Juniper

To me, the tiny blue juniper cones are what make a holiday wreath or a swig of pine branches on a door so beautiful. They add that frosty, wintry blue color. They are the spice of the season! Here they are on the farmhouse front door:

 

 

Let me just add this from Wiki:

A juniper berry is the female seed cone produced by the various species of junipers. It is not a true berry but a cone with unusually fleshy and merged scales, which gives it a berry-like appearance. The cones from a handful of species, especially Juniperus communis, are used as a spice, particularly in European cuisine, and also give gin its distinctive flavour. Juniper berries are among the only spices derived from conifers, along with spruce buds. 

 

On December 15th, late into the evening, while winds howled and temperatures outside soared, Juniper was born. She is as tiny as a newborn, healthy as pie, and totally adorable. 

(From her first face-to-face, via phone, with her sister, Primrose)

The winds never let up once, but we were safe and everyone was feeling, well, rather celebratory!

But in the morning, my whole focus comes back to Primrose. I have one whole day with her (parents and sister are coming home tomorrow) and she has this one last moment of being an only child. It's huge to suddenly having a sib. Primrose was anticipating the changes for a while now and since she is a girl who is very in touch with her own feelings and with those of her family, I was not surprised to hear her voice apprehensions about how this will all play out. I have told her many times that eventually it will be grand and I think she believes this to be true, but still, I am determined to give her a last whiff of being the one who sets the rules of the game. 

(playing with beads from Aunt Goat, aka my older girl)

(breakfast with grandma)

(I tell her the headband she's chosen for her dance is from Poland...)

After last night's winds and storms, the air settled and winter came back to take its rightful place here, in the upper Midwest. The sun is out, but it's some thirty degrees cooler and still gusty, though not at last night's levels. Nevertheless, I coax Primrose into a walk while the sun is pretending to make it a warm day out there. I had placed an order at Floriole Bakery and Cafe and we set out to pick it up. With a stroller, since it is a bit of a walk (across the river and into a different neighborhood of this very neighborhoody city).

(a tad windblown, picking up our stuff at the bakery: like in Paris only different!)

(can the wind sweep the cap away??)

And the evening? Well, I'm trying to keep the house in order for the arrival of Juniper and parents tomorrow. Time for some of us to finally meet this already greatly beloved babe!

(Remember how I used to take timed released photos of Primrose and me by the white cube when she could hardly stand unsupported on her wee toddler feet? Some things never change...)

with love...

wait and play

In Chicago, on a bizarrely warm day. (High of 64F/18C in Chicago, and 67F/19.5C -- a December record in Madison.) Here, awaiting the birth of a new grandchild.

 

By the time Primrose wakes up this morning (and she wakes up early!), the parents have already checked into the hospital. The day, therefore, belongs to just Primrose and me.

 

Breakfast, just the two of us.

 

Since she has been out of school for a week (closure, due to Covid), I wondered if she would be tired of playing all day in her same old house.

She is not.

Primrose is a leader and I was not surprised that she has ideas as to what we should do.

Let's play messy house! -- was her first suggestion. Talking her out of this required brain work, though in fact, Primrose's idea of a "messy house" is pretty close to my idea of "house in order." My initial panic (what if my younger daughter returns home from the hospital to find everything in the wrong place??) was somewhat mollified.

Primrose allows her imagination to carry her forward. Everything is merely a stepping stone toward a vignette out of school or a home. We act out the various personalities encountered there: mom, dad, teacher, student. Shifting sands, shifting stories.

Too, we read. She has her favorites. Some, but not all, are about Christmas.

 

(while she naps...)

In the afternoon I virtually push her out of the house for a walk. I mean, we are setting records here in the Midwest! No way should we skip an outing.

Crazy warm! Where is this air coming from? Scooting in a light sweatshirt, through gusty winds and past Christmas lights: memorable!

This calls for a gingerbread cookie upon the return home. From Clasen's in Madison!

 

We eat a quiet dinner of stuff I sautee for the two of us. You feel the wait most of all in the evenings. Maybe tomorrow we'll wake up to some good news!

to Chicago

Did I mention how crazy our planning was for this trip of mine? All along I was to run like mad the moment I heard my daughter was going into labor. In good traffic, their home is about 2.5 hours away from the farmette, but in Chicago you cannot count on good traffic. We hoped it would all somehow come together okay. I was to stay with their little Primrose until they came home from the hospital with the new addition. The due date is in the second half of December, but it is going to be a planned delivery, so we expected my coming to Chicago would be no later than today and that she would go into the hospital tomorrow.

All hell broke loose when last week Primrose was exposed to Covid from a teacher in her school. You can imagine the what ifs that flew. We quickly reformulated the plan. If Primrose were to fall ill, I would bring my older daughter to Chicago (she volunteered) and hang back at the sidelines. I dont know what their hospital return would have looked like, but they are great planners and so I'm sure there were options on the table. 

So it was a question of testing and waiting. A week has passed, the girl did not develop Covid (would someone dare challenge the mask mandate to my face? Two of my younger grandkids had the highly transmissible variant of Covid in their masks-mandatory school room and both managed to avoid bringing it home and yes, I'm knocking on wood and thanking stars), so I've packed my bag and not too long after breakfast...

I head south.

 

(for the road!)

 

 

I am grateful for my new car. I have good driving weather, but still, it is cold, and the car lives in the great outdoors. I need it to have an "I'm tough!" attitude toward winter. So far so good.

Hello, young family, soon to be a family of four! Hello Primrose! What? You baked cookies with mom?

Hello, younger very big bellied daughter of mine...

Dinner with the young family...

 

Let me put away the camera for now. I'm sure it will get a work out in the days ahead. Tonight, let's just enjoy each others company and review the thousand and one details that always attend big disruptions in routines.

(Oh, here's a snapshot done by my girl! Their Christmas tree makes an appearance! As does Primrose, playing a game with me.)

 

 

 

And let's feel grateful for all that for once went right for everyone involved.

With love...

the evolution of a party

My Polish friends and I began Zoom-partying back in March of 2020, when I came to the inevitable conclusion that I could not travel to Poland as planned. So we met on Zoom instead of in person, and we have been Zoom partying every three or four weeks ever since. (Well, it feels more like a party to them as we gather during their evenings... and my noon hour.)

At first, Poland was spared a Covid surge and so the commiserating flowed mostly east to west. Toward me. Especially in the Fall of 2020, when Wisconsin rose to the honor of being a state with proportionately the greatest numbers of infection in this country, which itself lead the world in infections at the time. 

But, we've since learned that the virus bounces around the world like a silly putty let loose in a school building. You can't predict where it will bounce to next and how long it will stay there. And so each month we passed the sympathy along to those who felt the burden of the pandemic most. At least two of my friends did get sick, several of their children and grandchildren also fell ill, though thankfully all have recovered -- some more quickly than others. 

Today we were to have a Zoom holiday-themed gathering, but though I wore antlers and some sipped potent beverages, we spent more than two hours once again immersed in the topic of Covid. We have all been triple vaxxed, yet the fact remains that we are all in that demographic that has proven to be so defenseless again and again as variants emerge, and people refuse to get shots for the good of humanity, let alone themselves. So we talk about what our holidays will look like this year and we are all a cheerful bunch, so jokes fly and good humor prevails, but I cannot tell you how eager we are to wake up someday (maybe in 2022?) without the fear of Covid hanging over us. A Zoom party where we don't compare Covid notes -- impossible to imagine right now, but something to look forward to in some future period of time. 

(3 missing today, happily *not* because of Covid)

In other news -- we Wisconsinites are creeping up to temperatures that belong more to early fall, even though we are just one week away from winter solstice. Today the sun was out and the patches of snow suddenly became a rarity.

Breakfast.

After my Zoom get together, I went with Ed to run two very important errands -- he needed a new battery for his car from Farm & Fleet, and I really needed a box of Candinas. Their herbal infusion truffle and ginger truffle are still hard to beat. We needed a box to carry us into the new year!

Both the chocolate shoppe and F&F are close to a segment of the Ice Age trail that cuts through the Prairie Moraine County Park. It's a lovely little segment (it took us about an hour to cover most of it), especially if you don't mind the occasional dog joining you on a part of the path (it overlaps with a terrific dog park -- one I would certainly take my pooch to if I had a pooch: lots of good dog sniffing ground and forest trees to mark). The sun was already making its way to the horizon, but still, it felt warm enough for Ed to leave his jacket in the car.

And then we came home and I made a frittata -- large enough for us to have tonight, with plenty of leftovers for him to enjoy in my absence. Unless something unexpected happens, I will be in Chicago starting tomorrow. 

In the meantime, some lights and gingerbread and love, sent your way.

a peaceful wild

It's not your typical Sunday. First of all, we're just a handful of days before Christmas and for me, that's a big deal, especially since nothing about the week ahead is going to be normal. So a double whammy of  crazy. Then, too, there is still a wintry dusting of snow on the ground...

 

But it wont last. We're told that Wednesday will set records in terms of warmth. At the same time, a plunge into Arctic territory will follow, so that by next weekend we'll be colder than cold. Wild weather, though surely of a peaceful kind, for which we are grateful.

Breakfast? That's sweet. 

And then the kids come. They're not here for dinner today and so they asked for a farmhouse play date during the day. Of course! 

They had just run an errand with mom to a bakery and each was allowed to bring over a treat. Sparrow picked a cupcake...

Snowdrop chose the baguette. 

There was a mix of play and books and fruits and the usual preferred pasta lunches. A happy day, with lots of imaginative story telling. At times quiet...

At times a bit on the wild side.

(timed release)

They leave in the afternoon. The house grows still. 

Maybe too still. Ed and I talk each other into a walk in our local park. On the way, we pass a field of sandhill cranes. You can't easily snap a good photo -- their pale colors blend with those of the harvested cornfield. Still, they are beautiful to behold and we pause to take a good look.

At home again I automatically light my candle. It's hard to think of a winter evening without it. Tonight I reach for Havikko Home, described here in this way: it’s a bold blend of lingonberries and birch, with notes of frozen lingonberries, balsam fir, cinnamon, clove, cedarwood, and white birch.  The name "Haavikko Home" was inspired by Teresa's Finnish grandmother's last name. (Made in Wisconsin!)

Talk about evocative! I'm not sure what frozen lingonberries smell like, but the effect is one of winter baking in a cabin up north. Wild woods, peaceful cabin, with, what the heck -- a pot full of bubbling ligonberries being transformed into jam. 

Winter never felt so cozy, or smelled this good!

Saturday

My grandkids are getting to an age where they can hold me accountable for things I said. For example, in our ongoing discussion about Santa, Snowdrop, who is very close to turning seven, interrupted my soliloquy about hearing mysterious bells ring in the distance late on Christmas Eve and said -- gaga, you already told me you used to fool your girls about Santa being nearby with a set of bells that you yourself would jingle! So I did. But how is it that I am now reminded of what I did with "my girls" by my own granddaughter? 

Being held to one's words can be a problem. After all, your attitude might change and new information may have you think twice about promises once made. In the case of Santa, there are shifting sands, too, as kids age and your conversations become more penetrating. And it's not only about Santa. The pandemic keeps reconfiguring our parameters of what is safe. Yet people expect consistency. I know I promised travel with Snowdrop. Too, she was told forever and ever that once vaccinated, she would be safe. Yet here she is, still asked to avoid crowded indoor spaces, still needing that mask, because there are the younger kids and the community spread and the new variant and so on and so on. 

You hope kids realize that you are not omnipotent and that promises are best guesses and they're not without merit -- they are twinkling stars that keep us feeling the enchantment of life, even as we can't really tell if they will twinkle for us every single day in exactly the same way. Some will, some wont and that's fine too. An adventurous life is one where we can't always predict the outcome, but we know for sure that there will be stories to tell of the daring deeds and faced obstacles and yes, eventually those stars we encountered along the way.

There was a lot of rain last night and eventually that rain turned to snow. Not much snow for us here, in south central Wisconsin, but enough to make you want to go out and touch it. Delicately, because, well, it's just a thin layer that's bound to melt, if not today, then in the days ahead.

(cat, hiding)

Snowdrop is left here right after her early morning activity. (Her brother is at a birthday event, so she comes alone). She shows up without a jacket so I assume she wants to hurry inside.

And she does -- just to put on some farmhouse mittens, caps, pullover, gloves. There's always warm stuff she can use here.

Then out she goes again. Even this tiny bit of snow makes her giddy!

But I remind her that she insisted we bake muffins together and I held off eating breakfast until we had some fresh from the oven, and eventually she agreed to turn her back to outdoor play. I was relieved. Neither of us were properly dressed for freezing temps.

Indoors, we baked.

And ate.

And yes, it is the perfect combination -- a romp in the cold crisp air, and a session of baking in a very warm kitchen.

Some time in the afternoon, after we'd gone through too many books to count and she had played out all her own stories in the playroom I take her home. And now, back at the farmhouse, I watch the light change all around me. Outside, and inside as well.

 

My candle -- this one from the Keap people, ever so gently bringing the whiff of Northlands into the house -- is like light therapy only without the ugly white box shining at you. Just a flicker is enough. Funny how oftentimes just a little something goes a long way.