juices are flowing: the plants gaining strength, growing tall, getting ready to show off their strong colors. (Sort of like little Snowdrop, don't you think?)






It's dance day for the little one and so we (try to) hurry.






Phew! Only 30 secs late!










Dance! ...With the coming of May.

Tuesday

No one from Wisconsin will be sorry to see April shuffle off to Buffalo (or wherever these dismal temperatures travel after they're done with our state). It really is terribly cold for mid-spring. It is mid-spring, you know. My calendar tells me so, even if we are a full twenty degrees below the average reading for this day.

My garden work is on hold. You just can't get excited about working on a bed in wraps and jackets that are more common to winter than to this season. I'm back to doing not much of anything in the morning (as recommended by the Dutch, who call it niksen according to this article in the NY Times). This is supposed to stir my creative juices, but I'm sure niksen as practiced, say on a porch, looking out to a sunny day, stirs many more juices than niksen done on a day like today, where nothing creative can happen, because everything within me is on hold.

In doing nothing and not being creative, I pick up a catalogue of one of my favorite flower retailers. I remember typing in a small order in the middle of February. It was really cold then! I thought April would never come. But wait. Where is my order? I look it up on line. Damn! Did I neglect to submit it? It's funny how sometimes you click "send" and then you regret your impulsive move. This was quite the opposite: I regret sitting on it. Because the trouble with sitting is that you sometimes doze off and miss the boat.

In continuing to do nothing, I think about how by late April, I always would have made at least one trip to our own Flower Factory for replacement plants (there will have been some winter attrition in my garden for sure). This wonderful flower grower always opens right around my birthday. This year, the weather just hasn't been right for it. We need a warm spell, that's for sure.

(The cheepers would agree.)






(The late tulips are always spared from an attack by our resident tulip eaters. They should bloom in the first days of May. That would be this week! I'm hoping!)






Breakfast, in the kitchen and rather hurried because Ed has an appointment.






My total doing nothing time lasts about an hour. Was it worth it? Yes, I think so. I like letting the mind wander a bit. The Dutch are onto something!


In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop. Someday, I'll tell her how important it is to do nothing every now and then. Today though, we're busy. Lego castle-lette building time!






In the evening, there are parent-teacher conferences and so the young family is here with pizzas for dinner...

(Snowdrop kills time waiting for her food by playing with finger puppets)






(Ed sort of plays along.)






(Sparrow -- totally happy to be sharing a meal with his sister...)











And so ends April. It's always a rocky happy stunningly bumpy ride into the warm half of the year. But it's green. It's fresh. It's colorful. It's full of hope.

Monday

I think many people go easy on themselves as they get older. There's this running theme I hear often: "I don't care what others think anymore. I will wear what I want, say what I think, do what is right for me."

I'm much more torn about all of that. And I do think that the older I get, the less forgiving I am of mistakes I make. It's as if in younger years I could always say "I'm learning," whereas now, I think -- "how many lessons do I need already!"

A small reminder of this was an incident from last night. Snowdrop and I were playing a spirited game of school. We were taking pretend naps and she was charged with waking me up. She let out a high pitched squeal. We laughed our heads off. I went down for another nap. Her second squeal was even more high pitched, so much so, that I immediately hushed her -- you'll hurt everyone's ears with that loud noise! -- words that came out of my mouth without much thought to how she would hear them. (Snowdrop is very concerned about doing well by others, Perhaps too concerned -- I ask her teacher. She laughs: it's easier to scale back than to open a child's eyes to hurt!)

You could have seen Snowdrop's face deflate last night, like a balloon that suddenly lost all its air. She retreated to another room, shoulders slumped.
What's wrong?
I was not polite or kind. I hurt people's ears.
Not even a hug, not a laugh, not a smile, not a cuddle could bring that spark back into her little soul. We finally settled into a quiet game of writing books. She left happy, but this Gogs was left thinking -- talk about mixed messages! I play her game, I laugh with her, and then I shut her down. Oh, sure, she was loud. But there were a million ways to let her know that without wilting her little spirit. I should have done better.

It's not only with kids. The other day, I let out an exasperated comment to Ed about tracking mud into the mudroom. I mean, you can't help doing it. We have mud, soggy wood chips, rotted leaves everywhere. You can wipe your shoes silly, but you're always going to be bringing in stuff from the outside. Ed pointed out -- in one sentence, you managed to complain about someone being critical and then firing off a criticism yourself.

He was so right. I should have done better.

If you haven't grown wiser in your dealings with other people by the time you're 66, you may as well give it up. You can go on being the person who says the first thing that comes into her head...

But in the alternative, you can be more careful.

I'm going to stick with the "more careful."

I write all this because it's one of those days when your attention is on details of the home and soul rather than on the garden and the outside world. It's cold and wet and it will remain cold and wet until April is over and done with.

Because it's Monday, Sparrow is here with us. Breakfast actually starts with just Ed...






... then, as the big guy shuffles off to a work meeting and the little guy sits down to eat his meal. He's all set, pouch and spoon, ready to go!






Our timed release "selfie:"






His charming play...






A guy who has been everywhere, seen it all...






He studies the book ever so carefully. I tell him it reads a lot better right side up. He's skeptical.






Twice, with Ed...











Lunch with purple carrots...






We never make it outside. Not until it's time for me to pick up Snowdrop. And the girl, unsurprisingly, has no intention of spending even a minute outdoors.






I had wondered if she would find the new gate, segregating safe toys from unsafe ones for toddlers objectionable. Turns out she regards it as an opportunity for more stories: today, we play "next door neighbors." I stay in my "toddler space." She is in her "big girl space."






Ha! All the good stuff slowly migrates to the "big girl space."






Our final game is straight out of Mary Poppins (the movie): she's flying a kite of course.





And then she goes home.

The evening is cool. Not freezing, but cool. Still, our kitties aren't going to be house bound. The garage is their base, but they are no longer happy just to sit on the blanket and watch the world go by.






As the sun peeks out for a fleeting few minutes, so do I. It's wet. It's cold. But it's unmistakably spring.






Ridiculous, beautiful spring.

Sunday

We woke to a sunny, but brittle morning. The wet clumps of snow had frozen around fragile blooms. Predictably, the delicate daffodils were not happy. (The rest of the farmette stuff survived.)






If you are not a gardener, I suppose you may even find it kind of pretty: snow and the fresh green of spring -- it's not an unattractive mix, especially on a sunny day.






(the tips of the willow, iced over...)






But I'm mourning the loss of all those tall yellow girls. Having grown to their full height, they just couldn't take the heavy snow-turned ice. Ah well, it could have been so much worse.






Breakfast, definitely indoors.






We don't immediately go outside. It's a little cool and I have a lot of farmhouse cleaning to attend to. I want to wash all the kitchen windows (there are many!) and scrub out the entire mudroom, in addition to the usual weekly house cleaning stuff. In the meantime, Ed occupies himself with creating support stands for my peonies. He's trying out a new design -- its most important attribute is that it is made from scraps. We have a number of peonies and though I know many gardeners don't mind if they fall to the ground, most (though not all) of ours look better in an upright position.

What feels really good is to take the flower pots outside again. They're big, heavy and numerous, but it really is an act of joy to set them out again -- this time for good. We anticipate no more big dips in temperatures!






In the evening, my daughter comes with her two kids for dinner (dad is otherwise occupied). There is a lot of play and some modest amount of good food. Let's run through just a handful of pics that well describe the evening.


























The day ends ever so calmly. No frantic worries about plants or blooming flowers. No constant refresh on the weather website. Calm. With a smile for all that's ahead.