is ignorance bliss?

1.  Avalanche

Last night I read about avalanches. The ones that typically slide down a mountain and bury anyone in their path. It appears that the spot I have decided would be the ideal skiing location, were I to travel anywhere to ski, is quite the hotbed of avalanche activity. I am curious how that plays out in the everyday lives of people who live there. Or travel to it. 

I learned that there are two types of avalanches and the ones that are the scariest (meaning fastest and doing, therefore, most damage) are slab avalanches, where bonded snow breaks off and roars down the incline. In spring, you tend to see many point release avalanches. The snow is wet and heavy and you rarely find people hanging out in danger zones. Deaths are less frequent.

Mountain ski areas rate the danger each day. They give a score to the likelihood of avalanche -- from 1 to 5. 1 Is the least likely, but they caution you it's not zero. There is, apparently, no such thing as a day with zero probability of an avalanche.

People that go off the trails (in North America, this is often not allowed, but in Europe it's permissible and many do this) are in far greater danger, and they are advised to travel with avalanche burial equipment. Transceivers, shovels, probes. The things is, you can't do yourself any good with these -- it's not as if you can dig yourself out of a burial -- it's for rescuing others near you who may have been swept away by moving snows. If you ski alone, all that stuff is pretty useless, especially since you have between 5 - 15 minutes before your own CO2 does you in. 

All this is super interesting, because frankly, in all my years of skiing, I never gave avalanches a second thought. For that matter, I never wore a helmet when downhill skiing. No one did. (Helmets are routine now: you're a fool to not put one on.) On my last Alpine skiing adventure (recorded here, 5 years ago), I ignored the dangerous winds, I was unaware of avalanche ratings, I was without head protection, and I seem to have skied through rib damage inflicted by some Russian skier who barrelled into me at top speed. 

I wonder if, knowing what I know now (about rib pain, about winds and avalanches), I would still have found myself on top of that Alpine ridge, looking down to Italy on one side and Switzerland on the other. Indeed, in these Covid times, would I even get on a gondola to get to that ridge in the first place?

Was it bliss then to live in ignorance?

2. Speak Your Mind

As you know, I maintain a strong connection to my friends in Poland. We often Zoom, I correspond heavily with one of them. I grew up in Poland as a little kid, then, too, as a teenager and university student. So you could say my formative years were spent in Poland. A Poland where even badass kids never talked back to a teacher. They smoked whatever they smoked outside of class, they skipped lessons and drank beer or vodka and probably snitched things that weren't for the taking. But they never talked back to a teacher. There was a line that you did not cross.

On the other hand, my elementary school years were spent in New York and I finished the university studies in New York and my mother herself spent pretty much all her formative years in New York. So there is a lot of New York in me.

I'm torn between the two cultures, that's for sure. And nowhere is this more evident than in the way I talk to people. Mine is a combination of blunt forwardness (the American influence) and cowardice in the face of authority (the Polish influence). And I don't mean political authority. I mean authority in school or at home. In my Polish world, young people were deferential to older people. Adult kids of my friends do not treat me as an equal. And my friends, I think, listen with horror when I sometimes lose the tone of respect that they maintain all the time when referencing those who are older in their family. My American side allows me to occasionally slip off that ladder of respect. Occasionally. Quietly, on the side. But, my Polish side (of my youth -- who knows how people act now) is rigidly in place: you never disrespect your elders to their face. Ed cannot understand this. He is blunt. He is honest. He does not cower. He hung up on his mother when she said things that were noxious. My Polish friends and I would never hang up on our mothers. (My mother shares the blunt speak that was handed to her in New York. She and Ed can blunt speak their way together through any problem.)

The thing is, the older I get the more I miss this here, in the US -- the reverence for age. Sure, in Poland you may curse your great aunt Jadwiga behind her back, but she will never know that you find her placement of a Christmas tree weird. She will go to her grave thinking that all those years, you loved her putting that tree on the kitchen table. 

Isn't it bliss to live in that kind of ignorance?

3. He Is Not An Angry Person

I have been together with Ed for more than 16 years and in all that time I have never heard him raise his voice in anger toward me. This is remarkable, because he is big, and he has a loud booming voice, and I am sure I have provoked him plenty of times. His preferred method is to grow quiet rather than grow loud when someone crosses him.

I should say that anger isn't something I have within me either, but I do get upset. You wont ever hear a torrent of curse words from me, but every half year or so, maybe even less frequently, I will unleash the fountain of tears and they will flow, and flow, and flow. And then I, too, will grow quiet. We are just not shouters, here at the farmhouse.

Some people will say that quiet aggression is nonetheless as noxious as hysterical wailing and shouting. I disagree. I'm with the opinion writer in the NYT today (read it here) who wonders whether we overuse and hyper-inflate words  to give them the strength they don't deserve. Experiencing obnoxiousness in another person doesn't necessarily inflict trauma. And no, every retreat into silence is not passive aggression. Just some of it is. You can usually tell the difference just by looking at the quiet person's intent.

I've always wondered if Ed had been different as a young guy. Surely in a house full of rowdy brothers, he was rowdy and angry right back at them. Surely he complained and yelled and whined when he was a little guy. But I prefer not to think back about him that far. I prefer to see him always as I know him today -- the quiet guy who never gets angry.

 

 

 

Isn't it bliss to live in ignorance (of someone's past behavior)?

4. The Knee

It turns out that the Ace bandage is fantastically effective on knees that have whatever my knee has going on inside.  So of course, living in a consumer culture, where more is thought to be better, I want to get the next better guard: the knee brace. 

Ed is skeptical. Wouldn't it be better to simply stay off the knee? Oh such naivete! There is no staying off the knee when you're around little kids, or when your home bathroom is up steep stairs, or when dinner preparation is all on you. (Please, no advice needed here: I do not want to eat meals cooked by Ed.) Besides, knee injuries take a long time to heal. I've had this one go down on me once before (from overuse, after days and days of nonstop walking/hiking). I need immediate relief. Life goes on! I need to move!

But, but aren't I asking for trouble in the long run?

Who can tell. My speculation about "trouble in the long run" did not anticipate a pandemic that would rip two years out of my senior travels. I do not know what next year will bring.

And perhaps ignorance is bliss.

5. The Child

Once again I am with Snowdrop. She had proclaimed, in a very Anne of Green Gables way, that today is going to be the best day of her life! I wondered if we should do something in the afternoon to commemorate that, but in the end, we just came home to the farmhouse. The sun was out in a patchy sky for a bit, but then it disappeared and a haze of insignificant light snow rolled in. Snowdrop just wants to come in and do what we always do: play, read, eat. The trilogy of pleasures.

As I watch her play and spin her stories, I think about the defining characteristics of this child. In many ways, she is like any other seven year old. But I do believe that each child has her superpower. And there is one place (well, more than one, but let's stay with this for a while) where I think she stands out (and this is what draws kids to her): she practices intentional kindness. It's on her mind. And I distinguish this from politeness (I still have to occasionally remind her to say hi/bye and please/thank you), or from compliance (Snowdrop, put that down please -- will not always have the effect of her putting that down; she negotiates!). This girl worries about saying or doing something hurtful.

[I should note that on the car ride home I asked her what she thought was her super strength or power. She threw the question back at me and I gave my answer. Then she said -- I guess I'd add imagination. I think I have a good imagination!]

(snow?)

Her empathetic soul makes it difficult to introduce stories or a history where people deliberately hurt each other. Not even just physically, but at the level of feelings. She can watch Disney movies where monsters chase innocents and horrible storms wreck ships and swallow up the universe, but show her a movie where someone says something intentionally mean and she runs to the art room and closes the door. At this age, my daughters already knew about the Holocaust. But Snowdrop would have an even harder time processing something so violently cruel.

For now, for her, ignorance is bliss.

Evening. Soup's on the stove. A mass of veggies and beans, a squirt of lime, a sprinkle of Parmesan. Twinkling lights, a sliver of a moon.

With love...

 

Tuesday

There is the question of the knee: yesterday, my doc person handed me an ace bandage, patted me on the back and told me how wonderful it feels to elevate a leg that's sore at least in part due to tibial plateau osteophyte formation (I'm just ripping a few words off of an xray report). Yes, but can I ski? Not that I want to ski. It's so slippery out there that it feels like you're skating, not skiing. On big wooden boards that have no good edges to stop your descent into the lake (thankfully frozen, but still...) or flat up against a tree. Go ahead and ski, she says. As long as it doesn't hurt. Well, that ship has surely sailed! Knees of a ten year old don't hurt. Knees of someone my age have one of three states -- knees that are bothering the hell out of you, knees that a bothering you just a little, and knees that one day are this, another day are that.

I think wrapping a knee at this point would be more for show than for strategic healing purposes, but I'm just guessing. And maybe it's not a bad idea to overemphasize to the world that I have a bad knee. No, Snowdrop, I cannot pick up any of the stuff you scattered coming into the farmhouse. Can't you see that I have a useless knee? (The girl is so neat! Except when she enters the house and leaves her trail of scarves, socks, shoes...)

Or, I could milk Ed for more of what he willingly does anyway -- get a bowl of this or a glass of that, as I sit back, with my leg up on the coffee table. 

I do think it's funny that my doc person is lecturing me on winter movement and knees and fractures, coming into the exam room as she did with a bandaged arm

What happened to you? -- I asked.

Broke my wrist while snowboarding! Never doing that sport again!

Wimp.

Still, we haven't had the best winter. Friends sent me pictures from the mountains in Poland and another from the mountains in Austria -- happy smiling faces against a backdrop of real honest to goodness winter heaven. We're cold, here in south central Wisconsin, but there's nothing fresh about the snow on the ground. Old and brittle. Just like my knee!

 

 

 

Breakfast, with spring tulips and hyacinths.

 

And Snowdrop, at the farmhouse. I do not suggest skating. Not a chance, little one. Don't even ask! (She doesn't.)

Little one, I think it's time to do your homework.

Gaga, I'm busy! Can't you see I'm playing??

(How the girl loves graphic novels! I'm working hard to find new ones for her. This particular set, featuring a middle school 11 year old, Sunny, has a brother who does drugs and smokes cigarettes with his high school drop out pals. Initially I thought we're hitting tough issues too soon, but honestly, it was a really good read!)

As always, I drive her home and visit with any brother that's available!

And now I am home at the farmhouse and I am not moving anywhere tonight even if you paid me! Leg up, all essentials within reach. Ed, do you mind getting me an ice cream sandwich? 

What more could a person want....

friends

Did you know that it's tougher to write a post of rapture than a story of all that went wrong in a day? Creating a narrative around a mishap is delightfully easy: words tumble over each other in their eagerness to find their place on a page. My first thought when I crash or bruise or do something ridiculously ill-fated is -- at the end of the day, this will make for a good story! But to give life to sweet moments, to explain why you feel joy over something seemingly trivial -- now that's difficult.

So I've been thinking about writing this post since yesterday, but in rehearsing the text in my head I almost threw it away. Too saccharine, too mushy, with too many forgettable details that cannot possibly interest anyone but the parties involved. I cannot get it right! Move on! 

But maybe not. This afternoon I came back to it. Fresh off a rather long phone conversation, I decided the time is right to give it a try. Maybe some of it will reverberate and trigger your own thoughts on your own situation. The topic? It's an immensely important one: friends.

The thing is, I don't often write about them. You can't help but sense the great love I have for my family, for Ed. But friends? I keep them to the side of the story. Even as they are so central to my well being!

Our friends are often the people we see on a regular basis. Lunch dates, coffee chats, visits, walks together -- it's what friends do, right? 

But I don't have that luxury. I am 68 years old and I can, by now pinpoint the people who are my close friends and who will likely be my close friends forever. Those whom I would call in a split second in the hope that I could support them in times of need, which happen to be the exact same people I would call or text if my own world was turning into a pile of crap. People who track my life in some detail (and I track theirs). Of that bunch, hardly any live in Madison. So nearly all my friendship building takes place via emails, texts, calls, Zoom visits and the occasional, all too rare, in person visits. I love them all to pieces and if you ask me what I do in those hours when I am not with the kids, or with Ed, when I'm not catching up with daughters or reading the day's reading material --well, chances are I'm with friends. Not in person, but in some form of writing/chatting/connecting with them.

My oldest super friend (honestly, she has superpowers!) is Polish. She's actually a spouse of a college pal. Has that happened to you? Girls and boys, flirting, traveling, palsing around and then bam! Everyone starts to settle down and there are weddings and there are partnerings and you either lose your friends or, as in my case, gain the most wonderful person imaginable! And now she grows to be your close friend, your true friend for the ages. 

I moved to the US in the middle of my university studies. I loved the people I left behind. I didn't really get the American college scene. I was working as an au pair, so I didn't live on campus and the people I met in my classes all spoke a language I could understand, but there it ended. They surely were from another planet. We had very little in common. I traveled back to Poland every chance I got. To be with my pack. But one person in New York stood out for me: a young woman, an American but with a broad gaze, a fellow student who became my best friend. And she remains one of the most important people in my life (she is the one I talked to this morning). For many of you, college years netted you a pool of life long friends. For me -- just this one. But she was (and is) gold. 

Grad school however, was a bust. I fell in love and let go of all my friends in favor of this guy who occupied all my free time and waking and sleeping hours. I walked away with him in my life and in many ways, though we're divorced, he remains a kind of peculiarly friend-at-the-side. I mean,  mixed gender friendships can be weird just by virtue of their mix genderdness (though tell that to my daughter who has among her very best friends a guy). Then add to a mixed gender the fact of a once-spouse-dom, with all the divorce memories thrown in, and you have kind of a strange bag, no? Still, we have some history and so a friend-at-the-side he shall be. No one else from grad school has survived. All gone our separate ways.

Law school -- a last shot at easy friendship formation and here, I got really rich. Two friends who are so close to me that even you, readers, know them, because they are so enmeshed in my life, to the point that we have often traveled together and done things with families when our kids were were tots. These two are superheroes -- they've put up with all the worst of me and I can only hope to be as generous in my gifts to them (of an ephemeral nature) as they have been with me. 

So, school has been my pool. The friends I list are from those days. But Ocean has been a source as well. One Madison female friend came to me also as a spouse of a fellow blogger. He stopped blogging, her friendship stayed. And then there are the three of you out there, in distant parts of the globe, who are my friends since the day you first contacted me because of something I wrote. And you are my friends way beyond Ocean posts now.

In all this mix, friendships endured even though most of them suffered setbacks. When I got married, I "dropped" Poland. I closed myself off in my new life, and since these were times when only hand written mail kept you connected, well -- for many, many years, we all sort of ignored each other. (And then picked up again with email, and travel, and all those modern technologies that make it so easy to stay close to people you want to stay close to.) My college friend for the ages? Well, somewhere in the last decade or two, we let go of our phone calls that had sustained me for so, so long. I was sure I had just been too big a handful for her. But maybe it was simply a pause and a reset. Maybe we needed to figure out what's next, now that the kids were grown. And yes, even with my two law school heroes -- we dropped back for a few years, and then resumed.

You'll just say -- these things ebb and flow. But I think when you are younger, you grapple with what it means to be a friend and it takes you a while to figure out that the requirements change over time. You need to adjust.

And while I'm on this topic, let me be clear: some slides never recovered. Have I ever told you about friendships that failed? Oh my God. The handful of anti-success stories. The woman who was my best friend during my teaching years, who then stopped being my best friend for reasons known only to her. My students -- some were really good pals in their years after graduating, but, well, they grew up into busy lives and the connection is there, but you know, its strength lies in mutual respect rather than actual conversation. And friends that came out of my ex-husband's porthole: such good friends they were, but once I divorced, they chose him over me. Honestly, from those married years, my ex is the only one who survived as anything even resembling a "friend." That's okay: with Ed came a new crew. Not too large, but a wonderful handful of people who keep telling me that I've changed the guy, which is funny because Ed is actually unchangeable. 

So today I talked with my college friend. And that was my morning. And later, I texted with my law school friends and I emailed my Polish friend and emailed my Ocean friend. And this is how it works for me now -- this world of closeness that makes me feel so good and rids me of any reasons to complain about anything. They people are rock solid and I love them tremendously, totally.

And the above? Those are chickens. Not my pals. Just chickens. Though lately they seem to have developed their own tight little circle of cheeperettes. They're not sibs, not offspring, not even cousins. But tied to each other by heartstrings nonetheless. Friends for life, however long or short a chicken's life may be.

First Day of a New Month

We're done with January. It was messy, unpredictable, sometimes beautiful, sometimes filled with frustration, oftentimes filled with great hope. February builds on that: we're still in the thick of winter, so yes, it's going to be cold, very cold here, in Wisconsin. But I'm with those who believe that this is a time to maybe relax just a little more. Let go of your frustrations of the past two years.Yes, I do believe that there is something better around the corner. I'm not a fool: I'm not predicting it's forever, or even for the rest of the year, but those of us who are vaccinated and boosted and haven't great health worries or tiny infants at home should think about what's been missing in our years of Covid anxiety. Maybe we can reintroduce some of those missed moments?

I'll be reintroducing some of those missed moments. (My sidebar tells it all!)

But not today. I'm still very much focused on figuring out a future for Razzle Dazzle Berry, the cat we took in a couple of days ago. This ball of matted fur.

One Ocean reader has a lead for a possible placement. Ed and I are working hard to make her more adoptable. But it's a challenge, despite the fact that this kitty has the nicest personality of any cat I have ever met.

She just *looks* awful. Plain awful. (It takes 3-6 months for a long haired cat to regrow her fur. But first you have to shave the old stuff off. We haven't quite gotten to that point. We're hoping we can save some of it.)

The kitty worries are paired this morning with a quick baking project. I mentioned Yossy's book now in two of my recent posts. Today I poked around my cupboards to see if I had what's needed for one of her snacking cakes. I do!  So I whisked up a Whole-Grain Strawberry Cake. 

And as I would have predicted -- it's a winner. Normally, as Yossy would tell you, stuffing your cake with strawberries will give you a soggy batter, even when fully baked. Her idea is simple and clever: slice the berries and arrange them on top. Oh, and add cardamom to the batter. (Cardamom is such a fantastic spice -- it's like mixing up ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon, without overdoing it. People say it's citrusy. And earthy and warm. Wouldn't you want something earthy and warm with your coffee in the morning? The whole cake is so perfect for breakfast!)

I take a walk afterwards. Ed is busy, but I need movement. My knee and ribs need movement. So I walk, thinking about cakes and kittens and kids and the beauty of February.

And in the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop. We are having our proverbial one-day-and-one-day-only warmup today, and I suggest skating. No, I urge and coax and cajole her to skate.  A short spin on the ice, before the evil Arctic air blows in tomorrow. 

Not today. I promise I'll go when the warm air comes back again.

I smile. It will be a while.

But we do something special at the farmette. I introduce her to Berry. I'm curious how this cat will react to a little girl. (All our ferals, even Dance, are terrified of young kids. Little people move fast and in unpredictable directions. Dance will let Snowdrop come near once in a while but for the most part, even she keeps her distance.)

And inside the writers shed, Berry gets up, sees the two of us and in her usual slow meditative way, she walks over and looks up with hopeful eyes. 

 

A petting child? I like that! Thank you! -- all this I read in the sweet gentle cat eyes.

In the farmhouse, Snowdrop and I read and play and the day passes and it is a good one. Really good. 

(deer come out to say good bye when we leave...)

(Sandpiper aims for a high five with his usual happy grin when we arrive at my daughter's home...)

And a warm February hello to you too, little guy!

With love...

Razzle Dazzle Berry

The kids named her Berry, even though they've not seen her. Yet. Indeed, we do not even know if it's a "her," though in my view her personality tilts toward that of a female. She has been stopping by this winter. Not every day, but many days. The six farmette cats have noticed and they keep their watch. I'm sure they chase her away when they catch her lingering by the writers shed.

She is a cat. She is not the only cat that passes this way. We certainly are not looking to take care of more cats. There are too many here already. Occasionally, like maybe once a month, one of our six pack will kill a bird. And frequently they will kill mice. The bad with the good. When we see a returning cat in the winter, we will leave out dry food. No cat loves the dry food we serve here, but when a cat is hungry, she will eat it.

There is always the very real possibility that a cat passing through here belongs to someone. Our immediate neighbors -- one across the road, another to our west -- don't own cats, but the development has brought in new people into the mix. Maybe they own cats that go out for a daily prowl.

I am confident, however, that Berry is nobody's cat. I stubbornly refer to her as Razzle Dazzle Berry because she is anything but dazzling. Something happened to her in her life to cause severe hair clumping and matting. She is a long haired feline and her hair is so tightly stuck that it feels like she has mogul bumps all up and down her body. 

We thought at first that she may have some disease, some parasite that would ruin her hair in this way, but Ed claims that this likely is not her problem. She has burrs all over her body and he thinks the hair clumps and forms matts around them. The awful appearance is what stands out about her. But there is another thing: she is unquestionably the friendliest cat that has ever passed this way. By far. Not even our very domesticated Dance is as comfortable with people as Razzle Dazzle Berry is. We know ferals: their skittishness, their fear of loud noises, their great urge to flee when little kids come their way. Berry, on the other hand, from day one did not run away when I approached the shed (she, like all ferals who appear here, hid under the raised building). On day two she got nearer to me as I came up with a bowl of food. On day three, Ed reached over and petted her and she purred like a windup toy cat.

Yesterday, we decided to give her warmth and shelter in the writers shed -- if she wanted it. Ed took over a heater, a bowl of food and she followed him inside (again, not feral behavior!).

This morning, I went to visit her. She loves these visits and has a great appetite and in general, has made no moves to try to leave. She is hard to photograph because she follows me so close that I can't create distance between her and the camera. If I bend down, she is right there, waiting to be petted.

Who is this cat? My guess is that she was once someone's pet and they let her go. The kinder explanation is that she went outside and got lost. It happens. We'll try to locate a chip reader on the very off chance that she is chipped.

What's her future? Ed is slowly combing through her hair, but I dont think he can help her just with a cat comb. I think she needs a professional hand, but he persists. And inspects. And persists.

 

 

 

Even if he grooms out all the matts (impossible! she's all clumps!), she will then have as many bare spots as you'd see on a hill at the beginning of spring. She can't survive the winter without hair. What do we do with her??

Since she has the most fantastic disposition, I think we should give her to a cat shelter for adoption. Even as I know that one look at her will make you turn toward other cats. She may Razzle Dazzle me, but I admit that she is not likely to do that to the average person looking around for a cat to take home.

We talk about it at breakfast...

We talk about it pretty much all day long. (Except when we ski: that is our quiet time!)

For now she is content in the shed. There, with a motorcycle, a cat toy, the old cat condo that is discarded because it is so loathsome to look at, an even older door that for some reason is leaning against a wall, offering a good hiding spot when she wants to let go of her guard, and a heater, a blanket and bowls of food and water. Dazzling personality, horrible to look at. What the hell are we going to do with her...

 

In other news, I had my late afternoon lunch/snack of a raspberry chocolate chunk cookie with milky coffee (oh, how some would wince at the audacity of drinking milky coffee in the afternoon!) and for once I ate at the kitchen table so that I could better look at my new arrival, the book I mentioned yesterday -- Snacking Cakes. (Dance joined me. Dance loves pussy willows and I had just filled a vase with tulips and pussy willows.)

I mention this because I quickly put aside my colorful sticky notes (that I usually insert into a new cookbook to mark things I want to immediately try). They're useless in this case. For the first time in my life I have purchased a cookbook of desserts where I want to, I intend to, I can't wait to bake most of the cakes included in it. Yossi Arafi has hit on all that I crave and want to have on the farmhouse kitchen counter. Cakes that I can alternate with my oatmeal for breakfast and eat on days where I forgot to take time out for lunch (it happens more often than I can say). Yossi, a million thanks! You can't find this stuff at your local bakery. And who'd want to buy them anyway -- they're perfectly easy and you can whip up at home with your eyes closed. Thank you, Yossi. You are brilliant and I am grateful.

With love...

Sunday

I've forewarned you that today is National Croissant Day. And that we would eat this for breakfast:

And I've said that I no longer bake anything croissant like because it's a lot of trouble for something that that is these days remarkably good when purchased at the local bakery.

But I want to talk about baking in general: what should you bake at home? What do I want to bake at the farmhouse? Well, surely things that my grandkids love. That's an easy one and luckily, at least the two oldest living near me like stuff that I love having around: light and fruit filled muffins, anything with rhubarb. But is there more that I could churn out (in this imperfect oven that is soon to be replaced)? 

I've hit this stumbling block: if I bake it and it's good, then Ed routinely snacks on it. Nothing with copious amounts of sugar or even moderate amounts of sugar is going to be good for us. Add to it butter and white flour and you may as well start picking out your coffin style. At our age, we have to be careful.

So I've cut back on baking.

But I'm tempted. Today, for instance, I could not resist pulling out a recipe from Jesse Szewczyk's Cookies, for his "raspberry cookies with chocolate chunks." Here, I baked some two dozen:

I'm going to send some home with my daughter tonight. That'll help me clear away at least a dozen (I hope). The rest? Sigh... We'll eat them. I'll call it lunch for the next few days and Ed will snack on them in between meals. But really, I know I should not bake too many cookies, no matter how tempting they may appear.

And yet... for me, one hyggelig aspect of a winter day at the farmette is that candle (currently burning: North Woods Cabin, from Big White Yeti -- if you like them subtle, this one's for you) and a steamy frothy coffee in the afternoon with.... something. Before Christmas, I'd stock up on chocolate covered gingerbread. What should be in its place now? If not sweet buttery cookies, then what?

As if by magic, I stumbled today on an article in the New Yorker praising a fairly recently published cook book by Yossy Arefi called Snacking Cakes. This is what I need (arriving tomorrow)! Exactly this. Cakes that you can eat for breakfast without too much guilt. Or for lunch if you're like me and want something special, served on a pretty plate, but again, not too over-the-top, and not too sweet. Cakes that you can bake that (like my muffins and rhubarb cake) a child would like in the afternoon after school. 

My baking has a bright future once again!

[As for the oven -- well, thank goodness that we have to wait until spring for the ground to unfreeze. There is electrical work that needs to be done in preparation for the Big Switch. I don't look forward to losing my gas stovetop, though friends have convinced me that induction will keep me happy. Still, with happiness comes a price tag: induction is more expensive and most of my ancient pots cannot be used. They fail the magnet test. Ed and I keep talking about it, but we both understand that the Big Switch is a chore without great rewards at the end of it all.]

In the evening, the young family is here for dinner. Mostly because of Covid, they have not had a Sunday meal here at all this year and so it feels rather special to return to this routine. Not many photos for you. When all the kids are here and dinner needs a nudge and my daughter stays in the kitchen to catch me up on all the latest, the camera slides to some corner of the room and stays there. 

(Sandpiper thinking -- this place, these dinners... vaguely familiar!)

(he likes to scoot... backwards! which gets him into and under unusual places!)

(dinner)

It is a happy evening. Sure, I've got my compartment of worries: friends, family, people whose lives aren't running along a straight line toward success and a carefree existence. I cannot not think about them. But if I look back on days like this one and I look ahead to our plans and schemes for the future -- I smile. With good reason.

And with love.

Saturday

There have been no "normal" Saturdays this month at all. Each one brought with it its own bursts of joy and mountains of challenges, but none came remotely close to normal. So this last one (and it's the fifth, because the calendar gave us that many) is the exception! It is (more or less) normal.

(this morning: the hens go off for a little private conversation)

 

 

I am up earlier than usual, because I want to run over to the nearest bakery with the good breakfast bread product (Madison Sourdough, which does have really good pain au chocolat and croissants). Yes, I want some pains for this morning, and I also want croissants for tomorrow. Did you know that January 30th (tomorrow) is National Croissant Day? Look it up if you don't believe me! Since the croissant is a French product, one has to wonder why it's the National rather than International day of the flaky piece of pastry, but no matter, I'm celebrating. (Day-old croissants will be just fine: stick them in an oven for a minute and they come out as if baked that day.)

There was a time when I regularly baked croissants (at L'Etoile, for the Saturday market), but those times have long passed. Nor do I bake them at home. Once I found bakeries that produced reliably good batches, I no longer bothered fussing with 100 layers of pastry. Happily, Madison now has many acceptable croissant bakeries, and a few outstanding ones.

With croissant and baguette smells filling the car, I picked up Snowdrop and brought her to the farmhouse. (Sparrow had a date with a babysitter from the past who missed him and wanted to play with him.) The girl traveled without her jacket, so there was no question of outdoor play.

I mean, it really feels prickly cold out there, even with jacket. Possibly the low temps and the absence of sunshine has something to do with it.

Breakfast, the three of us, all eating the same thing. Three photos, too.

The girl was in a playful mood and our usual hours of reading were replaced by games, building projects (a Lego set that will probably require a month or maybe even two months of work at the rate we're going), and of course, the never ending stories she fits in to just about every visit here.

After lunch, I drove her (cowgirl boots and all)  down to her music lesson...

 

 

 

... and came back so very lazily to the farmhouse. There I (lazily) asked Ed if we should maybe go skiing and then we both ignored that idea, even though we both claimed it was a good one.

Nothing unusual, right? I told you -- our first normal weekend day since the beginning of the New Year.

Friday

Ed pulled an all nighter, working through the dark hours on his epoxy experiments and measurements until he was satisfied. Normal people would be up drinking their first cup of coffee of the day by the time he dragged himself upstairs to bed. This put me in a quandary: wake the guy up for breakfast? Cruel. Let him sleep? That'll blow the day to smithereens. 

In the end the ever ringing phones did the trick. (Ed has four phone-like devices ringing simultaneously at the farmhouse; one can only be grateful that most of his calls happen in normal business hours.) I'm up, gorgeous! He shouts. Breakfast, not solo.

Sometime after the noon hour, I take a short brisk stroll, during which I realize that the wind is biting and the pleasant-ish 16F (-9C) reading doesn't tell the full picture. Still, the sun is out and so I pack athletic gear into the car and drive out to pick up Snowdrop at school.

She does not want to go skiing.

She does not want to go skating.

She tells me she had an okay day at school (usually it's 10/10, today it's an 8).

She tells me she is tired and wants so much only to go to the farmhouse.

 

 

And I realize something -- the daily skating worked splendidly when she was isolated, when school was closed to her, when she was bursting to step outside. It's a little more tricky when the school day started at 7:40 a.m., when the teacher was unfair, when the recess games were intense and when the vision of less effort and few demands is just too tempting. 

So we go to the farmhouse. And she loses herself in her stories and in our books about goofy and brave cats...

These are her most sacred tools that she uses again and again to make sense of this very complicated and demanding world.

 

At her home -- the brothers.

 

And at the farmhouse, later, much later, I sautee some Vietnamese Shrimp (last week's Wash Po Cooking Voraciously recipe drop), and steam some rice and pour a white wine from the Jura region of Eastern France. I'm not surprised to see Ed doze off early. No, not all.

With love...

Thursday

Sunny and cold is a common winter forecast. You get the good with a challenge. Face the sun and your golden. Walk with your back to it and your bones crack from the cold.

Today, however, by noon, we have that winter rarity: sunshine and warmth. It's hard to keep up with these changes, really it is! Good bye maraschino cherry parka, hello regular old jacket. Good bye clunky mittens, hello woolen gloves. It's what makes life interesting, no?

Breakfast with spring flowers.

It seems like a waste of a lovely day to stay indoors, so right around noon, we zip out and zip around for a while on the ski trails.

Again I feel as if I am at a south facing mountain resort. Ed would say -- why travel anywhere at all when you have all this within a five minute drive!

I just smile. I agree with him and yet there are those of us who will pack that bag and go anyway, even if what we have at home is so very good!

In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop at school. And wouldn't you know it  - on this warmish day, when I could definitely lace up four boots without freezing my fingers in the process (we are right at the freezing point now, though the sun is behind clouds), she chooses not to skate but to go straight to the farmhouse, with a vague hint that maybe maybe she'll play outside later. (That's her, knowing what runs through my head...)

It never happens. And I'm not surprised. She hasn't spent much time here this month. There are birthday toys that haven't been played with. Books half read, favorite foods laying in wait. 

When night falls, I return her home. This is my chance to visit with Sandpiper. Yeah, the little guy who learned to sit by himself in the weeks I was away (because of Covid).

This last photo is a classic: Sandpiper always keeps his mouth open when he is trying to show you something or express an emotion. This next photo is the exception (but so very sweet)!

Home again. Ed and I discuss a new big project: to take out the gas stove and replace it with an electric one. It was going to be that or chop out a hole in the building to vent the existing model. This is one of those decisions that you make not because you'll like the outcome (I, like nearly every other serious cook, love my gas stove. It's just not possible to have such control over the cooking process with an electric cooking surface). But, you need to make choices in life and this one (switching to electric) seems right. And so we begin. Ed pulls up Consumer Reports and immediately points me to the cheapest well rated model listed on their pages. I can tell that we will be discussing cooking stoves for many weeks to come.

Tomorrow? Back to the colder weather. Of course! It's January, isn't it?

Wednesday

Morning cold.

Breakfast warmth.

Afternoon? Bitter cold still. Nevertheless, I have a plan. Ed doubts the wisdom of it. We're at the warmest point -- a whopping 6F (-9C) and the wind is downright cruel. Arctic level horrors out there. Or at least what you'd expect in the northern most settlements of Canada, where people never shed their puffy parkas. Still, the day had me taking care of business on the computer and now, as the sun is rapidly getting closer to the horizon, I need movement. So I suggest we ski.

But your knee! Don't you need to rest it? 

Ed never gives me advice on what I need or should do, so I know he is coming up with irrelevant excuses. 

The one thing my knee loves is skiing, I tell him. This is true. Gliding on snow only loosens it up and I can use the poles to help bring the weight off that bothersome left leg. Let's go.

 

Does it surprise anyone that both the left and the right parking lots of our local park are just about empty? (There is a car, but it's one of those where a guy sits with the engine running to keep warm as he "chills." The parking lots here often have one or two of those. Either they're chilling or they're waiting for an illegal drop-off, which we probably interrupt with our presence.)

At least I have a scarf. Ed takes the opposite position on scarves to that held by French men (they always wear them, he never does). 

We take on the right-of-the-road segment. A path, really. Not groomed, but trampled down enough to create gliding potential.

And of course, after a few minutes, the bitter cold becomes just a normal winter cold and the rhythmic schussing down that path is so good, so energizing, that there is no question about the rightness of our being there.

We are mountain animals! We are snowbirds! We are alive!

Satisfied, we drive home. The longer way, where at dusk, deer saunter and move freely.

Beautiful. All of it: the snow, the light, the deer. Stunningly beautiful.

I have to rub it in: aren't you glad we went out?

Yes gorgeous.

 

With love...