farmette Sunday

If you've never published a book before then your first one will have a learning curve to it. A steep one. If you decide on an independent publisher (I did that), then you gain a lot of freedom: how to present it, market it, sell it -- these will be your decisions. Or at least you will be involved in charting the course for its printing and distribution. That's the upside. No one will make you do book tours if you don't want to do book tours. 

But there is a down side. You are like the project manager on a construction site. If you don't manage, you run the risk of things going a bit haywire.

That's the way I felt today as, for the first time, I picked up Like a Swallow and actually read it. Not on the various edit sheets online, but in paper. As the finished product. Tiny little imperfections started creeping up. Ones that I would have caught had I taken charge of the finished product and given it a thorough post edit edit. I just assumed that if the book is edited and I approve the edits, then we're done. A good project manager would have said no, you should read (or ask someone to read) the final manuscript before it goes to print.

The errors are small. Most of you wont notice them at all. And these days, you can correct them, though of course not on the copies already sold. But the point is, I am once again reminded that independence comes with a price tag and one tends to forget that price tag: you have to stay with it. You have to make wise decisions and oversee the project until its end. Lessons learned!

Yes, but am I even working on another Great Writing Project? I've started two. I'm testing the waters. Given how long it took me to write and rewrite (and rewrite and rewrite) the first book, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting. I shall be old and wrinkled by the time I oversee the next one! Still, lessons learned. In my pocket. I'm sure there's an old Polish saying that captured this sentiment well, only I don't know what it is. Something like -- err once and you're human. Err twice and you're plain stupid. 

Breakfast, with a rhubarb cake I made this morning because once again we are overflowing with rhubarb.

Afterwards I continue to weed the flower fields. 

And I'm talking about just the obvious places where you can't help but notice the sprouting of invasive armies of menacing weeds. It's buggy and for the first time, Ed has taken to spraying his clothes with Deet as he toils away at digging up the courtyard. We'd used frou frou sprays before with almost no success. Time for the hard stuff. Me, I'm still just swatting the bugs away. No sprays yet. The early generation of mosquitoes rarely lands. It just swarms around you making noise. I can deal with it for short bursts of time.

Toward evening, I throw down my bucket and scrub my hands and start in on dinner. It's a regular old Sunday and I'm cooking a regular old dinner of crunchy chicken for the regular old crew of five (plus Ed and me).

When they arrive, the big kids hit their play area as if they haven't played here in years and Sandpiper, ever the daredevil, explores every corner with a new boldness and curiosity that surely he developed on his big trip to Canada.

Travel gives lasting benefits. 

Summer isn't officially with us, but we surely feel its sweetness now. 

With love.

farmette life

And so I am back. It's June, with June weather, June weeds, June bugs. And June flowers. For ten days I've pulled myself away from peak growing season. Today I plunge back into it, making amends for my absence. 

There is a lot to do.

But before I show you where we're at, here at the farmette that sits right smack in the middle of south central Wisconsin, let me say a word about swallows. We watch them swoop gracefully as they search for food for their young ones and we think -- how cool to be born with that gift of grace. A magnificent bird indeed!

But wait, I wanted to mention something about the other swallow -- my book. (Title: Like a Swallow: Looking Back at a Polish Childhood.) Some of you have been wonderful with your sweet emails to me. I plunged with the publication without showing the book to anyone and even though I tried to imagine what it would be like to read it, say as an American without a clue as to life in postwar Poland, or perhaps a friend who had lived there then (imagining what the reader is thinking is a regular exercise for me -- I do it every day with Ocean), I couldn't be sure how it would "sound" to someone else. So thank you: I have loved hearing from you. You are a generous audience!

Here's the thing. My publisher wants me to encourage you to write a review. On Amazon, or wherever you may have found the book. I grimace every time she tells me this, because it sounds so needy and awfully self-serving. In fact, I never wrote Like a Swallow to load up my bank account. But I do care about reaching readers. I do want a story from that time, that place, to get to people who haven't given much thought to life in so called communist Poland. And in this my publisher is right: the more you, who have read it, do a thumbs up on various sites like Amazon, the more likely it is that someone else will read it too.

Thank you! And, reviews or no reviews, I do love hearing from you directly, so don't let this humble request keep you from scribbling something to me as well, if you're so inclined. I don't permit comments on Ocean, but you know how to reach me outside the confines of this blog!

And now back to the real swallows, right here in the farmette: so beautiful, so full of life.

They have their work cut out for them. So many bugs out there! Too many mosquitoes of course, but that's to be expected. We had the rain this spring. Oh, did we have the rain!

But, but... what's blooming right now? I know you're curious. I was curious too this morning as I set out on my morning walk.

And I was thrilled to see that the peonies are at a good stage of magnificence. Not finished at all! Still in full glory, just like in Montreal!

(The Big Bed is starting to fill in...)

Too, the Siberian iris (my favorite) is really doing well this year. I love this gentle flower. I haven't the mass that I saw in the Botanical landscape in Montreal, but even a handful is so very pretty to look at!

(Our old girl, Peach, strolling through the garlic patch)

Breakfast on the porch. It's such a haven now! The bugs can't reach it even as we are so fully outside. With a bouquet of cut peonies from the flower fields.

I do a lot of weeding throughout the day. There is a hefty amount of bending, pulling and digging and so I have to watch myself. My back is not used to it anymore! Still, I accomplish a lot.

In the meantime, Ed has been moving more dirt to the young orchard, creating more space for our meadow project. I'll be throwing down more seeds this week, even as the existing meadow of wildflowers and grasses is already giving us so much pleasure!

Such a typical farmette late spring day. It's good to be home!

With love...

Leaving Montreal

Well someone's been listening to my gripe about preflight testing for international travelers! As the young family dishes out huge sums of money to get the six of them tested before their flight home, I send them the message: guess what! The testing requirement is being lifted at midnight, on the day of your travel!

You could say -- well that's a bummer! They could have saved a chunk of money spent on documented testing. (They're all negative.) Or, you could say -- well that's a stroke of luck! Had they traveled a day later, they would have been in flight on the first day without the requirement! Meaning all the stranded Covid positive people will have hit the internationals skies, being free to return home.

Cup half empty, cup half full.

Me, I'm past all that. I woke up this morning with my own negative test in hand, ready to get to the airport.

But first, I worked in a Zoom call with my friend in Poland who herself now has Covid. And this is the nastiness of it all: the data on cases is so skewed right now, so unreliable, that you can really fool yourself into thinking that the pandemic is over. So few cases in Poland! No one wears masks on subways or buses. (Unlike in Canada, where everyone on the metro is masked.) We're done! 

Tell that to my friend who doesn't feel very done at all. She just feels sick.

There wasn't much time left for anything Montreal-ish today. I poked out for a quick good bye wave to the Old Montreal streets, empty now, because, well, it's early.

And I eat breakfast at the hotel. Granola.

And then I take a cab to the airport. Masking here is required, as it is at the Canadian take off. But the minute we are in the air, the people around me discard their masks (I don't). So done with it! Yeah! 

We are a strange species.

(Lovely view of the St Lawrence River...)

I change flights in Detroit, trying to imagine what the day is like for the young family still in Montreal. It can't be fun: they have to pack and clean up the Airbnb rental. They have to not leave anything behind, even as some of the younger tykes have a penchant for stuffing toys, pencils and who knows what else in places you would not  believe. But of course, no one ever said travel is easy, and absolutely no one ever claimed that travel with very young kids is straightforward. Nonetheless, those who do it never regret it. The memories, the family lore, the lessons -- they are yours for life. Searching out dropped toys and packing up dirty laundry is a small price to pay for the richness of experiencing life elsewhere.

(Landing in Madison, we dodge stormy cells...)

Me, I pick up my car at the Madison airport and drive home, to the flower fields, the cats, the chickens, the mosquitoes. To Ed.

Hi Ed...

With so much love...

Montreal

This is one of those days where you want everything to work out well, more so than usual, and yet there are challenges. So you roll with the punches. The rain. Oh, the rain! The Covid test. The broken smart phone. And finally, here's a good one -- Sparrow's birthday. All packed into the day. Let's see how it unfolded.

I dont know about you but the first thing that I do in the morning, before I even get out of bed, is check my phone for messages and mail. So it was terribly disappointing to find that my phone was stuck: nothing was loading. 

There was a time when travel proceeded without smart phone coordination. You set up schedules for meetups, you had physical maps to guide you, you did not rely on tickets or test results being loaded on your device. The good old days! -- which, honestly, were not so good. Everyone has had the experience of missed connections (with people or modes of transportation) because something happened to hold you up and in those days, you could not communicate your problem to the relevant party. You say "that's part of the adventure?" I say I can skip the worry that comes with it, thank you.

These days, phones are perhaps the most important travel instrument, second only to the credit card. Or at least let's admit this: the absence of them is a pain. So I spent the better part of the early hours trying to fix my phone, in the end giving up and calling for Apple support. And guess what -- whatever glitch there was -- is no more. We fixed it! (Eventually.)

Breakfast, hurried, downstairs in the hotel. Who wants to walk in all that rain... Oatmeal! (With fruit.)

And now comes the most challenging moment of the trip: the Covid test that will determine so much! I'd scheduled a remote one: via video, in the hotel room. I had trepidations. Did I bring an acceptable test? Will this be a legitimate result? And.... what if I scored a positive? (The young family and their friend will do this in the clinic. Maybe I should have done the same... Gulp!) I'm sweating.

And boom! It's negative. Thank you, masks. Thank you extra caution. Thanks to all of you who dutifully wear masks in the metro. Thank you vaccinations and boosters. And thank you sheer luck.

A moment of gratitude.

We continue.

I meet up with the young family downtown...

This is where you most admire the joining of the old and the new.

Too, you appreciate the green spaces. They're everywhere.

We eat lunch at Dunn's Famous. I think it's famous for smoked meats. Or maybe for its very long menu. (Page one...)

Having just come off of oatmeal from breakfast, I settle for a bagel. Because if Montreal is famous for any food, it would be the bagel. The real grownups in the room all order poutine. Because if Quebec is famous for any food, it would be poutine. (To remind you, a poutine has French fries, cheese, gravy and smoked meats.)

Hey, here's the four year old!

Do you remember being four? Were you this happy?

Rain allows us to do what we have been wanting to do from day one: visit some of the museums. But it's a bit of a walk. Still, the kids never complain. They find ways to make it memorable.

To keep from getting too wet, we weave our way through a number of malls and passageways. The big kids find this to be nothing short of fabulous. Can we all appreciate how easy it is to make kids excited about life? Lessons to be learned....

High on the list of "must visit" museums is the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Snowdrop is, by now, able to recognize Impressionists and Sparrow is close behind.

In rooms with modern paintings, he is even bolder in charting his own path toward favorites (though she is quick to remind him to keep an arm's length away from any painting).

(Do you get the feeling that the grownups wear out sooner than the kids?)

Okay, time to head home. (At the metro station.)

How many subways have we taken on this trip? So many! 

We watch school kids -- maybe 11 or 12 year olds -- goof around on the metro on what appeared to be their return trip home. It reminded me of my New York subway rides home when I was that age. We owned the world then. We were boss. Do kids these days have those same grand feelings of being omnipotent? I hope they do.

I leave the young family (plus a couple of friends) on the station where we typically part ways. (This photo is from my moving car. They're still on the station. Can you spot them?)

I feel I've done this walk from the metro stop to my hotel a million times. It cuts through a construction zone, but I love it anyway. Today, it's full of puddles.

And shortly after, toward evening, I am out again, catching the metro toward our dinner meetup place. At the Pizzeria Magpie. 

Here's where we celebrate the big boy with a pizza dinner.

All together now...

Big and little...

Young and old.

(I think Sparrow is a little taken aback by the sparklers. But he's four now. He takes it in stride.) Happy birthday to you!!

And many many more...

We split up then. I wont see the young family until we have our dinners at the farmette. 

I walk slowly through this neighborhood, their neighborhood, of all the restaurants and cafes and funky stores. And murals. You could write volumes on Montreal murals alone. Doesn't this one sort of remind you of swallows? Learning to fly? Maybe?

Maybe not exactly. But still, it's lovely, don't you think?

What a week it's been!

With so much love...

Montreal

You could say we are hanging in there by a thread. I'm talking about the weather. A week slated to be rain doused has been wonderfully rain free. Well, except for last night, though I have to say that walking in the evening with an umbrella out was rather refreshing. Or this morning, while I was blissfully unaware, riding the metro. Still, on other days, we've been lucky, but just barely. And it looks as if we are to have one more day of good fortune. I'm returning to the farmette Friday, so I will have had a great run of it: the big time rain is now said to arrive here in Eastern Canada tomorrow. Full force and swinging, or you could say pelting. But starting tomorrow.

Since we're looking good this morning, I set out for that morning walk through the old town all the way to Olive et Gourmand. Hands down my favorite breakfast here.

To the port, and back again.

Our morning meetup is at the Marche Atwater -- the second of the big markets of Montreal (and in my opinion, the nicer of the two).

Want to know what's blooming and selling here now? I'll flash you some highlights:

Plants and flowers -- lots of them.

Local strawberries -- lots of them.

More flowers! 

Rhubarb -- makes me think of ours back home.

Oh, hey there, Sandpiper!

As the young family trickles in, I take the big kids for a pizza lunch while the grownups search out something a little bit more exotic.

Oh, and ice cream. I'm always good for an ice cream treat.

(Others at the market opt for buying salamis, cheeses, tomatoes and a baguette. No, they're not part of our group, just a pair of Quebecois, acting very... French.)

From the market, it's a short stroll to the Canal Lachine. There are paths along this serene and once very important body of water. 

The sun is poking through, it all looks so pretty! (The big tower? That's part of the market.)

It's the last time that the whole Gang of ten will be together, so we get someone to take a photo...

We head now to the metro and in doing that, we pass a flag shop. It's tucked to a side street and I can't imagine who comes to it and for what reason, but it catches the interest of the kids (and some grownups) and so there is a small shopping detour that takes place. I'm not sure who purchased what flag, but here are some very satisfied kids:

(this next one was taken by my son-in-law)

At the metro station, Joe, one of the grownup friends, gives Snowdrop a lesson in sketching with pencils of a different thickness. It was a chance thing that he saw her frustration with creating sketches that never quite fit her idea of what she'd wanted to draw. Since he is an accomplished sketcher, he went to the trouble of showing her how to handle such frustrations (start with a thin pencil and keep a nifty eraser with you).

We split up now. I stick with the young family and we head to the blow-up playground in the Old Port.

Things are a little wet after that morning shower, but the kids have fun. Too, there is a crazy little merry-go-round with a spinning saucer which both Snowdrop and Sparrow manage to spin so fast that I get dizzy just watching. That was epic! -- Snowdrop tells me, with a look of deep satisfaction.

(The littlest guy concentrated on navigation of a different sort.)

In the evening, the kids are again home with a sitter. I'm with the grownups. Six of us. 

At Pichai. A Thai place.

With very very good food.

It really is impressive how well you can eat here, for prices far lower than south of the border. I have yet to have a disappointing meal and indeed, some have been exceptionally fabulous. Of course, we are in a major metropolitan area and so there are choices. Many choices. But my memories of past trips to Quebec the province are equally positive. Fresh and honest rather than frozen and fried. 

One more day before me. And of course, with it comes (for me, not them yet), the Covid test that will permit me to travel back to the US. It is not a little frustrating to know that you can travel by land back to the US without testing, and you can criss cross the US by airplane without testing, but this one form of reentry -- a flight from another country, a neighboring country, requires you to have no sign of the virus. Of course, it is a far far bigger deal for families than it is for me. Were I to get a positive test result (despite my double boost, it is possible), I'd have to wait it out a few days. For families -- that's not easy. Ah well. Let's hope all our mask wearing in public places has served us well!

In the meantime, I'll borrow the sign I saw at my breakfast place. Goodnight...