Tuesday - 214th

 Morning, mostly cloudy and cool. Morning walk -- mostly lovely and full of that October burst of color.

(hi, cheepers!)

 (morning walk)

(lilies, one last time)

We eat breakfast on the porch, even though it's just 51F (10C). We may yet eek out another morning like this, but it's not a given. Yes, Friendly the cat will miss our presence going forward. (Dance is out and about, so Friendly has joyfully taken her place on Ed's lap.)

I have work to do in the yard. I have a new plan for the space created by Ed's chopping down of the tree. Step one is to dig out the hostas growing there. With two trees now gone (both were Carpathian Walnuts, both died) from the spot, I have a reasonably sunny area begging for flowers. Hostas are not the right choice. So I dig them out. (Into the wheelbarrow they go, six at a time, one on top of another...)

They are huge! Monster hostas. I move them to the large, weedy spaces by the sheep shed and barn. Seventeen transplants later, I am wiped. Everything aches! 

I'm not done yet. I still need to dig out weeds and prepare the soil in the new bed for spring planting. Ah, but it's exciting to imagine a new place for more lilies, more phloxes, and for early spring -- daffodils and English bluebells.

 And of course, once you focus on a new planting area, you want to improve everything about it. I coax Ed into trimming the curly willow growing at the edge of the bed. The dead limbs are so high that even he takes extra precautions in bringing them down -- note the head helmet!

These Fall days have been stunning to the core. They're begging us to add just a little bit of joy to these somber times. Just enough to smile when you stroll past a golden birch, or a scarlet spindle tree. Autumnal colors came to us earlier this year. But, the cold temps stayed away longer. Tradeoffs: in nature, there will always be tradeoffs.

Monday - 213th

 It's not clear to me how long I can continue my 10,000 steps a day goal, but I do think that if I fail one day, then I'll slack off and ignore the count thereafter. In other words, I have this resolve: let's keep this thing going no matter what! I've been racking up the steps since October 1st. Let me not stop now.

I need this little pep talk, because the weather is turning normal. Meaning it's colder, wetter, more like you'd expect for mid-October.

Yes, I do my morning farmette walk. And yes, it's beautiful!

 

(Java, our oldest girl...)

 

 A hidden sheep shed...

 

 Following the path to the new orchard...

But it doesn't add up on the FidBit. And then the rains come. And so I turn on that dreadful monster of a machine -- the treadmill -- and force myself to endure the boredom of a half hour on it, just to give that boost that I need to reach my hefty 10,000 goal.

After breakfast, of course. (There's a cat in his arms.)

In other news -- well, I've been meaning to post a poem I like, but my late night Ocean writing has meant that I avoid straying into side issues like poems, songs and other musings that fill my head when it's not spinning with thoughts on the health and welfare of my beloveds, my friends and everyone else on this planet, animals included. You know how that goes: when you start making cuts, the arts are the first to go. 

But today, with the colder air outside and my walking goals nicely behind me, I can bring up poetry.

I know not everyone is a fan. But hear me out on this one. And you should, because I am about to write out the words of this year's Nobel literature laureate, Louise Glück. If you haven't looked at her work, now's your chance to sample something. 

I'm thinking of a poem of hers called "Snowdrops." I'll write it out for you, without explanation, okay?

 Here it is:

Snowdrops

Do you know what I was, how I lived?  You know
what despair is; then
winter should have meaning for you.

I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn't expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring--

afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy

in the raw wind of the new world.

 

I'll end with a photo from my morning walk. Just because.

Sunday - 212th

It was getting to be late in the afternoon. I had started in on Sunday dinner, to be delivered to my daughter tonight, but I had paused to help Ed with his farmette project. Except that things derailed and now here I am, frantically pouring nearly a cupful of olive oil on my head, extra virgin no less, while Ed looks on. I am a mess.

How did we get to this point? 

Well, it was a normal start to a day. Breakfast, on the porch, though it's a stretch. No more heatwave.

... With a view toward a very pretty crab apple. That tree looks its best in the spring and fall. We're witnessing its ruby gold glow now.

Ed then returns to the project of the tree. He'd promised to attend to it this fall (when the flower beds, bearing the brunt of fallen limbs, would not suffer) and this weekend he'd started in on trimming the branches as best as he could. The dead tree is precariously positioned, smack halfway between two problems: the house and the power lines. If it falls on either, we're in trouble.

 

All day long, he saws and trims and I help stack the fallen branches. This really does take up the better part of the day.

Then comes the most difficult part -- taking down the entire trunk, along with the one remaining upright branch. I wouldn't be much help here. Too, I'm not sure I want to watch. So I retreat to some of the flower fields to trim them for the coming season. And while I'm cutting down some invasives, I completely miss seeing the virginia stickseed plant growing to the side.

I hate this plant. I know, hate is a strong word, but the seeds of this horror cling to everything! You walk past it and your pants, socks, shoes are covered with little burrs. Impossible to remove! Well, today, in bending down to snip back some invasives, I get my head, my head close enough to the stinker that dozens, many many dozens of prickly burrs find a nice nesting place in my hair.

I have had enough experience with this sucker to know I am in trouble. There is absolutely no easy way to get the burrs out of hair and since I have so many of them, my scalp is fast matting into something that you couldn't invent for Halloween if you tried.

In desperation, I do the obvious: shower, pour lots of conditioner on my scalp, pinch, pull -- all of it. To no avail. I call in Ed for help. We google solutions. When all else fails, they say, you have to cut off the hair.

How do you think I'd look without hair? 

Like a person without hair.

One last recommendation -- pour vegetable oil on your head and twist and work each seed free. Hence the olive oil. And the greasy mess. And a good part of the afternoon spent on the couch, twisting and separating matted hair clumps and releasing stickseed, one sticking burr at a time. Dozens upon dozens...

We emerge victorious! I return to the delayed dinner, Ed returns to bringing down the tree. This is the toughest part for him. If it doesn't fall exactly where he wants it to fall, we either lose electricity or we get a hole in the roof.

He uses wedges, and saws, and green paint, and a good deal of thinking power.

 

And he succeeds! It falls to the ground, halfway between the two obstacles. Yeah!

I deliver the dinner to a hungry young family. As my daughter finishes up the details in the kitchen, I play ball with the kids. Across the fence. With enough distance to scare away any virus.

 

 

The little guy hasn't changed: he'll still bring me the ball...

 

I wont say how late it is before Ed and I sit down to our own evening meal. But, we're burr free and we have both electricity and a roof over our heads. We are grateful.

Saturday - 211th

 A walk can change the mood. It can restore, it can  reinvigorate. It can add steps to your tally! It can do so much and... it's free! 

When it gets really cold, I feel accomplished just running over to the barn and back. But today, on a sunny and warm morning, I follow a farmette circuit that I've grown to really love. We've mowed a path that traces it perfectly. It may not look stunning here, on Ocean, but for me, it's a beautiful way to start the day.

 

To the pine grove...

 

Back of the barn...

To the new orchard...

And home again.

 

 

Followed by breakfast. On the porch. With some flowers brought in from a closing-up-shop garden. Sweet peas, dahlias.

There was farmette work then: I needed to dig up more hydrangea bushes and Ed had to take down some more branches of that tree slated for a chop down. Hard work!

And then comes the reward of a meetup with Snowdrop. 

 

It's not perfect. Very warm weather brings with it pesky little flies and crazy flights of speckled Japanese beetles. The little girl can't last on that blanket for long. We need a change of pace.

 

How about a walk? 

 

 

 

It's a first for us: a distanced, masked walk. No hand holding, no shoulder to shoulder chats. She wants to walk behind, I stay ahead. 

Something can be not perfect (I'd love to reach for her small hand), yet still it can be grand. Snowdrop took this moment to describe to me the mystery story she is writing in her head. I sang us a song we used to belt out on school neighborhood walks. And we took pleasure in the colors of Fall. 

Afterwards, we were ready for more blanket time. Restored. Reading, drawing. Favorite things become favorite once more.

A walk. Maybe several walks in the course of the day. I so recommend them. Totally.

Friday - 210th

 Would you believe 80F (26.5C)? Indeed! We hit it this afternoon and it felt at once glorious and weird. It is, after all, October 9th. Last year, toward the end of this month, it snowed, there was ice, and Halloween was miserably freezing. Granted, we're not at the end of the month yet, but still, 80F??

 (And look what's blooming...)

 

 

Breakfast assuredly on the porch.

 

For Ed, it's back to maintenance work: he has the tractor-mower to fix (for the hundredth time, it seems), a tree to finish bringing down and a water heater to replace. When his list grows, the chances of moving through it diminish. Nonetheless, when I ask him if he'd like to go out for a hike locally, his conscience nudges him to say -- you go, I've got work to do.

 

 

And so I went. To the local park. Not a soul in sight. Plenty of gusty winds and a plethora of autumn hues.

Our men are working on the front steps and I think they're making progress! The entrance is starting to look authentically legitimate. So much so, that UPS has begun leaving packages there. That's the down side of not appearing to be a crumbling mess anymore. I may live to regret my rush to restore some credibility to that side of the farmhouse.

 

Both Ed and I have work to do on that project as well. He needs to fill in dirt to allow us to keep the steps down to three -- the legal limit for going without a rail. Me, I need to dig out a bunch of neighboring hydrangea bushes that are sending deep roots in every direction. I get to it tonight.

It is no surprise that I hit my 10,000 step target! 

Dinner: I bake some cod fillets (with lemon and cayenne) and I go purple: purple cauliflower, purple potatoes! With some chooped bok choy and corn kernels, all sauteed to a bit of a crisp. 

And after all that, after the popcorn and an episode from the series we're watching, I retreat upstairs with my kindle, loaded with two new mystery books. Escapism never felt so comfy!

Thursady - 209th

Well, we went away on a vacation trip today. I know, you're surprised. We never go far together these years, and we never go anywhere at all of note these months, and we're not the type to just get up and get away, or at least Ed's not the type.

But the weather! You can't just go to your local park and call it a day. When you wake up to all this glory, you have to do something big!

After breakfast of course.

 

Yes, Dance is there, because these days she thinks it's only right for her to be included.

In the later morning, our retired mason guy shows up with his younger sidekick-helper. They're ready to get started on our front stairs. Even as they begin work, the design idea gets adjusted once again. We have worked our way through so many design ideas that I swear it's as if we cannot move beyond the final edit -- there will always be another one. Still, the men get to work and Ed and I pack up our stuff and drive off.

Where to? Is it the airport with a ticket to Paris? Is it maybe to the Pacific coast? Or an island with golden sands and turquoise sea waters? Well, maybe nothing so ambitious. We drive south and west to Governor Dodge State Park.

I know, I know, that doesn't meet your criteria of a vacation escape. I mean, it's 50 minutes by car, door to door. But for us -- that's a lot! And the park is big (over 5000 sq acres) and it offers variety, so that on our planned hike, we would hug a lake, delve into many forested areas, and cut through a prairie meadow. We're not at a peak leaf color moment yet, but we saw plenty to enthrall us. A few photos from our rather long hike...

 

And a selfie, of course. Notable for the fact that I am not wearing glasses. I put them in my pack for the day. It felt grand to be without them.

How about looking up toward the perfectly blue sky?

We paused twice: once because Ed wanted to "take in the forest," and then again to eat our snack of mandarines and nuts.  We encountered a couple of hikers at the outset, and then no one at all for hours on end.

Perhaps in your estimation, it wont have been a full and fabulous getaway, but for us it was just that. Nearly four hours of hiking, 20,000 steps recorded on my tracking device and that perfect Autumnal weather! I will say no more.