smell

Of the countless flowers that grow here at the farmette, many can be and have been described as having a "delightful light fragrance."  Lilies, phloxes, lavenders, sweet peas, roses -- each one can emit a singularly beautiful aroma. But because I tend not to plant in clumps, choosing instead to scatter plants for more of a cottage look, most of the fragrance is gentle enough to blend into the entirety (well, except for the lilium which can be quite powerful!). As you walk through the garden, what you get is the incredibly beautiful fragrance of ... a field in bloom. I have no better way to describe it.

After a rain, however, everything changes. The leaves of trees, the soil, the grasses -- they add their own fragrance to the stockpile. And oh did it rain last night! 2.25 inches of wetness came down on farmette lands and we all let out a sigh of relief. And stepping out into the yard this morning was, well, heavenly! A wet garden smells so good!

Though of course, a heavy rain is going to knock off some fading blooms and stalks. That's inevitable. I don't mind. We're moving toward a late summer look, where small and perky are replaced by something that's abundant, heavy, and just a little weary from all that summer work.

 

 

 

This is one of the really good things about living in the country: the smells around you are so noticeable that they really can trigger all those warm feelings of peace and contentment. But I wasn't necessarily thinking of farmette fragrances this morning as I scooted from one task (clearing the garden, feeding animals) to the next (going downtown to the market, fixing breakfast for us, etc)

(at the market: it's all about the zinnias, the dahlias, the glads.)

(breakfast: yesterday's corn bread with cherry jam)

 

 

I had read an article in the NYT about a guy who lives, breathes and manufactures the fragrances of northeastern Catalonia. This is the corner of Spain that abuts the sea and the hills of the Pyrenee mountain range. It's where Ed and I spent all those Junes as we made our way from Barcelona to Sorede. This is the oft forgotten aspect of travel: the pleasure of smelling another landscape. You can read about other cultures. You can watch films that give a fantastic image of a place far away. You can listen to its music, even taste some approximation of its food. You can do that from your own backyard. But you can't indulge your olfactory senses from home. You have to be there to smell it. And oh, did that one small article in the paper today have me pining for the fragrances of Catalonia!

[You can, of course, purchase aromas. The guy in Spain sells the herb and flower and woodsy essentials in little containers. But it's funny about fragrance: it works best in its own natural surrounding. Food -- you can eat a great seafood right in your landlocked dining room in the Midwest and enjoy the hell out of it. But bringing Catalan aromas to your Wisconsin farmhouse is perhaps quaintly nostalgic, but it is also a mismatch. Better to stick with your lilies and phloxes and fruit orchards at home.]

In the afternoon, the little girl comes here to play. And read. And eat peaches. We have a lot of peaches! 

 

 

 

It rained hard all day long and yes, that's a good thing of course, but still, it does keep us tightly indoors. But with open windows!

(Going home before the big storms)

(Brothers at home...)

The storms come back for another round of rain and thunder. Our measuring cup overflows with water! Inside, there's plenty of cornbread to toast and leftover chili to dish out. Kitchen smells on a wet, wet day.

to go...

I admit it: I have cabin fever. Not because I am restless with what I see outside, but because the prospect of resuming travel diminishes as infection rates stubbornly refuse to reverse themselves. Miracles can happen, but the way we're going, I don't expect them anytime soon. The prospect of going someplace far in September has just moved from being at 50 - 50 to hovering at 49 - 51 and the nays have the upper hand.

Given that, I've been coaxing Ed to venture out with me to some distant place in... Wisconsin. The problem is, of course, the animals. He tells me -- you know that farmers can't leave their livestock for a single day out of the year?

Yes, but we are not farmers. Not even close. Can we settle on three nights? No one will starve if we're gone three nights.

We didn't settle on three nights. Ed talked me down to maybe one, maybe two. And from a remote corner of the state, we moved to a place not at all far away. Still, it's not here, not in the farmhouse, not entrenched in our summer routines, it's away!

In the meantime, I'm up in the morning doing the same old walk and enjoying it actually because the burden of clipping has been lifted -- only the tall lilies are still producing heavily...

And so it's the wee burden of weeding, which I don't take very seriously because, well, we are nearing the end of summer. (But I am hugely annoyed that the rains totally passed us by last night. Can we please target the farmette tonight? Okay?)

Breakfast on the porch, but it's sticky hot, so immediately after we all move inside. Cat included. Spoiled cat.

And then I work hard at coming up with our get-away location. Ed claims that I love doing this more than anything else in the world. That's ridiculous. I enjoy being with my family and with him and with friends, heck there's lots of things that I like better than roaming over an AirBnB map of Wisconsin. But I do have that drive to "find a good place." It can take many hours. I did take many hours. Finally, toward late afternoon, all was settled. Peace once again reigns at the farmette!

Any cooking highlights? How about chili with cornbread? Anything with corn sounds good to me on this warm summer evening. 

Thursday

We waited for rain. Looking up at a graying sky, we expected rain. It surely looked like rain.

But no rain came.

Once you have the mindset that tells you -- it will rain, you plan your day accordingly. You spend a lot of time on first the Adirondack chair, typing away, and then you move indoors and do the same from the couch. You glance outside, you sniff the air, you wait for the patter of drops on the glass roof and then, when no rain comes, you feel the disappointment. As in -- I could have walked. I could have biked. I should have watered parts of the garden. Instead, my Fitbit kept telling me to get up and I did not get up. I sat and waited for it to rain.

In other news -- well, there was the early farmette walk. Ed joined me for parts of it, claiming that he was in the mood for a peachy morning. Right now we have a ton of peaches ripening on our two productive peach trees, and they are very good peaches -- freestone, juicy, sweet. But they have a puckery thick skin and Ed doesn't mind it, but I do. I'll eat the peaches pealed, but not straight off the tree. So, he eats, while I take care of animals and garden snipping.

So long as we're out together, we may as well check on the new orchard. We have two pear trees that are promising a great pear crop this year. We admire those and, too, we admire the beautiful meadow that's sprouting lots of prairie flowers, despite the absence of rain.

My little camera springs into action.

We spend some time removing Queen Anne's Lace (aka wild carrot). It's the kind of weed that you might actually like -- its lacy white face is pretty in a wildflower garden. But it is also an invasive and if you leave it alone, it wont leave your space alone. It will dominate. So we pull at least a portion of it out. Well, we do a best effort. The ground is solid dry clay right now. 

Queen Anne's Lace looks awfully much like Poison Hemlock, but I've heard that the latter smells disgusting and Queen Anne's Lace smells carroty so I'm fairly sure we're stuck with the former and not the latter. In any case, the meadow is now a lot less white and feathery.

(walk back, past the Big Bed...)

(In the lily bed, the Olympic froggie aims for the gold!)

Breakfast, together, on the porch.

Later, much later, we hop on Ed's motorcycle and take two dozen eggs over to Farmer John at the Farmers Market. We are now really swimming in eggs and he gladly takes them home to his family (in exchange for cheese). Ed threw in a bag of peaches for good measure. 

We noticed that even though the market is outside, people were wearing masks. We live in a sensible county that does not want either to get sick or transmit viruses to others. I was thinking how we could be living through a cataclysmic crisis with bombs dropping and grenades exploding and we would be forced to do superhuman things to protect our families and now, all we are asked to do is get vaccinated and wear a mask. Such small things in the scheme of things. Tiny, tiny efforts to save ourselves, our families, your families. May we do them with enthusiasm and humility. Rarely has so little been required to accomplish so much.

Our CSA box had so much corn! So much corn! I'm freezing the kernels for soups and such, only tell me, why should I steam the corn first? I've always put the kernels in the freezer raw. Sort of like you get in a frozen bag of corn, no? But our farmers sent a message -- steam it first! Anyone have any idea as to why? 

For supper, we're eating vegetable corn soup. That stock made from corn cobs is just too delicious. I cannot have enough of it! An August delicacy for sure.

And if we are lucky, sometime after midnight, it will rain.

discussions

If you want to have a terrific day, the kind where you look out on the garden in beautiful summer weather and breathe a sigh of contentment and gratitude for all that's good about this world and your life in it, do not engage Ed at breakfast time in a philosophical discussion about the meaning of life.

From our very fist date now nearly 16 years ago, I knew where he stood on nearly all important issues. We got down to the serious stuff pretty quickly in our early moments together. So there is no mystery, no deceit, no obfuscation. There is also no movement ever in any direction. Ed has survived this long without straying from his well thought out positions and not anyone or anything is going to sway him into a different mindset. I've learned that, because he is a compassionate person, you can help move him in certain directions, but he will not ever admit that he has been moved. The very essence of his being demands that he speak the same language of existential doom every minute that he still lives and breathes. It's part of the fabric he has woven for himself and honestly, it has gotten him this far so who am I to question its postulations.

But for some reason I got sucked into this discussion anyway. How foolish on my part! Let me remind myself how I even got there:

I'd been clearing the garden and trying to revive my old pocket camera. I loved the pics that my phone produces, but the process of working with those was just too cumbersome. So I was trying out my wee ancient camera and grumbling to myself that wee cameras are not great for squinty ancient eyes. Here are some garden photos anyway. You get what you get.

 

 

And after an hour, maybe two hours, I was ready for a breakfast break. We bring out the foods, the flowers and settle in for a leisurely morning meal.

And then it starts. I ask, innocently -- why are you proceeding in this fashion (insert here some detail as to his current work project) and not in that way (insert here an alternate course)? 

From there it's a small leap to our place in the cosmic universe and the smallness of our actions to say nothing of the paucity of knowledge about the consequences of our behaviors. 

I mean, really Ed? Can't you just say "oh, I don't know, but it's a grand day and I think I'm doing right by others, and by the way I love you very much and let's go somewhere together just the two of us?" That could be one alternative, but there are others. I'll settle for "you're making a good point. I'll have to think about that. Maybe I've been too rigid in my views on this stuff..."

So then there was nothing to do but be ever so slightly annoyed at him and of course, he understood perfectly well that he had overstepped and so as I tried to settle down into some writing, he kept interrupting with fascinating tidbits of stuff he was reading, just to engage me and show me how much he cared. In other words, I got nothing done and the first half of the day was pretty much a waste.

I have learned my lesson.

In other news -- well, I am still on the fence as to my travels next month. And I will be on the fence until the day I leave (if I leave) because each new day presents me with new data which I have to digest and incorporate into my strategies for successful and safe movement at the time of a pandemic. But because it may well work out, I have to start attending to stuff like filling out passenger locator forms and finding out about vaccination passports. If anyone thinks travel was complicated even two years ago, well, it's only grown twenty times more so now.

So, I listen to Ed's chatter and I fill out forms until late in the afternoon when I have just had enough of staying home and doing nonsense stuff. I get on my moped and scoot over to pick up my market flowers, and I admit that it isn't much of an adventure, but at least it gets me off the couch.

Ed bikes today, though smartly he waits until evening. Did I mention that it's warming up again? With no rain, things are looking pretty crispy dry out there. But pretty, no? 

I have great plans for tomorrow: sit down to breakfast with my sweetie, throw out some positive comment about the cats or the cheepers or the butterflies, then go inside and dig into my writing before I get sidetracked by discussions that go absolutely nowhere.

 

on being funny

I recently posted something on Face Book and a few kind people put up comments to it. Seeing one such comment made me smile good and hard: it came from someone I haven't seen or heard from in years (though I do track her life on Face Book). We met when we both signed up to do volunteer work in Ghana. I was there for a week. She was there much longer. I will never forget her: she had the remarkable ability to make me laugh. Not just a chuckle -- real belly laughs, every single evening of my time there.

I love meeting people who make me laugh!

It's not that I would be drawn to someone who is a natural comic. Or someone who shoots forth banter as if she or he were reciting paragraphs from a joke book. Too, it's easy to poke fun of people and make a joke of it. I'm not cool with that. But what I do love is meeting someone who looks at life, especially her own life, with both wit and humor and is ready to share that with you. Magic happens. My pal in Ghana had the ability to spark that magic.

I've not known many people who have this gift. I myself lack it -- I am not especially great at being  funny when I talk about my own life. I know, you've noticed!  But others have played that role beautifully for me. My college best buddy, for example. Oh, did she make me laugh, and I loved her for it! She still does that to me when we occasionally talk on the phone. (I'm not sure that others are affected in this way by her. Laughter is a two way street -- you need the right audience. But for me, every story she tells has a satirical humility to it that is just so endearing! And funny.)

I wonder if you have such people in your life? I hope so.

*     *     *

Today I begin my day with only my phone as a camera for the morning walk.

It has a wider angle, so that's always fun. Still, it's not my baby Fuji. Sigh...

Breakfast? Well, it follows muffin baking. The kids had gobbled up all the muffins I had baked on Sunday and my daughter looked wistful as she stared at the empty plate, so I decided to bake up a batch and take it over. She voted for sour cherry!  (For breakfast, I pick muffin over oatmeal...)

*     *     *

In the afternoon, Snowdrop comes over. I'm fumbling with my phone camera and the girl is quick in her movements! But she does pause by her favorite flower. Let's do one photo before the flower drops all its petals...

 (A new Bad Kitty book? Heaven!)

 

 

 (Snowdrop returns to making her own books, proudly displaying her efforts to Ed here...)

 

Later, much later, we go to the corn farm to pick up some more of the good stuff for dinner. I was reading recently that the best way to cook super fresh corn is to stand it up in a tall pot and steam it in an inch of water. Okay, I will do that tonight and report back!

 

(At home, a quick hello to Sandpiper...)

*     *     *

 Dinner: I have a lot of basil, so it's a no brainer that it's time to reach for the pine nuts and olive oil and garlic.  And parmesan. A pesto over a piece of sauteed fish and... yes, corn, standing up in a pot, steamed to utter yumminess. Yes, that it's true: it's that good!

(And on the edge of farmette lands  -- sandhill cranes, doing their evening song and dance.)

a better way

Most of us try to limit waste. Kids wear lots of hand-me-downs from sibs, they're taught to love the library, we're careful with our trash. Small things, but they add up. Still, the temptation to stray -- to buy cheap stuff, to throw away, to hop in the car for everything -- can be strong. You have to lecture yourself occasionally to do better. I suppose I had one of those "try to do better" days today.

My morning starts with garden work and there's quite a bit of it to do. I had let things go just a little and I needed to catch up. 

I took a few garden photos, understanding that these may well be the last carefully composed ones for the season. 

Why? Well, because my camera is struggling right now. There are three malfunctions, some more pressing than others. It needs to go away for a few weeks for an overhaul. It was so tempting to trade it in for a newer model! The outlay wouldn't be huge -- used cameras still command a great price if they work well and come with a warranty (I always have extended warranties on these guys). But the fact is, when fixed, this camera will once again be just fine for me. I am rough on all cameras (even though I try not to be!). I always wear one around my neck, even though it's heavy. Daily use, knocks and bumps -- they take their toll. May as well stick with the older model. It's good enough.

Breakfast, on the porch. Leftover muffins -- still good, even though any true muffin baker will tell you that these little gems have a very short shelf life. You should bake them on the day of consumption. Well, I heated the old one and it was fine!

In the afternoon, I packed up my camera. Time to take it to the UPS. It's not that far from here -- a couple of hills, a handful of turns and you're there! Maybe ten minutes by car.

Or maybe I should bike over? Gardening isn't very tough these days. I could use the heavier exercise. The car could use a rest. Half an hour moderately fast bike riding each way -- no big deal, right?

I bike. And it feels so good! The hills aren't unmanageable, the air is cool, the breeze -- magnificent! And there's no heavy camera around my neck. That one is strapped with bungee cords to the back of the bike. In a box. Ready for UPS.

So what happens now? I had crossed my fingers that the camera would (more or less) function until I passed my daughter's birthday, and it did. But surely I don't want to give up on pics for the next three weeks! Ah, there is always the dinky backup one I used to take on longer trips. But the more likely candidate is my phone. So many excellent photographers use phones for spur of the moment picture taking. Time to reach for mine when the moment calls for it!

 

Evening. What's for dinner? Well, we have all these leftovers! Bagels from Sunday brunch. Chicken fingers from the kid dinners on our Saturday night out. A couple of ears of corn. A few pieces of smoked salmon. Soup from last week. Normally I would scoff at some of this stuff: older bagels can be tough to love. Chicken fingers from the childrens' menu too is a culinary stretch. But in fact, in that list of foods, we can scrape together an excellent lunch and a reasonable dinner. Cut up the chicken fingers over a salad with chopped up tomatoes and you really do have something very yummy. 

I'm not as perfect at clearing the fridge of leftovers as Ed is. At some point I'll say -- that's just too old! But at least I've come to the point where I'll try to imagine a better way to serve something still fresh if not exactly recently prepared. It can be a challenge, but honestly, it feels good to look for a better way to manage your day. You do your bit and at some point it becomes second nature to not waste. Maybe even to be an Ed, who'll tell me: just take off the moldy part and eat what's underneath. Honestly, it's got tons of flavor!