the fourth

When Independence Day falls on a Sunday, things get tricky. You learn perhaps that your community put on a fireworks show on Saturday because I suppose it's easier to recover on a Sunday from late night booms and bangs. Our neighbors did the same: we heard pops and sizzles yesterday. 

So does that mean we're done with celebrating? Not necessarily. You can still put on your blue and white striped shirt,  add a dash of something red to your outfit, and display in this way pride of country. Or, you can bake something that has those colors popping at you. I do just that.

But first, I get up early, smiling at the sound of our overnight guests' voices. Or really one little girl's voice. Primrose is eager to start the day.

 

Okay, little one! I have to run over to the feed the animals and do a quick check on the garden. Be back in a minute!
 

The young family isn't staying long, but there is time in the morning to play, to go outside for a little walk...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

... to eat a leisurely breakfast (in the kitchen, where it's cooler), to catch up on all last pieces of missed information, to hatch plans, toss around big ideas. And to eat lots of good fruits!

It's hot enough for us to limit our outdoor play. Next weekend maybe. As we get closer to lunch time, the young family takes off. They have a bit of driving to do today. One last romp...

Lots of hugs and kisses and happy smiles...

And they're off and I return to my garden, which is looking July good right now!

I snip spent lilies and return to the kitchen. I have another baking job. This one (thanks, Ina Garten):

And then the local young family is here for dinner.

(relaxed...)

There was a time when I would have grilled on the Fourth. Everyone grills on the Fourth. But interest in grilled foods fizzled and my own interest in lighting up a grill out on the porch while also tending to foods in pots on the kitchen stove fizzled as well. So what to do for a Fourth dinner? I'm sure you'll think this to be weird and not at all fitting for this particular holiday, but I decided to finally cook something the kids keep stumbling upon in books but have never had -- spaghetti and meatballs.

("spaghetti and meatballs??")

Was it a hit? Well, out of the seven at the table, two were enthusiastic, one was polite enough not to commit one way or another, one changed his mind halfway through, two were strong "no!" votes, and one abstained (from pretty much everything). But no one will forget that we had spaghetti and meatballs for Fourth of July dinner in 2021.

I hope you had a happy holiday. Wait, let me say this really loudly, because the neighbors in the new development are really popping those fireworks loudly tonight: I hope you had a happy holiday!!!

With love...

celebrate, gently

So many of us have gradually resumed some or maybe even most of what we lost starting in March of 2020. If you don't have kids and are fully vaccinated and live in a community where most are also vaccinated, the argument can be made that this is at it should be. But of course, many of us are around kids and we really don't want to take risks now when life isn't feeling so constrained, and we are not so burdened by the precautions, and you can do a lot and still be safe. So we go easy on picking up old habits.

Here, at the farmette, our days are much the same as they would be any summer of any year: we work outside when the weather is good and the bugs are low. So perhaps I haven't really paid attention to how much has changed in our community since last summer. But today I noticed. And the changes are reason to celebrate, albeit gently because the loss has been so great for so many, so that feeling jubilant is not possible. Too, there is the rest of the world -- there but for the grace...

Still, this morning, I found myself mixing tears with a smile as I stepped out into a world I hadn't visited for two years. After a very early round of morning chores...

I got in the car and drove downtown to the Madison Farmers Market.  The market that always draws crowds. The market that reopened a couple of weeks ago. The market that I'd gone to for decades now -- first with my two little girls, then alone as a forager for a restaurant, and lately with daughters and their children. The market that was shut down all last summer. I went early, but the weather is beautiful and it was crowded. 

There is a traffic pattern at this particular market: you walk in one direction, counter clockwise and since the stalls take up a good part of the wide sidewalk, there are always bottlenecks. To step into that world now felt unreal. Like a trip on some hallucinogen (I don't know anything about that, but I can imagine!): the colors, the noise, the feeling of normalcy! (Hence the smile and tears.)

I kept to the street. I still don't like crowds, even outdoor crowds. But I popped in to buy flowers and honey and asparagus and, well, lots of things!

It felt for a minute as if the pandemic was some kind of a weird dream. One farmer whom I've known for years and years said to me -- we made it. He's frail and old and I was so happy to see him. And of course, with total gratitude for all the luck that stayed with us all year long and then some, I said -- yes we did.

So long as I was downtown, I thought I'd stop at a bakery.

Oh, how I love a good croissant for breakfast!

And now comes the super busy part. Finish cleaning, finish baking, tidy the garden, start in on dinner. Because, as it happens, my younger girl and her family are passing through Madison on their way up to Minneapolis and they're pausing for a visit, both coming and going. And this is how I have all these awesome kids and their kids at the farmette today.

 

 

 

Dinner, en masse.

Dessert!

No time to write more. Just a deep sigh of gratitude for all that beauty that makes you gasp in wonder, for the growing plants and growing children. For all the good people in this world.

With love.

getting ready

It'll be a busy weekend, a modestly busy week after, followed by another busy weekend. (Notice lots of busies in that sentence? Yeah.) I want to attack some of the work that needs to be done in advance of this and so this morning I give myself a motivating speech (not out loud) and get to it.

But first, we walk over to take a look at the tomato patch. We have been having problems with a fungus that seems to appear when you have hot and humid days hitting your plants early in the summer. We think the tomatoes will survive, but it's not a given. 

We check on a few of the planted trees. Most are sprouting leaves, so that's good. While we're here, Ed bravely pulls out wild parsnip plants. They will grow back, but at least the offending stalks wont be rubbing against any child who may find her or himself running through these fields.

July: I see it as a lily month, but you could also call it the black eyed Susan month. Fields of them are blooming just to the north of us!

Back in my own flower fields, I snip off spent lilies left and right. And of course, I take note of what's blooming. There is no way you'll escape looking at multiple garden photos here in July. Absolutely no way. You're not into flowers? Come back next month, or better yet, in January. In July  -- you get the flowers.

Next job for me is to mow down some paths, and mow down the remains of the raspberry patch, and mow down a route for the kids toward that black eyed Susan field, and mow down an extra parking space out front, and mow down anything that is offensive or that portends of prickly seeds in the future. Spare me please picking that junk out of my hair come late summer and fall! So I bump around on the tractor mower for well over an hour and of course that just makes me so ill, and I wonder how it is that people pay to go on a carnival ride when all the bumping and spinning surely feels awful! Or is it just me? 

No matter, the farmette lands are looking good and I tell Ed that this is the first time since I've moved here that I feel we've gotten a grip on all the problematic corners and stretches of farmette land. I mean, we're not in control of it by any means, but at least we're in partnership, working toward something still a little wild, but lovely and accessible to all forms of life -- child, beast and aging adult.

Breakfast, with those best peaches and other summer treasures.

Part two of weekend preparations includes dusting and vacuuming. Ed and I split that job, which means that I do my bit early and he does his tomorrow but who cares. The house will be more or less clean soon.

Next comes pre-baking. Meaning I have more than one thing I want to bake and though I want everything to be fresh, there are some things you can do ahead and noone will even notice and these cookie cakes are it! (Besides, they need many hours in the fridge before the last step -- icing.)

Call them rainbow cakes. Or Pride bars. They come from someone whose newsletter (full of good recipes)  I read religiously (Adam Roberts -- the Amateur Gourmet). I know I'm a few days behind in acknowledging or celebrating Pride Month, but that's okay. We support our communities every day, including in July! And honestly, aren't these going to be just so pretty for a forthcoming meal that will include kids, who, after all, love rainbows? Please tell me that you actually can see that it's yellow, orange and pink layers -- made colorful by veggie dies, with orange marmalade in between. You can tell, right??

(about to put the third, pink, layer on...)

Evening. Ed had asked if I wanted to play frisbee out on the frisbee disc course. We haven't played for nearly two years! I hesitate. I'm so terrible at giving that thing any great distance! (Usually his sails twice as far as mine.) Still, it's so rare for Ed to push to do something beyond the boundaries of the farmette that I agree.

After I'm done baking!

Well now, those rainbow cookies take forever to prepare. It doesn't help that I have just two quarter baking sheets, when the recipe calls for three layers. It's 6 o'clock before we finally head out, frisbees and all.

The disc course is just one or two miles from us and on this day of perfect weather, in the late hours of the afternoon (or is it early evening?), it is beautiful. Prairies, woods, wetlands. Distant cornfields. 

 

 

As in the past, we both take off our shoes and play the game barefoot. The clover is thick and soft, the breeze is perfect. My game hovers between moderately bad and medium awful (6 throws on a 4 par basket, but the 4 par is really for the wimps, because I see many a muscled person bringing it in at 3), but it doesn't matter. It's a stunning time to be out playing.

But dinner is very very late.

(late evening at the farmette: still with dabs of sunlight!)

July gardens

Most perennial enthusiasts learn to balance their gardens. You have to account for height and texture and color of course. And you have to account for the period of bloom. Yes, there are flowers that can bloom for a good part of the summer, but in my experience, the perennial flowering period tends to be short. I'd say two weeks, on the average. Maybe three if you don't mind a more weathered look. So the trick is to plant different stuff for early spring, interspersed with stuff for late spring, and then for early summer, mid summer and late summer, and finally for autumn. 

But from the outset I rejected this way of planning a garden. Yes, I wanted to be sure to front load the flower fields -- get stuff in there for early spring, because we are so hungry for color then! And after that, I picked plants I liked, regardless of their bloom time. And since I like a lot of lilies, the garden definitely has a peak period when it is at its finest and that period falls on July. It's not that in the other months it is stagnant, it's just that the feeling of abundance starts right about now. Every day is exciting!

A sunny day today and I do spend time dead heading lilies, because I really like the clean lily bed look...

(the day lily has to provide a challenge to froggie: I mean, every day, it has to jump to a new bloom...)

And we eat breakfast on the porch and Ed has picked our wild blackberries so we add those to the mix of fruits...

And then I pause with all things outside, because my daughter's visiting friend is set to have a meet up with my mom (he knew her when she still lived in California) and the kids are coming along for this and I promised I'd be there to help with the whole thing. Including the picture taking.

Okay! Kids, time for you to go for your swimming lessons! I'm going to take you there! (They love their swimming lessons! Absolutely love them.)

And now I'm home again and Ed is prompting me to go outside. We are seeing the first (or second and maybe even third) mosquito so we probably have a very short window in which we can still work without the company of those horrid bugs. Fine. Let's finish with the moving of hostas.

This is how you quickly move from early morning to late afternoon. 

 For us, Thursday afternoon means that we take a trip to pick up our CSA veggie box. Today we also want to get to the farmers market just as it opens. I'm eager to purchase the newest arrivals: Wisconsin blueberries!

What? sold out in the first five minutes?? I suppose everyone is thinking of throwing them in for a red white and blue dessert for Sunday. No? Well I am. If you're lucky, the Fourth of July brings with it the tail end of strawberries and the arrival of blueberries. All you need is the cream and you're set. (I have mentioned numerous times on Ocean that for people like me who hate live, loud fireworks and who dont grill meats all that much (ever?), this holiday has few traditions I can latch onto. This year, it will again have to be in the dessert. If I can find some blueberries at the Saturday market.)

For now, I'm celebrating July 1st, bursting with new flowers. How beautiful to look outside now! How good it is to be in the thick of the growing season.