the week of people

You have to admit -- Ed and I lead pretty quiet (one could almost say reclusive) lives. We can go for days without having adult conversations with people other than ourselves. Yes, there are Sunday dinners. And there are always kids at the farmhouse. But as compared to others, I'd say we're pretty tame when it comes to socializing. We love our close friends, but for reasons of geography and circumstance, we just don't see them very often.

The week before us (starting this evening!) marks a departure from this. There will be people, grownup people, with whom we'll eat meals every day. There will be family. There will be friends of family. There will be friends who are almost like family.

I have wanted to get ready in slow increments, but life kept getting in my way. Too, Ed is the original pokey puppy when it comes to ticking off tasks in preparation for gatherings. And so, much of our efforts got pushed back until this day. And as a result, things got a bit hectic.

"Ed, the microwaves have to go!" "Yes gorgeous."

These are the kind of conversations we have been having all day long.

Of course, I do get up early and I do snip spent lilies, and I count them once more, just to see where I am at with these flower beds. I am shocked that I come in at 1025. Not a record, but close to the high of a few days back. Yes, it's been quite the lily workout for me this year!

Three garden photos!
















Breakfast. Goofy guy.






View out the porch...





And then I'm off to grocery shop for the week. (It takes forever. You have no idea how much time I spend in the produce section alone!)

By the time I come home, unpack, and put away foods, I have only a second, to gulp down a coffee, and then I spring right back into the car to pick up Snowdrop.

She is excited. She has something for me! It's a secret.

Finally, revealed: a couple of not yet ripe blueberries...
Should we let them ripen on the window?
No, they're yummy!






At the farmette, she tells me -- today, I want to follow the path to the meadow.

She says this because yesterday, when I had wanted to show her the newly mowed path through the young orchard, all the way to the blueberries, she had said -- "no, I like the path to your house best." But on this day she is adventurous.

Walk with us!












... all the way to blueberries. Call it a blueberry Friday!






... and back again.











One last book in this week of Katie Morag books.







Evening. The light always hits the back of the bed...





It grows dark. Fireflies do their stuff. And later, so very close to midnight, the young family arrives.

Thursday

You should never plan a kitchen with a built-in microwave. Never. Someday, your microwave will cease functioning and even Ed wont be able to fix it. The model will no longer be available, so the bracket and space for it cannot be re-used. Finding another model to fit will be impossible. And so you're stuck.

Just sayin'.

After living for nearly a year with a gaping hole over the stove and the sheep shed's funky little black microwave taking up counter space by the stove, I finally pressed my easy goin' guy for a resolution, in time for the weekend. As a result, we have a dismembered huge microwave in the sun room, a rejected new microwave from Home Depot in the mudroom, Ed's funky black thing on the counter, and a new little microwave that somehow will be suspended from the cabinet resting on the kitchen table for now.

If I wanted this day to be one where the farmhouse tidying project was near an end, well, I would be disappointed.

Still, the sun is out, the lilies are blooming, the mosquitoes are reasonable. I spend several hours in the morning tending the gardens.
 




















(The wee kittens, figuring out where all that delicious cat food comes from...)






Breakfast.






By afternoon, the microwave situation hasn't really progressed and so I take out the small mower and trim the front yard and then the young orchard, wanting it to look presentable for the weekend.

And then I pick up Snowdrop.

(Leaving school...)






(At the farmette...)






(Home drop off; I stumble across Sparrow!)






(A warm greeting...)





By nightfall, a tiny microwave is installed. The kitchen feels light and airy once more. There's tidying to be done, but I see that wee light at the end of the tunnel. We are on our way to an ordered and neat farmhouse for the weekend

Wednesday

No counting today. Once you've tallied over a thousand spent lilies in one day, you have had enough of running figures in your head. Counting takes away some of the zen from the moment. Best to simply snip and study the flowers left behind (and maybe listen to the smart phone streaming in your t-shirt pocket).

I'm still very much focused on the garden -- how can I not be? Its beauty is very real. But I understand that I've coached it through its toughest moments. Perfection is no longer the goal. Appreciating any and every pocket of color is enough.











(The cheepers, running to see what cat food still remains in the dishes...)






A rarely displayed flower bed to the west of the porch.






Lilies everywhere...






Breakfast.






The Big Bed once more, keeping in mind that each day, it is different.






In the afternoon, as Snowdrop and I drive home from her school, I spot cranes just across the road from us. I'm not surprised. We hear them nearly every day.






As we walk to the house, she asks if she can pick a flower. I don't know why she loves doing it. Perhaps because I usually say no. (This time, she got a yes out of me...)






(A new Katie Morag book!)





If it's Wednesday, it must be dance class day. As I wait for the class to be over, Snowdrop's mommy shows up, along with Sparrow, and also her friend whom she has known for years and years and who is visiting right now.






Snowdrop is dancing a Snow White story. I swear I've seen her in this costume before, but if she has had it, she makes no mention of it. 






She is tickled to see all of us at the end of class.






Evening. Perfect light, perfect cool breezes.





Such a joyous, color-filled summer! Only no more counting spent lilies. I get tired at the mere thought of it.

after the peak comes the real summit

It reminds me of our trip to Snowdon Mountain last month: you thought you were taking the little mountain rail up to the summit, but technically, that is not correct. Once you disembarked, there was a short climb to the real tip of the mountain.

I may have thought that yesterday was the high point for spent lily collection. I had broken last year's record by another 100 plus lilies. At 876, I was sure that I would climb no further. But this morning, I collected a whopping 1,050 finished lily blooms.

Of course, this reflect on the glory of yesterday. Today's heaping buckets of wilted flowers are yesterday's eye candy. Still, one can debate whether the garden's glory peaked yesterday or on this day.

Or, you could dispense with the debate and simply enjoy what's before you. There was a lot to enjoy this morning!

Still, picking off 1,050 flowers takes time (two hours to be exact). I had a mid morning appointment today and so the morning a little bit ran away from me, not helped by the fact that my coffee machine has decided (true, after giving me more than 5000 great cups of espresso) to show its age and Ed spent not a small amount of time trying to convince me to replace it with the rock bottom priced machine, one where some reviewers claimed that drinking its coffee was akin to pouring milk into a cup of warm, dirty water and calling it a cappuccino.
Why don't you give it a try -- he would say. Then, upping the ante -- I'll tell you what: I'll buy you the cheapest machine. If you want your more expensive one (the difference is about $40) -- you pay for it. (In all fairness, Ed does not drink coffee.)

It took me many hours of thought before I make a decision on that one.

But don't let all this distract us from the task at hand, which is to admire the glorious farmette's secret garden. (It is secret: few people see it. Cats, bats, swallows and the occasional groundhog, rabbit, or deer, but not a whole lot of people.)


Little frog...






Big frog...






Big Bed...






Little bed (by the parked cars)...






Front bed...






Hey, Happy! What are you doing here??






close up: Persian Market lilies...






Lily bed...






Finally, breakfast:







In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop.

I ask her if she'd been attacked by a vampire (note bandaid at the throat).





Oh, no, gaga. I just had a mosquito bite because we forgot to use bug spray.
Maybe you don't need the bandaid anymore?
I do! It's not dangling yet. You take off the bandaid when it dangles.

She gets distracted by the flowers growing by her school. Queen Ann's Lace is an invasive and an attentive gardener would have ripped it out of the flower bed, but honestly, it is a very pretty weed and Snowdrop hits it on the head when she exclaims -- it smells like honey! (It's our code name for sweet smelling flowers, like, for example, alyssum.)






Arriving at the farmette -- Java, I have nothing for you! See?






The run to the front door...






At home -- Katie Morag, day 2! We read the book three, maybe four times.











There's so much to talk about after each reading! And after we're done, we recreate the characters and spin new stories on our own.







Evening. There's a bit of a scheduling snafu and as a result, I am left scrambling to come up with a dinner for myself. That's never really a problem at the farmette: we have too many eggs and at this time of the year, there are always veggies and lettuces in the fridge.

I take my dinner to the porch. Ed is biking tonight -- what a gorgeous evening for it!






I read my book, occasionally peaking out on the flower beds.





You're beautiful! -- I want to say to them. But... just so you know, I'm okay with cutting back on lily clipping tomorrow. I'll love you anyway, even in a smaller incarnation!