Tuesday - 158th

Ed and I have an elephant in our farmhouse. Sometimes we talk about it, but most often, she just sits there, hazily, hugely, never letting us forget about her presence.

It has to do with Calico, the kitten who was so sick with vertigo, that she could not walk a straight line. Her legs would give in and she'd collapse before you.

She's not 100% her old self yet, but she is slowly getting better. She still walks with a telltale tilt to her head and I wouldn't trust her on a windowsill, but, she can saunter over to us when we come into the writer's shed without much difficulty. That's progress.

Except that we don't know if she will fully recover. And even if she does, something has changed: she now sees us as her caregivers. Her friends. She is supremely affectionate and she just cannot get enough of being petted, rubbed, stroked, as if making up for lost time.

Is this a problem? Well yes. Let me describe this morning: I walk out, the teen cats hover around me. I hear a mournful meowing. What now? Clearly something is up with Cutie (Calico's sister). Okay, let me feed the teens in the sheep shed and come back to the problem.

Ah. There she is, high up in the big willow, unable to get down.

What's with these little guys? Their older siblings run up and down trees all the time. These two little girls -- when they go up, they cannot get down.

So why is she up a tree, howling away? Perhaps the teen cats chased her. Or, did she hear her sister's meowing? The willow is right next to the writer's shed. The shed windows are open.

I coax Cutie down, feed her, then go on to look in on Calico. She is all over me, as usual. I feed her. She eats ravenously. And then I can't get away. I go to the door, she follows within an inch of my legs. She meows her mournful meow. Is it because she wants to go out? Is it that she heard her sister and is looking for her? In any case, I am stuck. If I open the door, she may run out and believe me, she is still far from being able to take care of herself in the mean real world. The vet prescribed yet another treatment to help her along. She needs to stay in the shed.

I try everything: running toward the door, distracting her with a rope, sitting down, standing up. She wont leave my side.

Well, eventually I lunge at the door and manage to slam it closed before she can follow me. But the fact is, this little cat is in a dangerous place: she is at once vulnerable, semi domesticated, fiercely attached to her caregivers, and most certainly missing her sister.

So where's the elephant? Oh, it's clear, no? The best solution is to bring Calico and Cutie into the farmhouse and complete the process of domesticating them. Only inside the house can they be safe from the teens and from anything else that may harm them. Ed would be thrilled if I agreed to it, but I just cannot. I am extremely fond of those kitties. When they are outside. I don't want them inside. I dont want to sit on the couch with their little nails digging affectionately into my thigh. I don't wan to sleep with a moving animal or two in our small bed. Ed already takes up 75% of the space. The cat swould take up just that much more. No. I don't want a cat jumping over the counters, eating foods that I leave out for us. I don't want any of it.

And yet, there is little Calico, needing protection. Needing love. Needing us. Needing her sister.

Quite the elephant, don't you think?


I worked a little in the garden, but you know, that effort is now minimal. Many of the plants are drying up, in part because it's late August and in part because we haven't had a good rain shower in a long time. So I do just a little. And I water, just a little.





















And we eat breakfast and we talk about Calico, just a little.






The afternoon is split between time with my friend (well, Zoom time, as she lives in New Mexico) who is celebrating a milestone birthday...






... and a valiant attempt to get moving. I do lure Ed out for a walk, I do! Rural roads...


 


... with a detour into the new development. This gives us a nice segment of quiet, as well as some interesting opportunities to watch gravel and cement being poured into holes that soon will be houses. (A year ago -- nothing. Today -- at least three dozen new homes. Not quite the speed of construction in China, but pretty fast nonetheless!)


Tomorrow I'll be with the kids again. Today -- a frittata night, with greens and mushrooms and new garlic and new potatoes and corn. If it's August, there must be corn.

Monday - 157th

Here, in south-central Wisconsin, in August -- it's all about corn. On the cob. Fresh. Not just fresh, as in straight from the produce section of your favorite grocery store, but fresh as in picked that morning, sold (curbside!) right at the farm.

It's one of our seasonal peccadilos: we expect daffodils in April, strawberries in June, and in August, we ride the motorcycle down rural roads, usually to our closest farmer, Stoneman, to pick up what is advertised as the sweetest corn in the world. And it is. Go ahead, find me a corn that's sweeter! Can't be done!

And so after my work in the garden...











And after playing with a still ailing Calico in the writer's shed, and of course, after breakfast...






... I hop on behind Ed and we scoot over to Stoneman's.

They're closed. Big sign, telling us that today is a "ripening day."

No! My whole menu for the day, the week, the month falls apart! We need corn. We must head out further, to the next nearest farm.

But not yet. I have a Zoom party with my Polish friends at noon.





Again my friends and I compare notes. They are two weeks before the start of the school year and there hasn't been a decision as to reopening. Poland continues to have a stable but reasonably low infection rate. I'm sure if we had their rate we'd be opening Yankee Stadium and Noah's Ark, the world's largest water park, let alone schools, bars and restaurants! What? We did open Noah's Ark? Ooops. Maybe the pools are filled with soapy sudsy water. Oh well. In any case, Poland is pondering.

Once again I'm thinking how lovely it is to visit with distant friends on a regular basis. We used to wait for in person visits. Not anymore.

And later, much later Ed and I are again riding the motorbike to a farm, this time Eugster's, which is a bigger deal place, since they go beyond selling corn: they have a regular farm store with farm stuff in it. I do not know what stuff, because Ed and I do not enter stores. The Eugster corn is sold separately, under a tent and they will do curbside pick up if you ask for it.

It's a 15-minute ride, but oh, what a ride it is! I think it shows off our rural lands well! A few photos for you:



























I should have taken an evening walk, but everything outside is so dry that I relented and finally turned the hose on the garden. Not for long and not comprehensively. Just enough to make me feel better! In doing that, I was rewarded with an evening garden view.






I don't have to tell you what we had for supper. Some protein, some greens, and corn. Lots of sweet corn. From this truck:





Delicious.

Sunday - 156th

I was criticized for doing "ineffective exercise" today.

I suppose I brought it on with my morning comment:
How come I'm way stiffer when I get up in the morning than you are?
Ed doesn't hesitate: because you move a lot, but in all the wrong ways. You don't do any good exercise. You're constantly jumping up and down, chasing kids, doing household stuff, so that you wear yourself out without doing anything good for yourself.

This, from a guy who logs in more couch time than any potato that ever crossed my path. Still, Ed does go for weekly challenging bike rides. Up and down hills, over and around, covering distances I regard as extreme. And sometimes he chops down trees. So... am I turning soft?

Alright, let's go for a walk! 
I'm about to nap...

Couch potato, I tell you. With an occasional urge to sprint.

It's a warm day and sunny day. Perfect for garden work and yes, I do some of that.


(a lily, against a background of monarda, rudabeckia and phlox)





(the last of the day lilies, the last of the phlox)






Perfect for a late breakfast on the porch.






Perfect for bike riding, or perhaps doing beach yoga, or maybe hiking up and down hills in a county park.

But it's also perfect for thinking great thoughts on the porch or yes, on the couch. 

(cats, waiting to be fed)




Tomorrow, we walk! Or bike! Maybe.

Saturday - 155th

I think people like Ed should not invest in a stand alone freezer. His two traits -- never throw away anything, and don't keep tabs on stuff -- predispose him toward freezing everything, then forgetting about it all.





This summer, as we harvest our tomato crop, adding numerous gallon bags filled with garden tomatoes to our supply of frozen foods, I have to face this basic truth: the basement freezer is very full. And we will never eat what lies on the bottom, because we have no idea what lies on the bottom. Too, I have little interest in using stuff dumped there before I ever even met the guy. For example, squashed raspberries. At least I think they're raspberries: they have a curious color to them... Or some tomato mush that may be soup, may be salsa, or perhaps chili with whatever Ed added to it way back then.

Worse. When we went into isolation in March, I wasn't sure how we would buy our foods. Would we have access to fruits and veggies? Maybe. Maybe not. So I bought a dozen bags of frozen veggies and a dozen bags of frozen fruits, thinking that if we eat one bag each week we'd get some greens and vitamins in our diet for at least three months. (As it turned out, we've had food delivered almost seamlessly to the farmette and so we've not had to depend on frozen produce.)

It was time to take stock of what's in that freezer. This was the project for the day.

After breakfast, of course.






I did not convince my "never throw it away" guy to toss out much. There was this bag of tomatoes that I thought looked highly suspicious in its old age. He agreed to take it out to the compost pile then changed his mind. Now I have to look at a bowl of mushy brown stuff defrosting as Ed waits "check out the taste" of it. A container of BBQ sauce for ribs. Okay, out it went. We're not meat eaters. And one bag of something that looked so horrible that I thought for a moment it was not food at all, but some substance used to seal gutters maybe.

Still, at the end of the day, I had taken everything out, made lists, and organized stacks and piles so that I could access the fish and tomatoes and shrimp and rhubarb, and he could access his bags of ancient berries and sacs of mush. I hinted that he should start eating his treasures. He retorted that if I cook daily and do not travel, he hasn't the opportunity to cook up anything from the freezer. I shrugged: if you want to set aside a day in the week where I don't cook for you and you dig in for a filling dinner of mushy raspberries and homemade applesauce (well, that's a guess), please go for it. 

Somehow even just the act of arranging and organizing reduced the freezer overload. We can keep adding bags of tomatoes. There's plenty of room now.






In the late afternoon, the young family is here for Sunday dinner. I know, I know -- it's not Sunday. Another set of grandparents will be spending time with them the next few days and so we moved things around to accommodate that.

Snowdrop is anxious to show her biking skills and so we start out on the bike trail.






It's a lovely afternoon for being outdoors!






("Am I too young for biking?")






And yes, we do eat our dinner on the porch.






After morning sprinkles, the skies cleared and it's exceptionally pleasant out there. We really do need a lot more rain, butfrom the point of view of summer weather, we've had a heck of a good run of beautiful days this year.


(From my daughter -- "are you sure the garden has passed its peak?")






(From Snowdrop -- "Ahah, take a picture of us hugging!")






Throughout the day, Ed and I go to the writer's shed to hang out with Calico. In her sickness, she has let down her guard and she lets Ed pet her as well. Indeed, as she wobbles and tumbles in her state of acute vertigo, she doesn't want to leave the safety of our legs, our arms. Anything for support.

I do get her to eat a little. That was important -- for the first time we got some medicine into her. We can't be sure it's what she needs, but we can hope...

Friday - 154th

The animal hospital didn't call us until after midnight. We drove over then to pick up a terrified and sick Calico and to bring her home. That is if you can call the unfinished writer's shed home. She certainly didn't feel it to be that. But it is, in fact, perfect, because it keeps her safe for now. She is in no position to go it alone outside. Of course, she's not eating or drinking and so the hope for a quick recovery is not very high. We'll see what the next few days will bring.

In the morning, I check on her, feed everyone else, and tidy the garden.





















And of course, we have breakfast. With the furrowed brow you maintain when an animal is not well and you haven't a clue as to what to do next.





Friday is Snowdrop's day at the farmhouse. I do not know why it hits me now, toward the end of summer, that I should be teaching the little girl to ride a bike. I suppose I feel it's a bit complicated, out here, in rural terrain. She's plenty eager to do it, but it requires some work.

Finding a bike is the easy part. Ed's friend had salvaged and repaired a discarded girl's bike that fits her perfectly now. Ed tweaked it and it's good to go. The little one doesn't have a helmet, but that's not hard either. I pick her up at her house and we drive over to a bike shop, where we do a curbside pick up of a helmet to fit her measured head. A light spray of disinfectant and we're good!

To say that she is excited is an understatement.

(Trying it out...)





We walk over to the bike path crossing the new development. I took a stroll here the other day and saw that it really is nearly perfect for novice riders, in that it is flat and no one uses it because it goes nowhere. It stops, just like that. If you're going fast, you'll be surprised.

Ed scoots over to watch and assist.






There are theories about learning to ride on balance bikes, learning with training wheels, learning cold turkey, without training wheels -- on and on. I take the the easy way -- with training wheels, to get her confident. She has a good run, a happy run, though keeping her on track requires oversight!






Happy girl, happy gaga.






It's a hot hot day today and baking in the sun for a while made us really and I mean really appreciate the air conditioning in the farmhouse. I read her a new mystery book and she is thrilled with it. I'm going to make a mystery lover out of her yet! A shared passion!






And yes, there is a happy session of super pig drawing!






Really, you could not ask for a better day for her. We ended it with a walk to where I tried hard to grow the skinny French beans. Most have been eaten by the groundhog, but a few are still there.





Snowdrop loves to munch on them them raw!

A final bike ride -- from house to car, along a very bumpy packed gravel path. But hey, I rode my bike for years on dirt paths (there were no paved roads within miles of where I spent my childhood summers). She manages, with a proud smile and a professed love of biking.


In the evening, I sit with Calico in the shed for a very long while. She lets me pet her, which, I suppose, is either good or worrisome. I'm thinking that at some point, we'll try to walk into the shed and she'll seize that moment to escape, but for now, we keep trying to get her to eat, drink, and rest.

Eat, drink, rest. Sounds pretty good to me as well! I cook some fish, we pop some corn, I open a bottle of Italian white. Now all we need is a good night's sleep.

Thursday - 153rd

Kids love to pick flowers. It's just such a natural impulse -- to bring it home with you. Or to give it to someone, perhaps even the person standing next to you. I'm sure if I gave my grandkids permission to raid the garden, we'd have fields of clipped green stalks.

These days, an abundance of blooms is not a given. I'm on the tail end of the day lily season. The monarda is getting to be petal-less. And the phlox, which thunders in immediately after the lily season, is starting to drop most of the little flower-ettes. Things still look pretty lush, but you definitely feel that the garden is in retreat.





















(The breakfast sunflowers are actually from Michigan. $3 a bunch at our grocery store.)













When Snowdrop and Sparrow arrive in the morning, they pause and wait to see if I have anything in mind for our outdoor time.







These days, I don't foist stuff on them. But I do use whatever enticements I can think of to keep them outside for as long as possible. Snowdrop goes off to fill the cheeper dish with water and Sparrow -- well, he heads right for the tall flowers and nips off a yellow bloom.






I don't mind. He's hitting a dense clump of false sunflowers. But of course, when Snowdrop sees my tacit approval, she wants to join in.






And then he wants to "pick more flowers!"






And now she really is just dying to gather a whole bouquet and I think -- why not? The joy of putting together a posy of flowers is just tremendous. She wants yellows. I have plenty of yellows. True, most perennials are not easy to just snip, but a grandma can assist!






Somewhere in there, a flower pot's holdings get totally decapitated and some of Sparrow's blooms are hopelessly crumpled, but hey, the kids are happy and I have new flower bunches for the breakfast table!






Inside, we confront the issue of styles of play. Snowdrop and Sparrow are very affectionate with each other, but the little girl's idea of a good playing situation is to have all three of us in the same room, but with Sparrow playing with something that does not disturb her set ups.

Well okay, but Snowdrop creates story set ups everywhere! On the floor, on the table, even on the window sill.






With characters in structures, dolls on the diaper table, artfully posed -- the whole place is a chapter book of ongoing stories.






She is lucky, because Sparrow mostly treats her arrangements with respect. And he imitates her by creating his own mini sets ups, sans the story line. Here's a favorite of his: arranging a family around a little table.





He can manipulate this little group for a long long time. Sometimes he'll do this alone. Most often he likes it when I sit with him and come up with additions to his little scene. (He considers them and mostly rejects them, unless they offer another way of sitting his little family of characters around a common table.)



At some point in the morning we read. Always on the orange couch, always with Snowdrop to my left and Sparrow to my right. I ask Ed for a photo. And he delivers.







Evening. It's a stunning time of cooler air and a dappled golden light from a receding sun. Ed and I take a brief stroll, wanting so much to take in the scents and whispers of late summer. Spring is a time of rising expectations. Now that the growing seasons have unfolded before us, I have to say -- summer certainly delivered. And for that, and for so much more, I am grateful.



After supper, we do our usual cat feed: Ed goes to the shed to feed the six teenagers (who are, by the way, no longer teenagers, but they sure move with the strength and vitality of that age category!) and I take a dish of food to the car. The two littlest girls are always there, underneath, happy as anything to be fed.

Except tonight, it's only Cutie. Well, it happens. Calico, her sister, was probably chased away earlier by the teens.

Wait. I hear her meowing. Is she stuck in a tree again? No, she seems low to the ground. Plaintive meowing. I dive into the mosquito infested thorny bushes and search for her.

She's cowering in that thicket. And she obviously is hurt, or else she'd come for the feeding, or scamper away as I zero in on her. What to do... I bend down and pet her. Well that's not good. Cutie lets me pet her. Calico is the fearful one who usually runs away. This time, she moves slowly and then plomps down again further in the thicket.

I go get Ed.

She is less scared of me than she is of him, but with the two of us there, she is, simply put, terrified. And hurt. He goes to get the cage. I grab her. Not for long though. She wiggles screeching and scratching my arm wildly. She's out of my grasp. Ed gets some gloves. She tries to climb a tree to get away, but falls down. Something is terribly wrong with her.

We can't leave her like this. We just can't. She'll be easy pray for any cat, coyote, anything at all. We chase her around a bit in those thorny bushes and finally, finally Ed grabs her, I hold the cage open and she is inside. We're scratched up, but relieved.

The vet hospital is just a short drive from here (curbside drop off!). We're off.

The doc tells us it's likely to be a vestibular problem: trauma or infection. Going forward, we have to medicate her and hope for the best. (I wont run you through all the vet lingo we listened to from a very caring and knowledgeable doc at the Madison Veterinary Specialists.)

We'll bring the little kitty back and we'll place her in the writer's shed. She is safe from the other cats there. Perhaps we can help her through this. We cannot set her free until we are sure she can manage to protect herself. When will that be?

In all this running around after dusk, we notice several things: the bats are back! I know this sounds nuts, but it's a good thing. Bats serve a protective function here. You wouldn't want one in your attic or worse, in your hair, but you do want them in your barn. Second observation -- the mosquitoes are revving up for a strong come back! And finally this -- we really do care about the animals that live here, pea chicken brains and all. When the vet called me tonight and asked how far to go with treatment, I told her that we cannot let her free unless she is healthy. Calico would be mincemeat in the wild if she didn't have her full wits about her. "Do everything you can" is definitely not right for her, but surely she deserves at least a modest attempt to get her to a healthy state.

As I post this, we are waiting to hear back from the animal hospital. Ed's cleaning the writer's shed, I'm thinking about what a tough recovery awaits the little kittie. People, animals -- some have it so easy. Others? Not so much.