Sunday - 359th

My day is filled with scores of Latin words. Well, Latin sounding words. I'm not sure if true Botanical names are actually Latin or if we just give them names that have Latin-like endings.

Epimedium alpinum rubrum

It's a pretty day in a subdued sort of way. Chicks: there are the growing chicks...

 

 

 

We have a calm breakfast...

 

Ad then I sit down to the task at hand.

Symphyotrichum oblongifolium "Raydon's Favorite." Now that's a mouthful, followed by that Raydon twist.

Pyncnanthemum verticillatum var. pilosum or -- hairy mountain mint. The minty stuff is the common name -- way easier to pronounce than the Botanical one which in the first word alone has 13 letters, only 4 of which are vowels, even if you rank the Y as a vowel (according to the rules of grammar -- it is indeed a vowel in that particular word).

Of course, there are, too, the daylilies:

Hemerocallis scratch and sniff, Hemerocallis wild one, hemerocallis smoky mountain autumn.

These are all flowers I ordered for spring planting. I'm being systematic this year: I bought a spiffy notebook (a Clairefontaine, squared) and I wrote in today all that we purchased -- names, light requirements, size, bloom time.

It took forever.

In the next days I'll envision a new bed and I'll disperse the rest among existing flower fields.

 

In the afternoon, a guy called asking if he could take a look at my old car (which is currently for sale on Craigslist). "We're about to have a baby, she's in the hospital, and I desperately need to get my hands on a car that's big enough for the kid..."

We wait. He comes. He drives it. He likes it. "I'll give you $100 to hold it until tomorrow. Let me get to an ATM." He leaves. We wait, but only for a few minutes.

He wont be back. -- this from Ed. But he needs it for his new baby!

You believed him? He comes out to buy the car and he doesn't have $100 with him for a deposit? 

Why wouldn't he just leave and say no thanks?

The guy calls back. "My girlfriend is looking at another car. We'll choose between the two." Wait, I thought she was in the hospital having a baby?

Such is Craigslist. We go out for a hike in our local park. And it is slushy, but very pretty in the predusk light.

And on the drive back, we greet the returning Sandhill cranes. We'd heard them already last week, but this is the first sighting: it's a sure and welcome sign of spring. 

 

 

Saturday - 358th

Plentiful sunshine. Those are the words used by the weather bureau to describe this day. Even the sound of it is delicious!

It's Saturday, but it's more like Sunday because our schedules are flipped to accommodate various events. So, Sunday family dinner tonight!

But first, the usual, performed with the bounce that only this kind of weather could provide.

(There are still snow covered areas. But it's all very lovely nonetheless!)

Breakfast is ready!

Ed and I do a midday hike along a segment of the Ice Age trail, one that we don't return to often. And it's a shame, because it's pretty!

Though honestly, tell me what's *not* pretty outdoors today. Oh, I suppose the mud -- there's plenty of it at the farmette, but on the trail, we're mostly dealing with slushy snow.

And blue skies and sunshine.

The young family comes at the usual predinner time, but of course, we're approaching spring and so there is still plenty of light. The kids play, the grownups relax, we munch on roasted beets and cheese and crackers.With wine for those who can and sparkling cider for those who cannot.

There are some things that you never want to change...

 

 

 

Friday - 357th

This is the kind of Groundhogian repetition that I can live with: a wake up to yet another day of sunshine and the lengthening of each day, so that we are now at a 6:26 sunrise and a 5:52 sunset. We are rich with daylight!

With a melting snow cover, I can resume my morning walk across the farmette lands. My path takes me around the pines and back of the barn. This is one of the sunnier spots here, not yet shaded over by the ever encroaching trees. Will we plant a tomato field this year? Will we go ahead with expanding the new orchard?

Probably not. The deer routinely pass through this way every day and we'd have to install significant animal protections  (electric fence? Other?) to have a successful harvest. Right now the thought is to let it go to prairie, possibly mowing down paths. We've been able to control the honeysuckle invasives, but the thistle and the multiflora rose have won in significant parts of these fields. We may just let them be for now. I have too much work this year expanding flower fields south of the barn to focus my energies as well on this wilder northern section of the property.

Breakfast, sunny, delightful.

Soon after, Sparrow arrives for his first visit here in several months!

Unlike Snowdrop and Primrose, the young lad has not had any school time and indeed has literally not been anywhere outside of his home (and the farmhouse earlier on) for a year now. For him, the world has been a small place indeed. For now, at least he has a return to the farmette.

I was mindful of the fact that he may be shy about coming back without his sister. But I have chicks! 

In his time here, Sparrow makes many trips to visit with the chicks.

And, as Snowdrop during yesterday's return, he spends many hours returning to his favorite toys. So familiar, yet fresh too.

 

(Chickens are a high ticket item here these days. Even fake chickens.)

And then we do an afternoon switch: I return Sparrow to his parents and pick up Snowdrop at school. A happy girl indeed!

Did I mention that chickens these days are a source of delight here?

 

 

But not only. Snowdrop picks up again on her story telling aided by her dolls and she returns to her super pig book making. It's funny that she should do this with such love and enthusiasm here, because in the months that she has stayed away from the farmhouse, she did neither at home: no doll stories, no super pigs. It's a world that lives here and waits for her here.

 

Toward the end, she wants an outdoor adventure. By then, I have had my fill of the outdoors. It's not that warm once the sun disappears behind some clouds. Still, she is so determined that I cave. We take a few of her "dressed for winter" dolls, a snack, and her binoculars. 

I'm happy that this child, who can be quite exacting and fastidious, is delighted to make squishy sounds in the mud paths we have here now. (The farmette paths in March are one big squishy mess.

 

Evening. Kids are home, Ed and I are in our same old spots on the couch doing the same old stuff. It's rare these days to just stick with the "same old." But we do. At least in the evenings. Out comes the popcorn. We're set, until one or both of us falls asleep...

Thursday - 356th

A little bit cold, a little bit cautious, a little bit social, a little bit more of family. With plenty of sunshine to wrap this day in a cheerful blanket of delight.

I am up early. We both are. Ed is strategizing a potential sailing trip, I'm bouncing around ideas on how to do this efficiently and in a fun way, and before you know it, the day is up and running.

As are the animals -- they are buoyant when the day is sunny and (almost) springlike.

(Well, the little chicks are more suspicious than buoyant, but still, I force them out for an adventure: there is a wider world outside your box, little girls!)

My breakfast thoughts are with Primrose in Chicago. I got this baby primrose plant and it so reminds me of these delicate spring flowers blooming in the Luxembourg Gardens on the day she was born...

And then I get the house ready for the afternoon. (With a pause to do a Zoom checkin with my friends in Poland: when you get too wrapped up in the pandemic stories of this country, it's good to take a step back and consider what's going on elsewhere in this world.)

 On this day, we are resuming contact with my older daughter's family. We've done this following the recommendations of docs: the young family is still isolating but for Snowdrop's school attendance, and I've spaced my visits so that I wont bring anything from Chicago into the Madison household. And so, beginning today, I can help once more, beginning with Snowdrop school pick ups on the days she has inclass instruction.

It's surreal. I had picked this girl up from school every day since she began attending the Montessori preschool at the age of 1. And now here she is, coming out in full winter and pandemic gear at her new school, bursting out with a heavy dose of that Snowdrop enthusiasm.

Once again she is at the farmhouse.

Reaching for all her favorites: books, dolls, foods, legos, dress up clothes.

And chicks. Again and again, she comes back to the chicks.

As I drive her home in the evening and listen to her soft voice -- so soft that I can hardly hear it, even in this brand new quiet car -- I think how hard it has been on all grandparents who have lost so much family time this past year. And the cups of coffee not sipped with friends, the glass of wine not enjoyed with a big meal of close ones. So tough. So very tough.

I drop off Snowdrop and her school gear, I greet Sparrow, whom I'll see more of tomorrow, and I make my way home.

And to make my day almost too good, I have a dinner FaceTime with Primrose.

Families, friends, waiting. To see each other, to play together, to enjoy that sip of coffee or wine in the company of others. Oh, but it will be good news indeed to learn (soon, we hope) that this is okay now. That we can go back and enjoy all those hours together. With love...

Wednesday - 355th

A stunning day. Really beautiful! All the animals are out and about. Inside the farmhouse, the chicks too are on the move!

Breakfast still in the play room, while it's neat  and tidy (no kids here yet). Too, we like being close to the sunshine (the play room is south facing, the kitchen is north and west)!

In the late morning, I sheepishly drive the Blue Moon over to the dealer, where the car is to receive its super environmental protection coating. You know, the dealer's money maker that I just could not pass up, because I have been so tortured by rust on my cars (the previous one was so bad that I swear there was more rust than car left by the time I was done with it). 

And here's a discovery: the more I drive Blue Moon, the more I like its utter newness! 

True, it all comes at a price (and not only a price to my pocketbook). I tell Ed that maybe we should wear "driving slippers," because the farmette lands are just too muddy in early spring. It's impossible to keep that mud out of the car. In my previous vehicles, it didn't matter. Snowdrop used to kick the back seat with her boots. That didn't matter either. The early flow of spring juices in the big willow that dangles over all the cars releases sap. Onto the cars. Didn't matter before, does matter now. I want to cover and protect Blue Moon -- a ridiculous idea if you think about it, but still, it's tempting.

When I pick up the ready car,  I swing by my daughter's home (avoiding any puddle along the way!)  to do a swap of books and produce. A chance to see the kids, or at least one non-napping kid and her mom.

And then Ed and I head out into that glorious sunny world for a walk in the Arboretum.

 On the drive home, as I again skirt around the puddles, Ed gives me a gentle reprimand -- gorgeous, you have to stop doing that. It's okay to drive through puddles, it's okay if Snowdrop's feet muddy the seats, and if you get nicks and scratches on the body. It's just a car.

He's right of course. But today, as I drive it in its polished pristine state and the skies are blue and the birds sing a song of spring (we heard the first sandhill cranes this week!), and soft piano music pours out of its sound system, well, it is a very fun moment, in a year of many moments that could not rightly be classified as fun.

Oh, and we encountered some of the wild turkeys. Sort of like the chicks, only bigger.

Hello turkey!

Home again. A Zoom visit with friends, a frittata for supper, with an eye on Dance who flits between playing with the flowers on the table and watching carefully for a golden moment when she can "visit" with the young chicks.

Beautiful early spring day. Really, simply exquisite.

Tuesday - 354th

This is when you start to bargain with the weather gods. You want each day to be even better, warmer, sunnier.  ("If you just keep those temps up there, I promise I'll try not to complain about rain, or the occasional nightly dips below freezing, or the heat waves that are sure to come this summer...") And this is just so like us mortals! Never satisfied. Two weeks ago, this string of warm-ish sunny days would have felt like a tropical interlude. Today, we just want to ignore the fact that it's early March. We want the great weather to continue, unabated. We want the moon.

Well, today we sort of get that moon. It's sunny, lovely and warm-ish (high of 37f, or 3c).

Good morning, baby chicks! Ready for your daily constitutional?

There's work to be done though, so we can't just let loose and indulge feelings of spring fever. We need to prep the old Mazda for a Craigslist sale. I didn't do a trade-in because in the end, my sanity clicked in and I understood that their "generous" $750 for it was not generous at all and that I could do way better, like two or three times better if I sold it on Craigslist. So Ed and I buffed it up, rust spots and all.

(Getting breakfast ready...)

Sometime in those hours of chores and chick care, I pick up one of the Subaru manuals that came with my new car. (Subaru is in fact named for a cluster of blue stars in the Taurus constellation. I hadn't realized that. You can read about it here.) You know how various electronics -- cameras, computers, etc -- come with quick info pamphlets that get you started right away without having to study the voluminous operational details in full user manuals? Well, Blue Moon has just such a "quick" start guide. It's 116 pages long.

It brought to mind an article from today's NYT on how we are overburdened with too much choice, too much complexity. too little standardization. Spending time learning all this stuff will help me make use of the car's incredible features. (I can only imagine how many additional features a high end car would have!) But it will take me away from doing other things. I have, for example, only five more pages to edit in my book project. That's sort of amazing: I got through the entire manuscript, in the months that I was forced to be away from my grandkids. But for the last five pages. So do I learn about the car, or do I finish the writing project? And if I make my way through the 116 page shortened manual, should I abandon the longer version altogether? At what point do you stop reading all the literature, all the small print, all the reviews that are thrust upon you as you buy, or update ever the next item?

In the late afternoon, after getting only to page 21 (and ineffectively at that, since you really should study these things while you're in the car staring at the dashboard), I put it down and Ed and I take our walk through the park that had given us so many skiing days this winter! No skiing today, just a nice, sunny March late day walk.

(Lake Waubesa, where the river runs to it. The fisher people and their huts are on the retreat...)

(Evening at the farmette... With the animals.)

Monday - 353rd

Our march to spring takes a little March pause today. Sunny, but cold. Puddles froze overnight. No matter. I give them two days to melt into mud once again.

(There is still snow on the farmette lands -- just less of it. Lots of bare spots.)

Breakfast, after I greet the chicks. They look like they're growing!

(good morning Rosie, Cherry and Uni -- did I get the names right, Snowdrop?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I basically go blind to the world. I mean, I have my long overdue eye check and you know how that goes -- many drops cloud your eyes so that by the time you leave you can see absolutely nothing with any clarity whatsoever. That you should be set loose to drive yourself home afterwards does not seem right. Especially on a bright sunny day. It's a good thing that I know my way home with eyes closed because they may as well be closed.

And don't you think that this is just about the best possible moment in your life to go ahead and purchase a new car? When you can't see anything? And you don't want to spend any time inside any dealer's showroom because, you know, there's a pandemic raging across our planet right now?

The car purchase issue has been on my mind for a while now. After much misery with working through the problems in my rusty old Mazda, I had decided weeks ago that it's time for a change. And last week, I actually "bought" a car. Without any visit to any dealer, without even seeing any car at all, I made a deal with a car sales guy over the phone. To be finalized on or before March 1st. Oh, Ed and I had many discussions as to whether this was a good strategy. The old Mazda can keep going probably for a while longer, but each repair has been more costly than the previous one and, too, if the car breaks down on me, then selling it would be a challenge. And finally, you don't see interest rates like these very often: 0.9%. I mean, really? 

And so toward noon, Ed dropped me off at the dealer's and the tortuous process of purchasing a car -- one that I could only sort of kind of see, what with my impaired vision -- began.

You'd think that it would be easy and fun. After all, I had negotiated the model, even the actual car, rolling off the delivery truck just last Friday, certainly the price. 

It was not fun, it was not easy. I had to go into the showroom constantly (double masked) to attend to various stuff, sanitizing my hands obsessively as papers were passed to me for review. In between signings and elbow bumps, I waited outside -- on this one cold day of the week, and as I looked over this piece of new machinery I tried to feel the joy you're supposed to feel when you hand over a sizeable chunk of your income in exchange for a tangible good. I even gave the new car a name -- Blue Moon, because, well, it's blue and the purchase by me of this and any car at all happens once in a blue moon. Like maybe every fifteen years, or maybe never again, given my age.

In a sense, everything was smooth enough. Everyone was nice, everyone was polite, tolerating my desire not to sit anywhere or linger inside or touch anything there. And the car -- well, it's really lovely and its functionality is perfect: big enough to fill with a pack of kids in the back seat, but only two inches wider than my current Mazda, so it should fit in nicely into the parking space at the end of the driveway.

But at the close of three hours, as I got into this very nice car, I thought -- this can't be mine. I don't belong in new cars. I can't appreciate them because they don't matter that much to me. In the end, it's just a car. And, too, I let myself be conned into adding on a rustproofing guarantee (for 7 years!) just because my past two (used) cars were so rusted through that I craved a protection against road salt. They knew my vulnerabilities! They called it a fancy name (environmental something or other), zapped on a nice price for it and promised that if ever even a hint of rust or paint fade or bug stain or anything threatened the car's exterior, I could just bring it in and puff! They would magically mend it.

Ed straightened me out properly on that one. As I later told him about it, he reminded me what I already knew: insurance, warranty, promise -- loaded words, banking on the susceptibility of the foolish and the weak. 

They wouldn't have sold it to you if they thought you would actually need to use it....

I know Ed, I know.

Still, let's be positive about the whole messy day: the eyes will clear eventually. the car is lovely and it will protect me and my loved ones better (all those safety features!), and tomorrow, spring-like weather will return.

From Ed: Be sure to read the informational materials, gorgeous. (He knows me too well.)

(Evening walk by Lake Waubesa: still a tad wintry)