proud

You watch your kids grow and each day your pride grows: their character, earnestness, good hearts, dedication, the list is long. I'm sure you feel that way with yours, no? It's not about accomplishments, it's about who they are as human beings. And then if you have grandkids (or spend time with cool youngsters), you get to see it all over again: the character, earnestness, good hearts -- I really mean it when I tell them -- I'm so proud of you!

And Ed -- big frame, occupying just a small space on this planet and in the house -- always the same corner of the couch, thinking through one thing then the next, inventing, ever inventing and correcting, so that whatever project or company he puts his effort to keeps moving forward, benefiting so much from his ideas and patient efforts to implement them. (He's working right now on proposing a huge shift for the company into which he has put most of his efforts in the years since I've known him. Clever ideas are always percolating inside that quiet head of his that is never really quiet inside.)

The cats? Well, sure. From feral to sweet. A great leap. Good job, guys!

Chickens? Okay, fine: I suppose even chickens. They keep themselves safe and work hard to clear the land of ticks and as a bonus, always leave a few eggs behind. 

 

 

 

The point is, you need only look across the table or over your shoulder to spot magnificent effort and earnest desire to do well by others. And today, I looked over my shoulder and across the table and I felt a surge of pride! 

Speaking of pride, my friend visited me this morning and commented on my pride socks -- you know, the ones from Bombas where the left foot is one color and the right -- a different one. I tried to take a snapshot of the socks, but then changed my mind and photographed my friend instead. It was so good to see her here when the garden is in full bloom!

When I learned she was coming, I sprung to action, snipping away at hundreds of spent lilies before her arrival. I mean, I so wanted her to walk through cleaned up beds. And she did.

 

(I dont group lilies by color: yellows, pinks, reds, oranges, they all coexist. together. best pals!)

 

(there are very few places in the garden where you wont find a day lily or a phlox)

 

Breakfast, with her, on the porch.

 

 

 

Immediately after I went to Snowdrop's summer French camp. It was the last day of the program and family members were invited to sit in during the final hour. (Her dad and I came; her mom was busy with the two other kids and visitors.)

Of course, it's safe to say that in one week of French camp Snowdrop learned absolutely no French. What words she picked up will quickly be forgotten. Too, the levels of French knowledge in the class varied. Some kids couldn't put a sentence together if you paid them (Snowdrop belonged to this category) while others came from having spent years in France. On the one hand, I felt a whiff of sadness that schools here did not teach foreign languages from grade 1, on the other hand, I was proud of the little girl for reaching out to new friends and for trying hard to participate, despite the obvious obstacles.

Here, she is singing (with others) a French song about pirates finding treasure. Because she is wearing a mask, I couldn't actually tell if she was singing anything at all!

And there you have it: I have in my life so many for whom I feel such great pride. From head to toe, from inside and out.

(The last photo is from an evening walk Ed and I took among prairie blooms in our local county park. We were barefoot until we stumbled upon a patch of thistle. Ed continued barefoot. I was glad he'd stuck a pair of my sandals in his shorts pocket.)

 

 

back to the cafe

Here I sit, at an outdoor cafe table, with an "everything" croissant (do I repeat myself with things I like? yes I do!) and a cappuccino, and this time -- with my laptop. No one likes this set up more than I do. I may as well be in Sorede or Gargnano, or any foreign small town where the pace is easy, the streets are quiet and the coffee and croissant combination -- delicious. I feel like I am on vacation or in heaven or in some such idyll.

How lucky we are to have this luxury, this vaccinated luxury of feeling safe! How incredibly lucky!

My day began in the garden. I'm topping five or six hundred snipped lilies each day now. I always get going with garden work before breakfast. Morning garden tasks are peaceful and meditative and even beautiful. I look for the most precious vignettes from the day's offerings. Because the lilies change every single day, it's never the same presentation of flowers. I find favorite corners of the garden. Beautiful spaces, with froggies and birds and bugs and butterflies and of course Happy, the rooster.

Breakfast.

I had a phone call with my doc, whom I like because she is my daughters' age and she is whip smart and compassionate toward her many very sick patients (I am not one of those, thankfully). We talked about young kids (she has some) and how they are this month catching numerous colds and picking up endless viruses. Not COVID, but other stuff that floats around public spaces. All that dribbly stuff has come back and Ed and I have long decided that wearing masks in public spaces is perhaps not such a bad idea, even in low COVID times. (I do have some anxiety about the message it sends: wear a mask if you are unvaccinated! -- reads the sign at the cafe. If I wear a mask, will people think I'm one of the antis out there? Ed just rolls his eyes when I voice any concern about what people may think!)

I thought about all this when I picked up Snowdrop at French Camp.

Her new found friend was absent today. Sniffly perhaps. Oh, the disappointment! A friendship so quickly and intensely forged and lost the next day! Nonetheless, Snowdrop found things to love about her school morning and I had not a small amount of pride in her: not only did she rally, but, too, she went along at home with the hair braiding project: her afternoon baby sitter was celebrating her birthday today and she really really wanted to see Snowdrop in braids. The little one has big feelings about hair and where it falls (on her ears, please!) and still, she went along.

(And then she found something else with which to cover her ears!)

And Sandpiper was content to hear both sibling voices again...

 

 

 

And Sparrow was all smiles, because, well, it was that kind of a day and he's that kind of a child.

The evening was for Primrose, my loyal dinner prepping companion (via FaceTime)! We talked about cooking of course -- past and present.

 

 

I cooked up a soup, because that's what I do when someone packs me a whole bunch of ruffled green kale (it was in today's CSA box). Cooking soups is like snipping spent lilies -- it leads to a meditative frame of mind. And I thought about how good family life has been to all my grandkids! In this lies their greatest luck. Parents, siblings, cousins -- all of it. And I took out my large spoon and stirred some more, with a big fat smile pasted on my face.

 

daily habits

These three dates have always stuck in my mind: the 4th of July (US Independence Day obviously). July 22nd (the day we celebrated Polish liberation under communism), and July 14th (French National Day). That second date has slipped into a storehouse of childhood memories, even as the 4th is very current and the 14th -- well, it reminds me of croissants and baguettes and sipping a cafe creme for breakfast.

I read about President Macron's recent order in France (where, like here, the Delta variant is gaining traction): you want to go to a restaurant, or bar, or cafe, or movie, or nursing home, or ride a long distance train? Show proof of vaccination or negative recent Covid test, which, by the way, is no longer free. Within hours of his announcement, over a million vaccine skeptics tried to sign up for a vaccine. Get a test before each trip to a restaurant? That's not for the French! They need their daily dose of cafes etc the way we need our daily dose of... come on, help me out here, what can't Americans live without? Car rides maybe? (When was the last time you had a day without a ride in the car? Ed is excluded from this survey!)

Me, I admit to having had many car trips today. Two appointments, a pick up of Snowdrop and an unexpected visit with her here at the farmhouse, a return of the little one home, and finally a trip with Ed to Lake Mills -- that's a town some 40 minutes east of the farmette. I feel as American as apple pie!

It's too late to work up a text for you. But the photos tell you all that you need to know about this wet and stormy, car filled, lily packed Bastille Day. Allons y! (What? No French in your life? It just means let's go!)

(find the monarch in the Penstemon!)

Breakfast? Yes of course, stuck in between one thing and the next.

(Ed is working on making friends with one of the young chickens, Unie. With some success!)

(On the way to pick up Snowdrop at school...)

(Snowdrop, on the school's playing field)

(Book time)

(Meanwhile, back at her house, Sandpiper is stirring...)

And now it is time to visit our friends. In Lake Mills. On the lake. We dodge the storms, thank goodness. I'm admiring the water here: so clean you could easily swim in it! Just not today...

A pause in the rain allows for a great outdoor meal...

Bonne nuit, mes amis!

animalia

I got a haircut today at tiny Bang salon. No big deal, right? Well actually it was a big deal. My last one had been in March 2020. Yep, just before the lockdown. Such innocents we were then! My hair cut person had already been wiping down the chair (because we all thought that was the key to stopping the spread), even as no one wore masks. So we sat in clean chairs and talked freely and inhaled deeply and my, how things have changed!

Some months back, I could not stand my long hair anymore so I cut it off myself and it looked fine, but I missed having it actually styled by someone other than me and so today I was back in a chair with my old stylist, both of us wearing masks, because she has a kid and I'm around kids and it's just better that way for now.

I have to say that there are many moments just like this, where I return to some prepandemic habit and think deeply about it in ways that I never did before. I still have a few to go! Ed and I have yet to eat at a restaurant indoors, I have yet to go shopping in a grocery store (this is just me being busy or spoiled, take your pick). And I have yet to fly, which then leads me to the final step -- to fly across the ocean. Hey, one thing at a time! Today I got a haircut. Pretty short, too. Going wild in my reentry into a saner world. 

 

In general, it is a day for me to think about putting my feet up. Literally. Ed and I agreed that we could use one comfy chair for reading/writing/lounging on the porch. Just one. He thinks it will look too cluttered with two and I'm not going to push him on it. He can stay on the house couch. I'm the one who is pining for a front row seat with a view toward my flower beds.  

 

And speaking of flower beds, I am back on schedule, snipping away spent lilies. I notice that on some days there are a lot and on other days there are fewer. Lily blooms seem to come in waves: a big show on one day, then a pause, then the next big display a couple of days after. It's as if they needed a break between each performance. 

 

Aren't you going to bug me about the title of the post? Animals? What animals?!

Well it just so happens that all the photos today have an animal in them. Some of this was quite unintentional. I have photo bombing cats and a rooster, but then too I have the elusive hummingbird and the athletic tree frog. And don't forget the deer!  So, photos for today: no kids, but lots of splendid animalia.  

 

A leap toward a better world, or else why bother?!