Saturday - 29th

We are two people, stuck in a very normal day, with very abnormal thoughts and conversations. I mean, everything about this Saturday is wonderfully predictable! There is morning sunshine...






I clean the farmhouse, we eat breakfast in a leisurely way...






Call it any-Saturday.

The weather stays pleasantly hospitable to garden work and so I spend the morning digging in the new path. As always, the cheepers get in my way. As always, I curse them, but they know and I know that I don't really mean it.






Ed works on clearing honey suckle at the periphery of the farmette lands. He's kept it nicely under control. Without that effort, much of the uncultivated land would be lost to this invasive shrub.

And still, we're spinning on a different orbit. From the minute we wake up, our thoughts go to the news of the day. We read different articles and share information. We talk about our supplies -- what should be replenished this week and how this should happen. I use different words to express normal concerns: it's not "oh, I should check in with the dentist this week," but rather "oh, I will do anything to avoid having to check in with the dentist this week."

As always, Ed will be on Zoom chats or email exchanges with the machining company that's working hard to stay afloat, despite the fact that most everyone is working from home. Me, I dig, clean, weed, cook.

In hard work, there is relief. Sometimes you can forget about the news of the day. Your thoughts stray to roots you're pulling up (what the heck are these?) and to planting schemes and diagrams (can I maybe fit in a new day lily here?).

Inevitably though, the uniqueness of this planting season creeps in. In other years I'd be planning a visit to the Flower Factory -- my go-to perennial supplier that has been filling my flower beds for over thirty years. It is in fact in its last year of business. The owners wanted to retire this fall. As a parting gift they have this sudden chaos. Selling and buying flowers has never been harder.






Too, in normal times, I fill flower tubs with annuals in April. Purchased from a local nursery. Ed suggested I use seeds this year, but this would put me severely behind. To have flowers by mid spring, seeds should have been planted indoors in February. We haven't done that, nor do we have the proper light for this. Old lamps are already in use to help our tomatoes do their thing.





And still, it's such a normal day! In the afternoon, I collect every ancient packet of flower seeds (Ed never throws out half used packets) and I take them to last year's tomato bed. The thought is to dump them there and see what happens. But I hadn't expected the old bed to be overgrown with dandelions and creeping charlie. The cheepers and I spend a productive hour (or two) digging up stuff, even as the clouds have long taken over our once blue skies and I swear there is an occasional gust of rain falling on us all.

It's your classic super productive gardening day! How I love spring... The fresh starts, the energy, the magical infusion of color...  I scrub my hands, for once because they're dirty, visibly dirty as opposed to secretly covered with evil stuff, I think how a bit of luck could be of use to a lot of people these days.

Dinner? Well, not especially exciting. I have a half a bag of shrimp, I have some frozen veggies. Together, along with some fish sauce, soy sauce and maybe a splatter of something else and a shake of a spice, they will make a fine stir fry.

A quiet evening. Just like always! How I hope it is that way for you as well...

With love.

Friday - 28th

I think you'll admit that even after a prolonged period of distancing, or, as in our case -- isolation, nothing about it seems normal. The mind resists accepting the new reality because it just does not fit into the framework of who we are.

It's not just the distancing, the cutting off of physical contact with family, friends. It's the fact that if we do leave our homes, we do it with anxiety. It's a bizarre way to live: on the one hand, there is this internal push to want to be out, to be spending time with our children and grandchildren, to be pausing at a coffee shop, taking in the activity all around us. On the other hand, only at home do you feel yourself to be out of danger. Push to be engaged, hastily stifled by a need to stay safe.

Weird. So weird that I am not surprised to read that people are analogizing all this to feeling sick all the time, even when there is nothing physically wrong with them.

For us of course, the days are far less stressful than for those who have to go out and engage the world for whatever reason (at the same time, because of our demographic, that venture out, should it be needed, has heightened anxiety). We stay at the farmette, moving now only down that long corridor leading to my daughter's home, to return a child or two.

It is, of course, a good season to be stuck at the farmette. Spring time is crazy busy planting time. And there is never a shortage of maintenance work. Weeding, for example. Today, I do a lot of weeding.

But first, animals and breakfast. In that order.






Ed takes up the project of fixing the water faucet outside. I work the flower beds, getting them ready for new plantings. It's a very pretty day, albeit cool.






Still, I want to get things done. Next week is going to be downright cold! Unforgivably so! Right now, we're just enjoying the emerging daffodils.






It will be a while before anything else dares to pop out with a blooming face!

I take a brief pause to have lunch with Primrose. She is in Chicago of course, but still, there's lots you can do over lunch with a two year old. And the more you do it over time, the sweeter it gets. It's no secret that a two year old will love repetition. And she wont disclose your goofiness to anyone: you, going on a snake hunt, for instance, will be just between you and her.
 

Afterwards, Ed and I embark on another gardening project. I say "Ed and I," even as my contribution consists of giving approval and figuring placement.  It has to do with trying to squeeze in a gardener's path within the Big Bed. Since we dug out the hydrangea in the middle, I figured this would be a good time to reconfigure the bed a little. A snaky path through the middle would be lovely -- for the kids, for me. I always retain great optimism for new garden designs in spring. By late summer, I throw up my hands, but right now, I'm thinking -- it's all doable!

We toss around ideas for it. Stones? No, don't have nearly enough. Wood chips? Not good either. The path would merge with the beds. This afternoon, Ed proposes flat discs of wood, sawed from some of the trunks he'd cut down last year.





We'll try it!

Also in the afternoon, Snowdrop is with us. We spend a little time outside, digging worms for the cheepers and admiring the daffodils...






But the cool air was a bit much. My hands are cold! -- she tells me.






In we go. Fresh air makes for a voracious appetite. Bowls of mango, oranges, and of course, Ed's cookies.
Ahah, you make the best dough ever! 
Suck up! -- he says, with a smile.







And in the evening? Reheated chili! I admit it -- one of the best things about cooking up a pot of chili is that it offers copious leftovers!

Afterwards, we're out again, working on laying the newly sawed disks into place. Dusk is a beautiful time at the farmette. It's the moment when you let go of the tightness in your soul. Your thoughts inevitably will stray to those who have to live with worry 24/7. Those who deliver our foods, those who rush us to get the care we need, caregivers of course -- so many people!

There isn't a good way to say thank you. Except perhaps to say it again and again and again.

With love.

Thursday - 27th

Today I thought about my repeat travels to the Isle of Islay in Scotland. For a while, I went every year. Always in June, when the days there were so beautifully long. I stopped returning because it took too long to get there and for many many reasons, I no longer wanted to be away from the farmette for extended periods of time. Too, I had always traveled to Islay alone and after the nth time, I reversed my thinking about it. Islay, I became convinced, was better shared. The hikes, the drams of Islay whiskey, the loveliness of island people -- they made me wistful for a companion.

Still, I often go back to Islay. In my mind. I think about the sweet little shop where I would look for Scottish books for the kids and scarves made at the local mill, and pottery from any number of the Scottish islands. About the smoked salmon with eggs for breakfast. And about my hosts in the village of Bowmore. Over breakfast, inevitably everyone talked about the weather. Old timers would laugh at the visitors who sought predictability. The saying was -- in Islay, you can have all four seasons in one day.

This afternoon, here in south central Wisconsin, I thought that we, too, had all four seasons in one day.

Don't be fooled by the prettiness of the morning.






It doesn't last.

Or does it? Maybe the beauty of this day is in its race through so many weather patterns! Sunshine, rain, gusty winds, snow, more sunshine, dappled skies -- as beautiful as Islay on a June day.






But let me roll it all back to... breakfast.






We hurried. The kids were on the way!

Snowdrop bounces these days between her usual effervescence and a quieter, more contemplative mood. But today, both kids were upbeat, liking to play next to each other -- she, losing herself in her stories, he, having his favorite characters do more simple tasks like walking up and down stairs, or sitting themselves in a row in strange places.











A request was put in for a lunch of mouse pancakes. Fine with me.











And soon after lunch, the little ones return home and Ed and I set out on what is to be our last hike in the county park. Why last? Well, our local park is actually also part of the state park system and today our governor issued an order shutting down state parks, including the one just down the road from us. (Vandalism, trash, excessive congregation -- the usual stuff that reveals how undisciplined we can be even in times of acute crisis.) For the next few weeks, we'll have to turn our attentions elsewhere. But for now -- our favorite local walk! In the craziness of a four-seasons' day!







(windy!)











Much like the weather, our afternoon feels like a silly putty ball that's bouncing about in all directions. There's the hike. Then I put in some time weeding the big flower bed. And there is some mom troubleshooting time (problem solved! another pops up!). And here's Ed, baking again. "I'm going to use less butter and substitute it with yogurt!" Go for it.


 



And some computer time. People write. I love hearing from them. I write back. Time well spent.

And suddenly it's evening. Can you believe how bright it is at 6?


 


It seems wrong to be cooking up a wintry meal in April, but here I am, cutting up half-defrosted tomatoes and stirring them up with the usual sautee of onion and garlic, with added beans and chicken meat (yep! sausages, torn apart) and of course -- spices. A farmhouse chili that never grows old around here.

No day should pass right now without a grateful note of humble thanks to all those who are not sheltered in place, because their work demands that they be out there, taking care of you and me. So -- thank you.

With love.

Wednesday - 26th

How fantastic it is to log in a full night's sleep! Totally wonderful!

But, the morning is spent on CoVid related business. Meaning, none of it would have been on my plate were it not for the pandemic. (Lots of mom stuff, lots of washing of groceries, lots of thinking about how to help the young parents.) Still, you know, I'm not working. I can do this. I'm not the one who has to fit it all into an already crazy life.

It's warm and there is a threat of rain. I almost hate to admit it, but it feels beautiful outside! Even though we are still days away from a green landscape. But it's getting there!
















Breakfast.






And in the afternoon, in between bouts of rain showers, Snowdrop comes over to the farmhouse. (Reminder: her family has been as isolated as we are.)






We read, of course. That's a given. She loves it, I love it. But then she asks to play with her doll house and characters. She's long given them identities -- a mixture from Moana (her beloved movie), Mary Poppins, and Katie Morag (a Scottish series of books that remain at the top of her heap). She acts out stories with them and she desperately wants a play partner. Me.






This is easy enough to sustain for a little while, but you try to fit the role of a five-year-old's playmate for long. It's tough. And yet, this is what's missing from her days -- kid play, with other kids. And so I become a kid for as long as I can.


Evening. Clouds, but no rain. They're hiding yesterday's super moon and tomorrow's sunshine. I cook up a frittata once more. The spinach deliveries have stopped. Our farmers are going into isolation until fall. They feel they can't keep their workers or themselves safe. In the meantime, they will be donating their extra food (beyond their own family needs) to food banks. So I reach for frozen broccoli and frozen mushrooms. Yes! You can freeze mushrooms! Who knew? A few kernels of corn, some leftover onion. Cheese lots of cheese.

The air cools down. But not too cold. Somewhere in the mess of this month, we lost all ties to winter. We are moving forward! Yep, moving forward. And however tough it may seem, think about how much tougher is for so many others.

With love.

Tuesday - 25th

Well that was some night! I feel like I have just crossed the Atlantic on an overnight flight. (Not more than an hour's sleep. At best.) Or maybe like I was the old grandma standing in line for a coveted grocery item in post-war Poland, because the parents were working and no one else could take the time to wait many hours for, say, lemons. Or, in the alternative, like the kid who doesn't understand technology and needs to lean heavily on someone who does.

Or all those things.

It has to do with groceries. I'd gotten good, needed supplies before Ed and I went into isolation nearly four weeks ago. But we need to supplement them. I hadn't gotten enough. And of course, fresh stuff wont stay fresh for months. So I learned how to place orders for delivery from my grocery store. And it worked. At first.

Then the delivery schedule got full. A workaround was needed! On order days, I would stay up til an ungodly hour. Things opened up then. You still weren't going to get everything. They may run out of milk or flour. But you'd get most of what you needed. A few days later.

Last night, I stayed up until midnight and then clicked to view the newly opened slots.

There were no newly opened slots. Okay, maybe I should stay up one more hour.

Nothing.

Time to switch grocery stores.

No deliveries anywhere. Curbside pick up? Nothing. Everything booked solid, in some cases for weeks in advance. Oh, wait, by 4 in the morning, a pick-up spot opens up at a store a half hour from here. On Easter Sunday. At 7 in the morning. For seniors only. I'll take it!

But in the end (by maybe 6 in the morning), it's Ed who saves the day by figuring out how to work within this erratic system of hit or miss openings for pick up or delivery. His strategy may not work for us beyond this week, but at least for now, we are scheduled to replenish some missing items and, too, ones for the young family, because I'm the Polish old person who stands in line for the "lemons," then washes the groceries, because frankly, I have more time than people who are trying to do work and keep kids happy all at the same time (that impossible task).

By 6:30, I finally give in to sleep. For a little while. Today is the day I spend the morning with the kids at their house.

After animal care, of course.






And breakfast. (I indulge us in a little snip of daffodils from farmette gardens.)






Fortified with strong coffee, I drive over to the young family's home,

Kid play!

(In short sleeves, for the first time in 2020!)






(Well, she soon opts for a hoodie. Gaga, why is it called a sweatshirt?)






(Building a Castle for Delightful Children, a Water Park and a Very Long Train. You can guess who was in charge of which structure.)






It's a fiendishly warm day today. I mean, 72F (22C). For us, that's June weather. Oh, in two days we're getting frosty nights and chilly days again, but today feels unreal.

So Ed and I drive out to the Ice Age Trail for a walk. Normally we stick to the county park down the road, but we feel that on a day like this a county park is likely to be crowded and people still have very different ideas about social distancing, mine erring on the rather strict side. So we choose the quieter forested path crisscrossing the Brooklyn Wildlife Area and we meet no one at all.











(Yes, it felt that warm!)






(those "spacious skies...")






And after? Well, I am so sleep deprived that I am somewhat in a zombie state! But a good zombie state. I cook up a fish and cauliflower for supper and I think about all those who are so stressed right now that it hurts to even imagine their struggles.

For us, there will be food, and, importantly, the family is fine. There is nothing in the world better than that.

With love.

Monday - 24th

The only reason I know for sure that it is the beginning of a new week is that it follows a Sunday dinner, which means there are extra dishes in the dish rack in the morning. So it must be Monday.

Of course, retired people often are not tied to schedules that would distinguish a Thursday from, say, a Saturday. But, I've been living with an academic schedule all my life and it did not end with retirement. From teaching, I went straight to babysitting for a child of parents themselves tied to an academic calendar and of course, once Snowdrop was old enough to start preschool, she too was locked into a school schedule, and so my days were once again governed by first days of school, winter breaks, snow days and the like. Peeking at my calendar right now, I see that today, Snowdrop and Sparrow were to resume school after a spring break. Well now, that's one more item to ignore!

Without a school schedule to guide me, I follow a pattern of childcare that the young parents and I established when we all went into isolation. School schedules no longer structure my days. As someone recently joked -- today feels like Satnesday in the month of Femarember. Or some such.

But here's the thing: as a gardener, I track the spring season very very carefully. We know when we must plant tomato seeds. When we should trim the fruit trees. When I can safely put in new day lilies or plant nasturtiums. The garden sends me signals all the time. Reminders of where we're at. These daffodils, opening just a little, tell me for sure that we have just checked off the the first week of April.





Buds on the old willows, chives poking through, the first tiny rhubarb leaf unfurling -- that's all typical early April stuff. Oh, and the scilla. Don't forget the ever spreading scilla.





I track this stuff carefully because every set of new spring days demands something of me. And so, having abandoned (for the first time ever) an academic calendar, nature's own directional hand has completely taken charge. It's not Femarember of Jugustary, but very clearly April.

But, mornings are mornings here at the farmhouse. Each one starts with my going out to feed the animals, followed by breakfast with Ed.






The kids are with us immediately after that.






And here's something unexpected: today, Snowdrop is really begging for a brunchy lunch -- one that she can take the lead in preparing, from setting the table to mixing pancake batter.





This is a surprise. Like any grandma worth her salt, I tried to get the kids excited about cooking with me. Initially, Snowdrop was a happy mixing/chopping/flipping pal. But it didn't last. Sparrow, I hear, does love to "help cook dinner," but I haven't seen him here hit the pots and utensils in a while. So, no future junior chef stars here thus far.

And yet, today, Snowdrop showed me that the initial enthusiasm doesn't go away. It gets tucked away until a later date. Which for her, seemed to be right now.

(snowman pancakes: done!)






Afternoon: Ed and I go out for a walk, crisscrossing the dug-up lands to the west and north of us.  It's not a beautiful walk, but it's an interesting one. Fourteen new houses popped up in the last couple of months. Mostly though, the landscape looks ravaged. Torn up and left naked, exposing the clay soil that is so common here. We wonder how the development will proceed now. Will the economic downturn slow it significantly? Will construction eventually perk up, or come to a grinding halt?


Back at the farmette, everything is remarkably quiet. Less traffic, far less airplane noise, fewer construction sounds. Indeed, when I was putting the kids in the car to take them home, Snowdrop commented -- that's a very loud bird! I had to smile. It wasn't the bird that was loud, it was the rest of the world that had hushed, so that we could hear the chirping in all its sweetness.


Evening: leftovers, salads, popcorn and cookies. Uniquely unspecial, but wonderful nonetheless. Like so many things in life.

Sunday - 23rd

Looking ahead at April weather here, in south central Wisconsin, you might (perhaps correctly) conclude that today will be the best of all April days. Sunny, not too cold. The only thing missing is continuity. You wish that the warm spell would dig in its heels and stay. But, we're northerners. We don't expect our gardens to look like those of people living in the Carolinas, let alone California. Our growing season is much much shorter.

But this slower progression toward a good outcome may not be so bad. We're learning a lot this month about the value of flattening a dangerous curve. Perhaps the same applies here: let's not rush toward the beauty of a full blown spring. Let's look around and enjoy each tiny step toward a better outcome.

After breakfast, of course.






And after Ed finishes baking the next batch of cookies. (He's trying out new recipes, ever tweaking, ever perfecting...)






And after planting some of the new tomato seeds that finally came in the mail. (They're tiny! Nonetheless, sometimes good tastes come from small sources.)

Okay, let's go outside. The farmette lands are sprouting new growth everywhere. It's true that you have to still hunt for blooms, but they are there. For sure!











Today we plant the spinach. I've never grown spinach before, but our farmers markets are not going to open this spring in the way that they usually do and so I want to coax some green stuff out of our own plot of land. Will it grow in our soil that is only partially improved by composted matter? I'll let you know.






(sunshine, as enjoyed by the cheepers)






Do we have time for a walk? We do!






(coots and loons, passing through, leading by example in their social distancing...)






In the evening, the young family, as much in isolation as we are, comes here for dinner. Shrimp tacos -- pleasing the non-meat eaters (Ed, Snowdrop, perhaps me), and shrimp lovers (everyone), and crunchy shell and soft shell aficionados.












("Done?")






It's what they do -- almost every evening, they dance. Sparrow wills it to be so.






So ends another day when so much is asked of so many to keep us all going. Oh, but to make it easier for those engaged in heroic efforts now! At the very least, we can isolate. Use technology to connect, if we need help. And if we're okay, if we have one, two, maybe three family members (or more) under one roof -- turn on the music and dance.