Tuesday

Wow, it's been a long time since Ed and I went overseas together. It's easy to mark the date of our last trip: a year before Snowdrop was born. So eight years ago. I should put a marker on the Ocean sidebar. A commemorative plaque: travels with Ed, 2005 - 2014. But here's what's really funny or awful, depending how easily irritated you tend to get by such stuff: I asked him today -- do you remember going to Morocco? I raised this because a friend is planning a trip to Morocco and I got awfully jealous, or at least nostalgic for that place, for any place that is culturally half a planet away from how I live. 

Ed responded -- yeah, I was there briefly. In just one corner of the country. I looked up from my wistful look at Ocean pictures of our trip there together (in fact, I'd been to Morocco once with my daughter and then, a few years later, briefly with him). 

I ask now -- how did you get there? 

He answers -- oh, I took a ferry.

I stare at him. Intensely. He is a little ruffled by that. What? 

We went there together you know.

The fact is, he had forgotten. What stuck was a solo trip he took long long ago. What did not stick was the trip there with me.

In the end, since he hates living under the umbrella of forgetfulness, he looked to Ocean to joggle his memory and stuff came flooding back in great detail. But the point is -- successful trips, ones without great incident, do fade. You remember the ones where the plane was diverted, the weather was awful, the hotel had bedbugs and you got sick from food poisoning. Don't you think that's a mean trick that nature plays on us? Vivid if negative, faded if sublime.

It's at times like this that I think -- thank god for Ocean! I have proof, Ed! We were in Tanger together!

In other news -- I clipped 570 lily heads today. That's big drop from yesterday and I expect that this trend will continue. The peak, as measured by the quantity of blooms, was thus the day before yesterday. Another sidebar notation needed: farmette lily blooming peak, 2022: July 24th. (Last year I see that it was on July 19, leading to a next day cut of 655. This year I knocked off 725, so -- more. See how memories can be deceptive! I was sure last year had had a larger peak total! But Ocean never lies.)

My garden walk today:

Our breakfast:

Somewhere in the middle of the day we discuss once again what we might do with the acre of land to the north of the barn. Yes, we have a veggie patch there. And now a lavender patch. And some five dozen newly planted trees. But in between, there is a field of weeds. For many reasons, Ed has resisted establishing a prairie there (chief among them -- you'd have to poison the weeds first and that would poison our newly planted trees too). And though he is tempting me with the idea of expanding the lavender field, I do not see myself putting in the effort needed to transform weedy clay soil into an organically robust, weed-free lavender patch. Way too much work. So what else is possible? The discussion continues.

And speaking of discussions, these guys were having a full throttle conversation in the prairie field to the east of us. Perhaps they were weighing on on what constitutes good agricultural use of fallow land.

All these July flowers! So where again are the young ones? Why not romping through the flower fields or farmette meadows? Well, it's complicated! Some are in Michigan. Some are going through umpteen stages of Covid transmission and thus isolation. I watch from a distance. Of the nine kids and grandkids, only two have not yet ever tested for Covid. Which is not to say they are protected going forward. I think back to the guy on one of my last flights who had shouted to the rest of the cabin -- Covid is a thing of the past already! People, we're done with it! Really? Tell that to the families isolating for weeks on end (consecutive positive results do that to households). Tell that to the grandparents who miss long planned vacations with grandkids because of Covid.

Still, everyone is vaccinated and therefore, no surprise -- everyone is feeling okay. We are grateful.

With so much love...

Monday

Sometimes I wonder if contentment pushes you to a staid and adventure-less existence. Say you figured out the best hassle free travel. The best connection, with the best airline, reserving the best possible seat on the plane, giving yourself plenty of time to get to your favorite city. All to minimize stress and foster contentment. Don't you miss out on the thrill of the unknown? And say you've settled into a summer of quiet hours in your garden. Doesn't it get awfully calm after a while? Like, too calm?

On the one hand, you have contentment nailed. But without the spice of crazy turmoil, can you really appreciate contentment?

I'm of two minds about this. I like adventure, I like change, I like new places to explore. But I do work hard to minimize the craziness. Maybe this balanced approach is a good one, but, too, I have to say, you, Ocean readers, have a lot of flower photos to process as a result! No crazy scaling of summits with a backpack this month, no wacky nights sleeping under the stars, no trips with lost luggage and missed connections (knock on wood on that one!). Just flowers.

Today I snipped 725 lilies. Peacefully, methodically, contentedly.

I picked up some croissants and a baguette for breakfast (okay, so it was a little late in the morning)...

... which has to be just about my favorite morning meal. With summer fruits. What could be better?

And then Ed and I drove out to Brooklyn Wildlife Area. For a hike. We know these trails better than the backs of our hands, but today we were oh so bold and we detoured on offshoots that were less familiar. And it was lovely -- both the old and the new. 

We had the perfect weather for it: partly cloudy, a delicious breeze and the total quiet of a landscape that stretches for miles before us.

One of our detours took us past a new for us segment of a prairie. Goldenrod is in full bloom here and we could not get enough of its golden color! 

Corn to the left, goldenrod to the right. Are we in Wisconsin or what??

And finally, to this lovely day I add a Zoom chat with my two sweet and lovely friends who are just the best at rising to the occasion when my heart aches for a face to face talk.

This then was my day. Pretty good, don't you think? The adventure was in finding calm in these chaotic and turbulent times. The craziness is all around us. But we side-stepped it and found our spot of peace. And that's a good thing.

(g)rumble

The evening storms, predicted to be part of a strong system of dangerous lightening strikes and possible tornadoes, moved through yesterday with a light wiper and a few rain showers. But the nighttime storms, coming in around 2 or 3 in the morning, were something else! Ed was still downstairs and I came down to sleep on the couch next to him rather than staying up alone in the bedroom in the chaos of the thunderous night . (Yes, we can fit on that slim couch together. But it takes some squirming and adjusting!) The power did go off for a while, but not for long. And looking at the damage outside the next morning, I'd say we got off lightly once again. A few fallen phlox in the garden, a few downed limbs from the front yard maples and that's it. But my oh my, was that a vicious storm! I think our silo must have taken a hit a couple of times. It was that close and that loud.

In the morning, I had to do a motivational speech to myself to get going. All those lilies to snip! Groan... Made even heavier because they're soaked with rainwater. And there you have it: we have passed the midpoint of summer. It happens when I switch from feeling meditative and in love with my flower field work, to feeling for the first time that it is a lot of work! Really a lot. (I know I surpassed the number of snipped lily heads today, but I got distracted by a Bresse girl trapping herself in an animal cage and I lost count. Once you forget if it was 147 or 234 at last count, you may as well give up counting for the day.)

Lily snipping isn't easy. You're gently snapping off a head from a stalk filled with delicate buds. Do the snap motion incorrectly and you'll take down the whole system of buds. Each day I make a bad snap that at least once, kicking myself afterwards for being so indelicate. But I continue to clean the beds in this way every single day. Let me show you why:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

It's a transformative change in the beds! It's also an almost two hour effort in the peak weeks, but I do believe it's worth it. And afterwards, when I clean out a field, I take a photo and I smile a genuine ear to ear smile. For the rest of the day, the farmette looks well tended and loved. (Of course, by tomorrow, all the blooms you see below will be history!)

Done. Breakfast:

In other farmette news -- we think, indeed, we know that Happy is not himself. He can't crow. He stumbles. His tail is down. 

It's time to examine him for signs of trouble: bumble foot? Flu? Mouth infection? I hold the poor guy, Ed pokes around, flashlight in hand. Poultry doctors in training! We find nothing. Let down, Happy proceeds to eat voraciously, stumbling around as he seeks out the best kernels of corn.  No need to separate him from the rest now -- they've been snuggling with him every night, to no ill effect. We'll watch him. Maybe it's just age? 

"Just age" explains lots these days. I suppose since the onset of the pandemic, age has taken a front and center position in daily life. So typical for us to steer clear of activities readily resumed these days by others: oh, go ahead and do that. But without us. We shouldn't, you know, because we're ancient. If in the past you looked to your capabilities not your age in deciding what you can and cannot take on, these days we're back to marking birthdays. Ah well: July days are for us the same, pandemic or not:  we work outside. 

(Speaking of work, it's time for me to tractor-mow some paths on farmette lands. Oh! Look at the meadow in the new orchard! It's beautiful, isn't it?)

With love...

hedonic adaptation

Mornings are hope filled happy times here at the farmette, especially now, in July, in peak blooming season. Though not only. I look out and take in the world. There's always something sweet, pretty, tantalizing, evocative out there.

But of course, you have to face farmette challenges too. Take for instance the new and rather aggressive predator we've been dealing with here. Most likely a raccoon. A very smart and very bold raccoon. He has learned to use the window cat door to get into the sheep shed. He can't quite fit in the slot allowed for the endeavor, so he pushes the whole cat door out, giving himself plenty of space to get inside, finish up all the cat food, and then take some empty cans out with him for good measure. Who knows why. He must be smarter than Ed or I am. He knows something that we don't know. In the morning, I find littered cans up and down the path to the barn.

Several days ago, Ed trapped him and found a new home for him rather far away. (He'd also been clawing at the chicken coop. A threat no matter how you look at it.) But Ed thinks this smart and bold guy has found his way back. No other raccoon has ever littered the path with cat food cans. It's his trademark. 

We can't trap him again because we have nowhere else to take him and besides, this dude wont make the mistake of getting caught again. And so today, at breakfast...

.. we talk about our options. In the end, Ed'll put up a stronger cat door and we'll be locking up the food for the night in the bathroom. The cats need to hurry up and eat before nightfall, that's all!

But this is just one of those things that comes along and sets us thinking. We can't get too concerned with small stuff. I mean, no one is gravely ill, no one is dying. Everything else is manageable. Disappointments abound, but there's always a ladder to lift you up, up and away from them.  As I read in the paper this morning -- "there is something called hedonic adaptation, and research shows that humans have a remarkable ability to get used to or get accustomed to changes in our lives." This from a professor of psychology at the U of California at Riverside, who studies happiness. Her findings are that healthy people climb out of disappointments routinely. It's true that "what goes up must come down," so that bubbles of euphoria have to burst, but, too, for most of us -- "if you experience disappointment that your expectations are not being met, you will get used to it and feel happy again."

I would call this the arc of happiness. Remember how in Martin Luther King Jr. said that  "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice?" Let me just borrow form this and say that sometimes the arc of disappointment is long too, but ultimately it bends toward happiness.

In any case, all the animal worries are like children worries -- they pepper the days and months, but they don't surprise us. We come to expect them and we take them on. Today, for instance, Ed spent the entire day rearranging all his stuff in the sheep shed and cleaning out the bathroom for the new feeding station.

Me, I started off the morning with lily snipping. It took a while. Close to two hours. 573 spent heads snapped off into a bucket. it makes for a heavy bucket!

 The rewards? Well now! Where do I begin!

I'll limit my photos to the fields just by the farmhouse: by the porch and around the secret path. There's enough in just those two, believe me!

In the late morning I zip over to the downtown Farmers Market. For the flowers and the corn. I knew these guys would be selling it -- they're among the first to harvest a crop and also among the last to finish up the season.

As for flowers -- oh, they are everywhere! I was to pick up one bunch, I came home with two.

Well, not home immediately. I first detour to the Goodman Community Pool where I meet up with the young family... 

... for a morning of swimming. 

It's the best place to go on a weekend morning if you're with young kids because they keep big kids and people without kids out so that the chaos of shouting, splashing and bomb diving doesn't frighten the little tykes. We spend a wonderful hour on this very hot day doing some tame water play.

Afterwards, the two big kids come over to the farmhouse: showers, lunch, play, art and a garden walk. In that order.

(inside)

(outside)

I ask Snowdrop -- why the raised hand? She tells me -- I'm the Statue of Liberty. Not sure Sparrow gets the symbolism, but he'll do it if she does it.

Because of various activities and vacation stuff, I wont be seeing any of them in the next week so it was especially delicious to have the big two here today. I'll leave you with a picture from the kids in the garden. (I'm posting early tonight. We're to have a line of severe storms pass through. I wouldn't be surprised if we had power outages.)

With kids, flowers and love...