Sunday - 51st

We're at the end of a four day run of grand weather. And it's a fabulous finale: sunny, 70F (21C). Okay, I'm not greedy. It's May. Cool weather is part of our seasonal mix. Bring it on. And, too, the rain: we need it! What, not until Tuesday? Well okay, but make it a solid, soaking rain!

On the other hand, can you please spare us a night time frost? Every time I refresh the forecast page, the predicted low for next Friday drops a degree. We're now looking at several degrees below freezing. What a disappointment! Not only will I have to cover the annuals, but if it becomes a hard frost, our fruit trees, which are just beginning their bloom period, will suffer. So please, oh mighty weather gods, for the sake of the fruit trees, especially the apples and the pears (stone fruit trees do better with a cold spell), let's push it up a bit, okay?

Okay, let's get back to this day. This glorious, warm day.






If there is one thing that the pandemic has taught us, it is to live for the present. To put aside the anxiety that comes with speculation as to how tomorrow will look. You've heard it from many sources I'm sure: take one day at a time and find a way to make it good (or at least not awful! I realize that aiming for "good" is a heck of a lot easier if you are lucky enough to not be sick, and are able to pay this month's bills).

And if you're in south central Wisconsin, your "good" is surely going to include a few solid whiffs of this fabulous weather -- sunshine, Vitamin D and all.

Breakfast, on the porch.






It's a little late, because morning animal feeding is getting to be a challenge. I have to first distract the cheepers and the teenage cats with their own food, then run to the driveway where the little kitties usually hang, and coax them to dig into their grub, quickly, before we have the attack of the band of looters (both cheepers and the teen cats can't wait to dash to the car to see if there's kittie food they can appropriate for themselves).

All this would be easier if Calico hadn't decided lately to spend her nights up in a tree. For the second morning now she has had to be coaxed down, and by the time she takes the brave final leap, the looters are there in full force. So now comes Act II of the feeding drama: I get Ed to play with the teens and I throw bread for the cheepers and I try again to sneak some food under the cars for the kitties. They usually manage to get a few good mouthfuls before the bandits realize they've been had. Happy, the rooster, does a fantastic job of sprinting to the car and squeezing his huge feathery body underneath to gobble down anything that's left in the bowl.

Some people just let the chickens share in the outdoor cat food, but I find the cannibalistic elements (cat food has a lot of poultry parts to it) to be disturbing, so I snatch the dish away as quickly as possible.


After breakfast, Ed and I work. Hard. Some more seeds arrived in the mail: lettuce, arugula, beets, carrots, bok choy. The leafy stuff should go in now, but we haven't prepped the bed for it yet! And we don't immediately begin our work with that project. Instead, we take a look at the old tomato bed in the young orchard, we weed the blueberry bushes there (Java helps! oh, and note the lovely plum!)...


 



... and run a hose over the flower seeds I sowed yesterday in the young orchard meadow.

Then comes the hard stuff -- pulling our golden rod roots and thistle plants in the new veggie patch in the making (back of the barn). This is where the leafy greens will be planted. Tomorrow, for sure!

I've inherited another chore -- a daily one it seems, and not one that I like. We seem to have a flock of hawks keeping an eye on the farmette. Four of them. They come in the early afternoon and they swoop down low to see where everyone is. It's true that Happy has been doing his job well. He hides the girls, often under the car, sometimes in the bushes and he stands guard. Nonetheless, the cheepers aren't always together and I worry that one day the hawks will find the wayward girl (sometimes returning from the roost, other times searching out some grub while her sisters rest) and swoop down and pick her up. So I do what I'm told is the proper protocol: I go out and make myself look big (I do this by waving a broom in the air) and I shout at them. Ed says it's pointless or unnecessary or both. Still, I persevere and eventually the hawks fly away and peace is restored.







(A double petaled tulip is so remarkable that it has many (for example Snowdrop) wondering -- is this really a tulip??)







In the evening, the young family is here for supper. (They're isolating for now, just as we are, so we can share households.) Of course it's all outside. It is the perfect day for it.





















(I step in to make my first Aperol Spritz of the year! The dandelion bunch is gift from Snowdrop.)






Dinner, on the porch.











(Banging on the table, just because...)






Late evening. Dishes done, pop corn's popped, eyes are closing. I'm hoping your Sunday was beautiful and that you had a chance to exhale. No? Too busy? I'll do it with you now!  Deep breath on the count of four, hold it, one two three four five six, let it out slowly. Make room for good thoughts, high hopes. And if you've been working hard, Sunday or no Sunday, know that your efforts are appreciated. Deeply. By so many!

Sleep well, good night.

Saturday - 50th

It was a working day for us here on the farmette. A day of weeding, planting, seeding, mowing, watering. A day of rescuing a kittie off a tree, of scrubbing groceries from our Saturday pick up. A full day!

All this against a backdrop of a beautifully warm spring weekend. And let's not take that warmth for granted -- I hear we'll be twenty degrees cooler in the weeks to come. Spring is so... inconsistent!

Without question, breakfast is on the porch.






With little vases of fallen and/or picked flowers from the yard.






And then we start digging. (Actually Ed is digging elsewhere: the machining company with which he is affiliated looks out on a prairie field. No one has been tending the prairie and so shrubs have popped up all over. Call it a quiet, good deed: he took his clippers and sheers and saw and did the job himself. Or most of it. Shrub removal takes forever.)

Back on the farmette:
Calico, you are able to come down! I'm sure of it! Come on!






Here's a lovely "what's blooming" update: some of the tulips are opening up. This is never a predictable event. I lose many tulip heads to the resident groundhog (tulips and hostas are his meal of choice). Too, you're supposed to pull out and replace tulips on a regular basis. Many (most?) aren't really good candidates for a second season rebloom. Still, I don't remove them. I put my cards on chance and luck, with a good measure of hope.  And indeed, there are always at least a few tulips that reward us with their uniquely pretty flowers.






(Close up! Oh, the blend of colors....)





Things are getting dry out there and so I do have to water the pots. I never mind this "chore." Watching a spray of water fall gently onto a garden is truly calming. It's like music, of a quiet nature.

(while Dance and Pepper assess the situation...)






This is the kind of day that deserves an easy supper. And we have just that: leftovers! A combo plate of chili, frittata, a salad. Like an all you can eat buffet, only at home.

Safely at home. Such a privilege, really. We can only feel deep gratitude to those who cannot, because of work, stay safely at home. They keep the wheels rolling. We hunker down. Our thoughts are with them for sure.

With love.

Friday - 49th

Here's a reason to love sunny, warm spring days at the farmette: you don't have to tax your brain as you move through them. Turn on automatic pilot and you're off! Step outside and follow your green thumb. Look one way, then the other, get out the hand shovel and start working.

It's productive, it's rewarding, and there's plenty of trivial stuff to think about: worms, cheepers digging up roots, weeds, always the weeds, soil quality, plant spacing, trimming last year's growth -- all of it. It requires no great imagination. The creative part (the planning, the listing, the purchasing) happened, for the most part, at the kitchen table during cold winter months. Now, you just have to do the work.


Some have said that all these remote meetings with fellow workers aren't conducive to stimulating creative thought. But is it really that, or is it that the pandemic is messing with our creativity?  Facts, swirling masses of facts, analyses, filling our heads... How are we supposed to invent something new and beautiful when our brains are spinning with this other stuff?

But in the garden, I can create without having to keep my mind  nimble.  It's like cooking -- you do the physical work of a project long spelled out for you. You follow practiced steps. You know that the result will be okay. Perhaps great if you're lucky, and if the plan was a good one.

And so for this and many reasons, I am thrilled to wake up once more to a stellar day!
 





Yesterday was gorgeous, today is grand, tomorrow and Sunday are to be stupendous.The days will be, by definition, full and satisfying. How good is that!






Morning breakfast, on the porch. Okay, so it's in the mid 50sF -- about 12C. That's a tad cool. But the promise of warmth down the road is enough to get us outside.






And then I get to work.






Interrupted only by a lovely FaceTime call with little Primrose in Chicago. (Sorry about the glare, but the day is bright and we are outside.)






I do think she was hoping to find her cousins here, but she got only me. And flowers. And a blue sky.





The little girl is easy to please: she seemed content to let it go at that!

(Ed and I take the tomato seedlings outside today: we're hardening them!)






(Is it "tulips and Peach," or "Peach and tulips?")






(Dance, by our robust crop of rhubarb...)


 



In the afternoon, Snowdrop does come here to have a little private time at the farmhouse with Gogs. At first, she runs, almost on auto pilot, up the path to the farmhouse door.






But she reconsiders. Water play beckons!


 



Could we lift up the lid of the sandbox? We can!






On the one hand, it's not really a five year old thing. Sand tea parties, sand structures, sand this sand that. But something about it grabs her. Perhaps it's that we've all been inside so long, or maybe it brings back memories of days when playing in this wee box was like the bees knees!

She takes off her shoes and digs her toes into the cold sand and grins as if it were a beach on the Caribbean and the sand was abundant and warm...






In the evening, I bake a frittata. I have got to make a dent in the heaping mound of fresh spinach and the three bags of mushrooms from our local farmers. There's no better way to do this than to create our weekly egg extravaganza!





It is the first day of May. It's heady, it's flowery, it's sometimes fickle but mostly fabulous. You gotta work harder to find the "fabulous" this year, but on days like this one, you feel that it's within reach.

Stay well and stay connected! And when someone delivers something to you, tell them (from afar) you really really appreciate their work. Even if it seems weird to be so effusive. Do it anyway. It'll be a nice story for them to bring home at the end of the day: Hey, guess what happened to me in the course of my deliveries! This over the top person started dancing and singing and holding up messages of love... 

Thursday - 48th

It's a stunning day. Absolutely stunning here, in Madison, Wisconsin. You have to take these wisps of beauty and run with them. Get your mind off of all that's not well. Because really, so long as we are chugging along, there are lovely moments to be had. Today was proof of that.






Still a bit cold in the morning, so we eat breakfast in the kitchen.






The grandkids come over soon after. Oftentimes one child's mood rubs off on the other, so that if one is boisterous, the other will be equally spirited. But today they diverged. Sparrow was giddy with mirth. Snowdrop came with a giggle...






But then grew subdued. 

He was easy to please (I had just finished giving him a haircut...).






She struggled to "find her stride" (what does that mean, gaga? it means it's difficult for you to jump into something that clicks, that feels right.)

But eventually, it comes together for her.







And Sparrow? He just keeps on truckin'!






As I drop them off at their (equally isolated) home, Snowdrop loses herself in the joy of unrestricted flower picking. The dandelions are out!






Sparrow, want to try your hand at picking? No? How about holding?





Sunshine brings out the best in all of us.


In the early afternoon, I do a "curbside pickup" of one more load of annuals and herbs from Natalie's Greenhouse. She is buoyant! People have been ordering online in large numbers. Things are looking okay!

At home, I concentrate on planting stuff. A peony here, a lavender there, a phlox in that corner, alyssum seeds in this pot. Ed and I move another tree trunk onto the porch and I place Natalie's beautiful basket on it. Oh, spring! You do your damnedest to boost us up! Thank you for this day!






The last days of April rarely disappoint.





Oh, sure, there were the slugs to the day. There were several issues to resolve for my mom. Too, my constant hand washing (from handling purchases) has my hands feeling like cardboard. And the news --  it's a given that if you follow closely the news of the world, you will feel the weight of the troubles faced by so many right now.

Still, we're all working toward the same goal: to find joy, to feel love, to move forward. We got a little boost from the weather gods today, that's for sure!

Dinner? A slab of fish from the Sitka Salmon Fish Shares, some pretty old looking asparagus, and the most remarkable oyster and shiitake mushrooms on the planet! (Thank you, FungiFarmers!)

And thank you to so many others. Today, scientists were on my mind. Our future, in their hands. Thank you for, well, everything.

With love.

Wednesday - 47th

Everyday sounds that I love: the song of the sandhill crane calling to its mate, the song of any bird really, the wind moving through any leafy tree, but especially a birch tree, the slow boil of a soup on the stove, the rain coming down on the skylight. But not a truck honking incessantly just by our house at a very early morning hour. What's going on??

I look outside. The cheepers, whose coop door opens automatically some time just after sunrise (which in Madison  falls on 5:52 today), have made their way to the front flower bed -- a place that appears to have an abundance of flavorful stuff for them. They always head that way early in the day and they do get awfully close to the road. A truck driver was trying to scare them off. Successfully, I might add. They find car horns to be distressing. Might they step out on the road? Sure, but it's a theoretical worry. In all the years we've let them free range, I have never seen them do it. Still, the trucker was understandably worried. There must be a reason why the joke about the chicken crossing the road is so popular.

It was a loud beginning to a wet and cold day. (But pretty! End of April is always pretty!)






And yes, breakfast is in the kitchen. Ed sleeps in and looks like he could do with another handful of hours when I finally tell him I cannot wait for that first cup of coffee any longer.






It's a day for paying bills -- mine, my moms. Isn't it terrible how we take a day that's already pretty miserable (weather wise) and we add fodder to that misery by doing stuff that is hugely unpleasant?

No matter. Bills must be paid, monthly budgets adjusted. All is now tidy and ready for May.

In the afternoon, Snowdrop is here. I would have loved to spend even a few minutes outside with her, but who are we kidding -- the walk from the car to the farmhouse door is long (and cold and wet) enough.


 



We use our afternoon for reading, playing, drawing. As usual these days, she starts off working on another page of her Super Pigs book...





...but switches to adding color and detail to my Family of Five pictures.

And the winds howl, and the rain comes down, and we stay inside and we draw.


In the evening I bring in today's haul from the driveway (where deliveries are made): a bag full of mixed mushrooms from local mushroom farmers. On the one hand, mushrooms are so, well, nonessential. A luxury really. On the other hand, these farmers have been deprived of a market this year. Oyster mushrooms, shiitakes, growing. Unsold. So we sign up for a drop off. This week's frittata will be spectacular, that's for sure!

But not today. Instead, we have an easy dinner: leftover chili. Lots of beans, lots of spices. Lot's of tomatoes from last summer's market.


You know what's a good sound? The muffled pop pop pop of corn popping in an otherwise very quiet house.
 

Tuesday - 46th

What a difference a day makes! Perhaps that has been our lesson this spring. One day you're sending your kids to school, kiss kiss, have a good day, you pick up your cortado with skim milk and board the subway to work,  and the next day they're home, you're home and most everything is closed and you can't buy Tylenol or toilet paper for beans.

I had a mild swell of that feeling of change in the last twenty-four hours. Yesterday the weather was good, the kids were lively and happy, the COVID trends around here were mostly in an acceptable direction and talk of vaccines moving forward rapidly made your heart swell.

But the day drew to a close and things went a little helter-skelter after that. There was, for example, the matter of the fiendish tooth that has been giving me grief since the beginning of our lockdown. Last night it asserted itself once again, leading me to spend the night weighing my options rather than sleeping. In the end, after consulting with two dentists who themselves are mostly in isolation, I decided on home treatment for now. It may work. Maybe. The point is that the night was shot and Ed and I spent lovely moments lying in bed and reviewing future grocery shopping needs. Only with the coming of dawn did we finally give in to (a very short) sleep.

Porch breakfast. With strong coffee for me!






I spend the morning with the grandkids at their place. This is a good set of hours.

(He loves to play with "Let it Go," aka Elsa. And yes, two Elsas are better than one.)






(She's in the middle of a story, but she keeps an eye on what we're doing...)






Sparrow is hellbent on making me laugh and Snowdrop can't resist joining in on the silliness.
















But in the middle of all this, I got a call from my mom's assisted living residence. There followed ten more phone calls as decisions were made as to what to do next. It turns out she had tripped and she fell and now she has a small fracture somewhere near her shoulder. As I write this, she is back in her home with a sling and a wheel chair. As far as we can tell, she should mend and be fine in some amount of time, but her care needs greater coordination right now. I'm workin' on it!

Back at the farmette, the daffodils are at their fullest at this moment. Here is a photos that surely shows off their greatness. Feast your eyes, because we have strong storms and rains rolling into south central Wisconsin. Chances are high that the flowers will have fallen by tomorrow.





In between rain and rumbles of thunder, I pick up a delivery dropped off by Matt, our friend and farmer from Blue Valley Gardens. Two pounds of beautiful fresh spinach, to tide us over until our own plantings reach some decent level of growth. And, too, there is our weekly grocery drop to deal with. Not fun during storms, but still, we are grateful: we got a lot of good foods for the week ahead!

And one more piece of sweet news: state parks are opening this Friday! That means our local park down the road from us will once again be available for short hikes on days when there just isn't time to do anything big (meaning on most days). We are very happy.

And more importantly -- grateful. To so many, for all that they do,