Thursday -76th

Oh, did it rain today! Snowdrop said -- close the porch door! It's so loud!

Loud and long. But no storms. For that, we are grateful!

On wet, summer days, you resist getting up early. It's so much easier just to stay in bed, to go in and out of sleep, to take in the sound outside and tune it out again. One more minute, ten more minutes...

Oh no! How did it get to be so late?!

The rain settles for a while into a gentle drizzle. I feed the animals, take note of new flowers...











... and old flowers.






... and am horrified to see that someone has just dug out all my little herbs! The pot is a mess! I fix it. Ten minutes later, I find Unfriendly lying on top of it! Did you do this?? (Two of the cats have contrasting personalities. One is friendly, the other is... not.)





Ed tells me cats don't dig up plants. Great. I have more than one animal attacking my herb plantings.



Breakfast, on the porch, because the rain is gentle now and the air is warm.






And then the grandkids come for their morning at the farmette.

Want to stay outside? It's only drizzling a little!

I suppose I am a bit of a tease. Still, a few minutes of fresh air -- that's always good, right?

Snowdrop shakes her head and goes inside, probably to complain to Ed about the absurdities of life.






We follow, imitating chicken noises all the way.






A good thing, too. The rains grow heavy, thrashing and pummeling the farmette lands, driving all animals to seek shelter.

And here's a treat: the phone is ringing, and it's cousin Primrose, eager to say hi to the kids and to patiently listen to Snowdrop's demonstration of one toy or another.






Oh, kids! Everyone wants a normal life for the little guys! Still, we at least have this: the love of cousins, aunts and uncles, the shared smiles, toy castles and toy macarons...  Grandmas, grandpas, delighted, on screens, watching, waiting patiently.






(Lunch: awed and perhaps a little frightened by the pounding rain...)






(Doors and windows closed. Smiles restored.)






In the afternoon, the kids are back home and Ed and I try to solve a Blogger bug that I anticipate will become an issue when Blogger changes its interface next month. We get nowhere. That's okay. It was good to focus on the technical aspects of posting for a change. I've been writing here for so long that I do it on automatic pilot. Retracing your steps, understanding the mechanical aspects of what you do on a daily basis is a good way to keep your mind nimble.

But it does take time.

By evening, the rain turns into a wimpy trickle. I stake a few irises, pull a few weeds, enjoy the fragrance of a very wet garden.

And again we turn to leftovers for dinner. Someone overcooked or under-ate this past week! No matter. Easy evenings are good for you.

Everyone is thinking about, talking about the summer before us. I hope, if nothing else, they'll give us all some easy evenings. And brimming jugfuls of love.

Wednesday - 75th

Heat like this wont disappear without storms chasing it away. So we'll get the tumult, the violence in the skies tonight and especially tomorrow. For now -- it's just plain hot.

This means that we close the windows to the humidity. We hold off running the AC until a time when the night air remains sticky hot. That's not the case now. We get a nice breeze going after the sun sets. And it means that I do some small scale gardening before breakfast.

(the most ubiquitous iris: I've divided it many times and stuck clumps of it in the most obscure farmette spots and it keeps on chuggin' along...)






(Our barn does not lack air flow!)






(The last moment of glory for the big lilac...)






The weed growth (all that rain!) is discouraging, but at least the earth is damp and the plants are not parched. We're in that inbetween stage where irises are just emerging and peonies are not yet blooming. The Big Bed looks lush and very green. The flowering happens bit by bit, only to explode fully by the end of June.






(The front bed iris against a blue false indigo and a dainty little red and yellow columbine.)






Breakfast is on the porch. But it's interrupted by our big weekly grocery delivery. We can't linger too long. The produce, the dairy stuff, the yogurt bars for the kids -- none of it should be out in this heat.

(Mellow, even if cut a little short...)






And now comes the time for all that sudsing and washing and and wiping and washing again and again until all that needs to be cold is in the fridge and my over-scrubbed hands are asking me very politely to give it a break.

One more chore for this morning: Ed made an adjustment to the big tractor mower and so I hop on it to give the meandering farmette paths a good trim. We've become that property where the lawn is never mowed, where occasional flowers pop out of the tall grasses, and where only a path will let you comfortably walk from one end of our vast space to the other, weaving, circling, only to eventually return you to your starting point.






In the afternoon, Snowdrop is here. We are all in that not unpleasant state of summer lethargy, even though it's not summer and we should be active, if only to stay fit and healthy, but you can't push yourself today. It's just too hot.






Here's a solution: try out our new wiggly hose!






Very soon she gets me wet.






And she gets herself wet.

And perhaps predictably, she begs for the wading pool. That same wading pool that was just perfect for age one, two, maybe three years at a stretch. After a winter in the garage, it's dusty and needs a wash. All these are trivial impediments. As every year, when you get that unexpected burst of hot air, a dip in something so cool is heavenly!

Will she ask for this piece of late spring heaven when she is not five but fifteen?






The toys for the pool are the same as the ones I first threw in there four years ago. An octopus, a tea cup, a small boat. She needs nothing more to spin a story. (Oh! I do add a bowl of fresh cherries!)






It's tough to get her out of this little tub.






(Inside, she surprises me by choosing to play with her babies. She hasn't touched them in months. There's something comforting in seeing her arrange them in a school group time.)






Eventually I take her home. The two men of the house are hanging outdoors. There are storm clouds, but nothing threatening.






Time for me to head back and do some cooking. Wednesday is frittata day. Spinach and mushrooms and cheese. And eggs of course. It's become our isolation Wednesday special. Predictability in these unpredictable times.






Ed and I walk the farmette lands afterwards. Thinking, talking, sowing seeds. It feels wonderful to be doing something that will have a good outcome. Maybe a few more wildflowers along the path. Maybe.

We return home. It feels good to just be home.

Tuesday - 74th

Hot hot hot! Steamy clammy summer hot!

Oh, we're not tired of it. Just a little tired from it, which is not the same!

(Cats on the porch...)






(One last look at the blooming lilac. It's nearly finished. That's okay -- there's one next to it, and it blooms much later. It'll give us a few more days of that beautiful scent.)






With the burst of hot air (where did it come from? It's only May!), come the blossoms of late spring flowers. These are the weeks of the irises.






Beautiful doubles, singles, Siberian, German, Japanese, bearded, ruffled, open-faced -- so many irises!  They all have their moment here.






I do notice that the bearded ones are growing extra tall. I should have separated and replanted some of them. It's time to order a batch of tall stakes for support.
Ed chimes in: please don't. I'll make you some.
I respond -- you didn't make them last year.
He thinks about it. You probably did not ask.

Within the hour, I have two dozen four foot stakes.






But I'm getting ahead of things. First there is breakfast, on the porch. We talk about all those things that promise to make you more anxious for the rest of the day!






A morning with the kids, at their home. Snowdrop wants to pretend-play Harry Potter. I'm such a poor candidate for it, having never read the books.

(What's so great about Harry Potter?)






(Romping...)










 (What to do next...)






(build a city?)






(Okay!)






 (Can you read now, gaga? Not that book... We need to find something more Sparrow friendly!)






Later, I drive home in what has to be the hottest of hot May days. I pick up Matt's spinach and asparagus, delivered today and I go inside.

A perfect day for zooming with my friends who are never going to be sympathetic to my cries of hot, living in states that tend to be, well, hotter. Thanks, both of you, for the Zoom chat. I needed that.

Leftovers for supper. Ed and I review the day. I smile a little: for all the differences between us, Ed and I are exactly on the same page with assessing risks, behaviors, now and going forward. And so we talk in shortcuts. I know where he is heading. He knows what I mean. It's a good way to share a life now.

For once, we don't watch our thriller and our comedy. He has been transplanting young trees. He's tired. Me, I sip a glass of wine and listen to the distant rumble of thunder.

Monday - 73rd

Hot weather. That's right, hot. So hot that after coming out to sit on the picnic bench, Snowdrop wilted, in the way that you do when sticky, warm air zaps you of any enthusiasm for movement.

Was it only a week ago that I was missing the comforting rays of a splendid summer sun?

Really hot outside. Our blood hasn't made the heat adjustment yet and so it feels positively like we've entered the tropics. 84F (29C). Uff!

We're quickly moving from the gentle greens of early spring to a full canopy of intense, lush foliage. From nothing, just four or five weeks ago, to this:





It's a stunning transformation.

Breakfast, on the porch, with a very sleepy Ed. But I'm in a hurry! The kids are about to come over.






Oh, here they are!











There is first the catch up play: each child gravitates to whatever they missed in the days away from farmhouse toys.











Eventually, there is the "art room."






But the grip of the great big beautiful and very warm outdoors is powerful. After lunch, Snowdrop wants play outside (equipped with her water bottle a few cheddar bunnies).






And what Snowdrop wants, Sparrow wants. With his own sweet preferences thrown in for good measure. (Lifting a watering can is only half the challenge.)


 


Fortified with a snack..






...We set out on a hike around the farmette lands. The mowed path takes us to the back of the barn and then again to the courtyard.





Well, that was exhausting! Okay, maybe not exhausting, but still, anyone want to retreat to the cool farmhouse, where cold cherries and mango slices await?



After the kids leave, Ed and I set out to Natalie's Greenhouse for one last supplemental purchase (curbside pick up!) of annuals. One more pot for the porch and, too, I pick up all her remaining Mexican lophosphermum. It's a new discovery for me! It's a stunning addition to any pot or basket and guess what: neither the cheepers, the rabbits, the groundhogs nor the bunnies seem to be keen on munching off newly planted little guys.

But I don't return to actual garden work until this evening, when that delicate evening breeze pushed away the heaviness of hot air. Afternoons are meant for siestas! (Dance, our not so feral feral cat...)





Or at least a few minutes of downtime.


Evening. I return to my pots of annuals. Time to feed the bloomers. Time to rub the belly of a cat, to pull a few invasive milkweed shoots, to build some cages for the exploding peonies (next to bloom!).

And dinner? Well, I feel we ought to adhere to something resembling a calendar. On Memorial Day, grills are firing up. We don't eat burgers and we don't have a grill, but we're always happy to brown up some chicken brats on the stove. With sauerkraut and corn.


Hundreds of thousands of Americans are living with heavy hearts this holiday. I wish it weren't so. We can offer so little...

Love, there is always that: love to all who have it harder than us.