Tuesday - 32nd

Sometimes, you read about stuff that happens that leaves you utterly bewildered. How can this be? People, littering grocery stores with spent gloves and masks? Hording and reselling PPEs to make a fast buck? Shouting obscenities because someone asks them to please step back and not come too close? Stories like that make you sick. There's the virus, but, too, there is our own humanity and it is being put to a test. And some of the accounts you come across don't make us look all that good.

But then, on mornings like today, I am reminded that there are many more stories out there of "inner goodness" (these are words I used with my girls when they were still trying to understand complicated human behaviors and impulses), even over and beyond the obvious heroism of those now working on the frontlines. So many people just want to do good stuff. Inevitably, they touch your life, like a gentle dusting of glitter, helping you to feel at peace with the world again.

I heard, quite unexpectedly from three unusual friends this morning and all three caused me to cry big fat gloppy tears. One who is a long time Ocean friend, and another who is a travel related friend.  The third -- a former student.

The first message came with a gift: two sheets of vintage paper doll cutouts. (You can find such gems here: vintage-ornaments.com. The women who own and operate this business cross the ocean to familiar to me spots -- now hit hard with the virus -- to resupply.)





Oh, how Snowdrop will love these!  I can almost hear the stories she will tell, the favorite setups she will grow to love!

My second contact was different. It came in the form of a long email from a woman who runs a small bed and breakfast out of her family home in Parma, Italy. I love Parma -- a treasure of a city in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. And I loved my visits to Patrizia's bed and breakfast. And I love its owner -- someone who famously once told me to pay attention to my dress and habits, even if I do live with a person who ostensibly couldn't care less about such matters as physical appearance!

Unfortunately, Covid19 infections are high there and the deaths even higher. Emilia-Romagna has more than 10% of Italy's Covid cases. And more than 10% of those infected have died. My friend's family was not spared.

I promised her I would come and visit as soon as it was safe to do so.

The third note came from a former student, now a big time attorney in town, who, along with her husband, offered safe, clean shopping help. Ed and I are okay now. We have learned tricks on how to keep ourselves well stocked and we wash and disinfect stuff before it comes into the farmhouse, because we know others may not have been as careful. We're hanging in there! And still, the gesture was so goodhearted that my heart swelled.

There surely is a lot of love and goodness on this planet.

And so it is indeed a rich day. Even if we did once again appear to have four seasons of weather, all in the space of one hour! Well, maybe only three seasons. I did not recognize any elements of summer. (The sudden gust of snow...)






Breakfast, with Ed...






Then a morning with Snowdrop and Sparrow, at their house...
















And afternoon of cooking and baking. Ed's working on a pan of brownies.






Me, I'm taking out the pizza ingredients again. We finally got flour and yeast! Now is the time to make up some pizza dough and twirl it in the air! Or some such maneuver.





And once again, we descend into our evening of calm. And popcorn.

And once more, I'll end with a thank you. To all of you, for all that you do for others.

Primrose sent me a piece of her artwork. It's full of color and joy. I'll end the post with her creation.

Monday - 31st

The wind whipped up the farmette solidly last night. Sheets of rain changed to flakes of snow. Nothing significant. Still, it was a brutal weather event. The daffodils this morning were slumped.






April weather. Ever unpredictable, ever throwing extremes our way. But, too, often giving us a final good surprise. Cold and bleak turns blustery but sunny by late afternoon. Nothing I would want to stay out in. But pretty!






Not that there was much time today for outdoor work. After breakfast...






,,, the kids are dropped off at the farmhouse.  Snacks, books, play. In that order.






Lunch? Pancakes, again!






Sparrow, you're getting to be so big...






And right after their lunch...






... Snowdrop and Sparrow leave and I go into a post-Easter Zoom call with my friends in Poland.






I have a chance to view firsthand things they baked, eggs they decorated. ("Mazurek," a layer of shortbread covered with icing then decorated with dried fruits and nuts, is the quintessential Polish Easter dessert.) But mostly, we talk. For a long long time. The need for this doesn't go away just because the world shuts down all around you. It is a tad ironic that I talk to them more often now than in more normal times. Suddenly, they cannot visit each other, putting us all on equal footing. And so I am as much a part of their everyday as I would be were I living in Poland.

Afterwards, Ed and I (and the cheepers and the cats) walk over to our spinach bed.





No sprouts yet!

At the farmhouse again, I have another lovely set of minutes: with Primrose, over a cup of tea. With cream scones (for her).






And now it's evening. The wind is picking up again. So cold! But I'm okay with that. Our warm days will come. We are suspended right now, waiting on all fronts. May as well wait for warmer weather too.

I start work on my grocery list for the week. We'd like to have Mondays or Tuesdays  as our regular weekly order days. Last week a Monday order netted us a Sunday morning curbside pickup. We're hoping to do slightly better this time. Every few minutes I refresh the page, hoping something will open up at our grocery store. And lo! It does! But what's this?  It's for tonight, late at night! That's too soon, but we're not going to be fussy: nothing else may open up again. Click! We'll take it! But wait, we need to up the tip, it's way low. In doing this, we lose our spot. I repeat the process many times: refresh -- nothing. Refresh again - a late night spot! Change tip. I lose the spot. And again and again until finally it takes hold! I'll be washing groceries close to midnight today!

Eating leftovers from yesterday's meal, we remain grateful for all the food that comes our way through the heroic work of others. So very very grateful. Thank you.

With love.

Sunday - 30th

Are you an Easter person? Well then, may you have health and love and a moment at least of merriment on this day! (If you're not an Easter person, my wish for you is the same.)

Am I an Easter person? That's a tough one. My parents were not holiday people. Not secular, not religious, not pagan, not national, not personal, not any holiday hoopla. No traditions developed, none passed on.  Oh, when we were very little, there was a Christmas tree. But that ended somewhere with elementary school.  If you were old enough to walk to school by yourself, you were old enough to be done with holidays. So Easter, which is huge in Poland, even among those who have long passed on going to church every week, never made it to our home.

You could say that when I had my own family, we started with a clean slate: we set in place our own traditions. (Though in fairness, my ex-husband came from a family that was big on every holiday that crossed their path, even if it was a total Hallmark fabrication, so he did not come to the table empty handed.)

But Easter stumped me. Some of us went to church sometimes. Me, I stayed home and worried that somehow I was not giving the kids a meaningful, tradition-filled Easter holiday. And fifteen years ago, when I joined forces with Ed, I gave up any pretense of doing anything uniquely wonderful on this day. For one, it's not his holiday (he recalls vaguely family seders, at an aunt's house, but can tell me nothing more about them, except that he liked to mess with some ball bearings, though I can't quite figure out if these were toys or real rotational friction reducing devices). And, too, the usual (non-church) American Easter habits and tradition seem geared toward young people with a sweet tooth and a deep love of stuffed bunnies. That just doesn't mesh with where we are right now.

So here we are on Easter Sunday and even though I love spring, and holidays, and celebrations, at the farmette, we're keeping to the tradition of a low key approach.





Indeed, the day begins ridiculously early, with us driving to the grocery store some ten miles away, because remember? It's where we managed to snag a grocery curbside pick up slot last Monday -- a day when I was a tad worried about our rather low supply of milk.

It's foggy. It's cloudy. It's going to be cold. Yet there is something sweet about us being up, barely awake, trying to get to the store before it opens at 7. (On the mistaken theory that if you get there early, you beat crowds. Turns out there are no crowds, indeed, no one else is picking up anything and our groceries are not yet ready, so we spend a weird half hour in the car listening to grim news in the parking lot of a very very large grocery store.)

The order is only half filled (most items and even their substitutions are out of stock) so I am very glad we did not count on it for supplying the basics needed for a family dinner. It would have been a dinner of milk and mushrooms. No matter. We have nothing but gratitude for having even just those items nicely loaded into the trunk of the car.

I spend a good bit of the morning washing containers of foods in the kitchen sink.

Outside, the fog lifts, the air is still warmish. Ed goes back to sleeping. I pick daffodils for the kitchen table. Just a few. I leave the rest for our landscape. It really looks so much better with that yellow color boost!

And then I FaceTime with Primrose! Here's the little one, playing with a snake from grandma! (Don't ask.)






Such a lovely real Easter moment... She bounces between toys and games and her spirit is just so contagious! Here she is -- a little girl, with her mama, who happens to be my little girl.






And now comes breakfast with Ed. And I give him an animal report (including a lot of stern words about one cat who seems to like to patrol a bird's nest in the overhang of the sheep shed, and another cat that chased the two little kitties right off the porch), and he shakes his head in the way one does when there isn't a good solution to a sticky problem (six energetic cats who enjoy mostly chasing each other and any living thing that's smaller than they are; it's their idea of a good time).






In the afternoon, I fix supper for the young family. There is not a little guilt in this: so many people want so desperately to be with their kids and grandkids today and it cannot be done, whereas for us, living as we do under one common "isolation roof," it is doable and lovely, even though, especially because it is a holiday, I do miss the younger family terribly much.

More FaceTime, this time with all the cousins!






I want a picture of the awesome threesome! That's tough! Or is it? What do you consider a good photo? For me, it's one where they are all together. This one!






We eat a Sunday supper of crunchy chicken and asparagus (and corn, because, you know, the kids love corn), which does seem to me to be a very wonderful spring dinner, indeed an Easter dinner. And there are Ed's cookies and chocolates and fruits (which perhaps are the hardest to come by these days) and it's all very wonderful, even if not traditionally so.






A pause for post dinner quiet time.






In the evening, Ed and I sit back and exhale. Another day, made special by the season, by a holiday, and especially by the fact that our closest ones are doing well.

Dare I hope you had a very lovely day as well? Yes? Oh, but may it be so!

With love.

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.