she is eight

My oldest grandchild turns eight today. Do you remember being eight? I do: I was in Miss Angellini's class at the UN school. Miss Angellini was not a an especially good teacher (young, flustered, a bit spacey), but I liked school anyway. Friends mattered more than teachers in third grade. 

Snowdrop is still in second grade (as was I in the month I turned eight) and she likes her teacher at school, but friends matter more to her as well. It's the kids, not the teacher that she talks about when I pick her up at the end of her day.

Since the little girl will have her family celebration on this day, our whole schedule is readjusted to allow for this event. The plan is that she comes here as usual after school, but then, after 5, her brothers and parents join up for a birthday dinner and a cake of her choice (she wants chocolate, with lemon frosting).

This means that immediately after my morning chores...

... and breakfast (cannot forget about breakfast!)...

I get to work on her imagined cake. I use the FBI batter from Maida Heatter's treasure trove of cake recipes. Reliable. Everyone likes it. And then I use Juniper's lemon frosting (no, she did not invent the recipe, but I associate it with her birthday since her mom used it on a birthday cake then). 

Now, many would say that chocolate and lemon should not be uttered in the same breath. Good for them. Snowdrop likes the combination (and often asks for it when getting a double scoop ice cream cone) and we shall have it today! [And the verdict, written after the tasting: it works!]

So I bake the cake and wait for it to cool and I prepare the basics for the dinner and then I frost the cake and adorn it with candied violets from Toulouse and uff! Have to hurry...

... it's nearing school pick up time!

I was curious what her teacher did for kid birthdays. Turns out that she has them reach into a big basket of stuffies and they get to choose one for keeps. Well now, that's an easy pleaser! Snowdrop comes home with a ...cat. She is, these days, very much attached to cats.

At the farmhouse, now. She takes in the decorations...

Plays some boisterous hand game with Ed...

Books. She asks me to take up the one she currently favors. I tell her I need my reading glasses. She tries them on as well. I want to see myself! Okay....

I read. A lot. It's just that kind of cozy day. And we do one more thing: she needs a new passport and I offered to take the photo for it. I wont post the one we actually will use, but in the multitude of pics of an 8 year old against a white background, I really liked this one:

And in the evening, her brothers and parents come over and it is joyous and wonderful to have them all here on a weekday, a not insignificant weekday!

Dinner...

Presents... (No, Sandpiper, do not open her presents!)

Cake.

And so much love! Happy birthday Snowdrop!!

popcorn

A long time ago, I vowed I would never, ever grouse about small irritants. I'm of the belief that big problems deserve consideration and a search for a solution, and small stuff is best ignored, or checked off with a shrug. Because really, there's a war going on -- homes, schools and hospitals are being destroyed, and floods are ripping structures apart elsewhere, and we're losing animal species to climate change each day, while I munch on popcorn and slide under a warm quilt at night. Honestly!

Take this day:

This morning, the clouds are dense. Peach, our old hen is stuck under the tractor. Who knows how she got there and why she can't get out. Pancake, the roaming feral 7th cat can't find food. I leave some under the writer's shed -- the only place where the chickens wont find it, but she doesn't go there. The other cats are all growling at her presence. Yes, cats make growling noises. I notice that the tree that fell during the storm is covering my seeded meadow. Outside, the dominant color is a dull brown. Inside, a cat has thrown up. I text with my daughter. Kids were crabby this morning and one was late for school. Their dishwasher is still broken. My mom writes her usual email of stuff. Ed comes for one second to breakfast and leaves immediately to attend to a Zoom call. So much for a leisurely start. I run out of cat food for the cat that will only eat at the farmhouse. After breakfast, I read an article that tells me I am not getting enough Vitamin D at the same time that is reminds us that all supplements are suspect. Other daughter texted me that her kid has hives and they suspect an allergy. The cat threw up again. Twice in one day. Assume something's bugging her. And don't get me started on my knee! Ha! Probably acting up because of Vitamin D deficiency! 

I wish I had gone out for morning croissants. I miss morning croissants. 

So, just the usual! Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that warrants anything more than a smile at the ridiculousness of it all.

And here's the more interesting and beautiful side, the stuff that usually does make it into Ocean:

I rescue the muddled in her old age Peach. (I can almost see the wrinkles in her face!)

Dance enjoys breakfast with me.

The kids are all finally at school. Well, except for one Chicago girl who still has a day's wait for the start of the new semester. 

One of the Bresse chickens keeps laying, despite the fact that it's January. 

The air is fragrant with wet leaves and soaking pine needles. 

I do not take a walk, but instead, I turn toward baking: a lemon honey cake out of my new gifted cookbook. The aromas out of that project are fabulous! 

And in the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop at school. We have a much needed exhale at the farmhouse. The girl was sick for a week before winter break and then plunged right into a whirlwind of activities. It's an adjustment just to get back to normal!

Her smile is buoyant, her appetite -- ravenous, her routines at the farmhouse -- predictable and lovely. 

A sprinkling of snow in the evening. Snowdrop says it feels more like rain, but then we note the gentle white dusting on the ground and she agrees: like powdered sugar sprinkled from a sieve. Delicate and pretty. 

So much to love about this day, about each day! So lucky to live in peace, in a warm house, with Ed asking each evening -- you want popcorn, gorgeous?

cherries, once again

 Did you know that January 3rd is National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day? As my granddaughter would say -- for real! I called Gail Ambrosias -- a renowned local chocolatier and a friend from the days when she and I used to bake at L'Etoile together. No one in her chocolate shop had ever heard of this, but they're bookmarking it for next year! In the meantime, they reminded me that they do make chocolate covered cherries for Valentine's Day, but that's just not the same. 

I called a few other chocolate shops -- nothing. Now, it so happens that we were gifted this winter a small sack of dried chocolate covered cherries (Harry and David sells them) so all is not lost. We will feast. But I'm getting to be suspicious about National Days, where the parties closest to the celebrated item themselves don't know about the special status of said item. For example, does anyone in the pasta making business even know that tomorrow is National Spaghetti Day?

So much to learn, so little time to do it!

Why bother with these odd invented celebrations? If you think about it, somewhere, sometime, for someone it really mattered. I can't locate the source of this tribute (I admit, I did not try hard), but I have to think that some people with a lot of cherries on their hands and a batch of chocolate melted and on the ready, were jubilant that their never ending work of pouring delicious chocolate over possibly spiked with alcohol cherries was being recognized with this designation. It's rather sad that we tend to take note only of things that matter to us. Sometimes it's good to step back and give a grateful nod to something so seemingly trivial as pouring chocolate over cherries.  

Here, at the farmette, January 3rd is turning out to be a very drippy day. It's the kind of weather that the chickens like more than us humans. Indeed, when I go out to feed them (a little late, because drippy weather makes you really drag yourself up and out in the morning), the six active girls are already foraging, happy to be able to claw at the unfrozen soil. (The seventh, Peach, who is granny-aged in chicken years, never ventures out beyond the barn anymore. Every morning I look to see if she has kicked the bucket, but no, she keeps on going in her very limited orbit.)

We feast on a breakfast of oatmeal (not tempted by croissants at our local bakery! no way! oatmeal all the way!).

I tell Ed that if we are to walk it should be in the morning, because the showers will only intensify by midday. But the guy doesn't push himself in the new year and I can tell that he is too immersed in some late stage of his machine design, so I leave him to his Zoom calls and head out alone. To the New Development, which is perhaps a tad boring, but if you skirt the edge of it, at least you get a good view of the farmette in all its glory looking in from the north. (This is the way we appear to all those multitudes living in the new houses that have cropped up. Between us and them -- a field of prairie flowers.)

It's the last of my quiet days. The kids are back in town tomorrow and there will be a host of events, appointments, trips and celebrations to attend to. Which, of course, is as it should be. Still, I did like the gentle start to the New Year. A slow ease rather than a raucous plunge. Shoring up the energy for what's ahead.

Ocean 19

It is my habit to recognize Ocean's birthday on January 2nd. I've been writing daily posts here for 19 years today.

It makes me wonder: like, how long would I have to live in order to say that I have spent half my life on daily blogging? (Since I am 69 and I started 19 years ago then the answer has to be 100.) And this: what if a day comes along when absolutely nothing deserves an Ocean writeup, even given the relatively low bar of posting about trivial stuff? And what if I'm struck with acute memory loss (it happens to people my age!) -- should I keep on writing? Like -- Dear Ocean readers, Who are you and what is Ocean anyway?

Well, I'll worry about it if and when the time comes to worry about it. Nonetheless, I can say for sure that Ocean has evolved and it continues to adapt to changing circumstances. Just look at these 19 years! I mean, at the outset,  I did not even own a digital camera. So, no photos. And, I was married, but did not want to, nor did I have permission to talk about my married life. I teamed up with friends who also blogged and we developed our own styles of writing. One person was very funny, another was political. I was not going to be either!  So then where did I take this? I just kept writing.

Once I got my digital camera, there followed another period of experimentation. At first, the photos were small. Then they had tags attached -- Ed thought I should try to monetize Ocean, perhaps by selling photos. I was working still, and building my retirement fund, so I was game for any idea that would help. But of course, those trivial sums were never going to move me even one inch closer to financial security, so I dropped that idea. Still, if you go back to earlier posts, you'll find sale tags on each photo. Yuk.

And, too, Blogger -- my hosting platform, changed. I had to shift in the design because they canceled my initial layout. And they stopped supporting Flickr -- my storage place for photos. I moved Ocean photos to Google storage. Eventually, too, I changed the name. The Other Side of the Ocean, sounded to me like a romance novel you'd find at the grocery store checkout. So I cut it down to simply Ocean. Never mind that it makes no sense to call it just Ocean. There is no mention of aquatic life here, not ocean currents, not even sailing - except when Ed ventures out on the Atlantic. A rare event. Still, the blog is and will remain Ocean.

Have there been low points? Oh sure. There are the technicalities: in the first years, the internet was not an ever present thing. Coverage was interrupted at home and not available in places I traveled to. I'd knock on doors begging for a quick Internet fix. Too, finishing a post the same day is hard! I. Get. Sleepy. Forcing myself to get to the end of it, to articulate a final thought -- that's my most common challenge. And, I've had to fight the opposition! I had a troll. Probably more than one, but one was persistent and insistent. I nearly reported her to the authorities. And, I've not always had support from all my friends. But, I've made more friends than I lost over Ocean (and the detractors have come around, tolerating this side of me). My daughters have been fabulous, never complaining about stuff that appears here. But in the end, I am certain that I would have given up if it weren't for Ed. He never reads Ocean these days. He claims that he lives with all my ideas and therefore doesn't have to read about them. Still, he knows that this is what I do and he helps in numerous ways to make that possible. Computers crash. Photos get lost. Dinner and movie watching gets delayed. He's there, by my side, or just a Zoom call away if I am traveling, and he will offer help. Calm, reassuring help. 

I think it's clear that this is a never ending work in progress. Because life is that way too! Nineteen years ago my daughters were not married and I had no idea if and when I would be a grandparent. Now, my life is filled with grandkids and thus Ocean is filled with grandkid antics. For how long? Who knows. I do think the best senior years are to be had if you don't tie yourself down to one idea of what constitutes a good life. You work on staying hopeful, healthy and happy. (Of course, those three are absolutely interconnected!) And so, I eat my veggies and my kids give me plenty of hope and through Ocean, I am in a never ending search for all that is beautiful, joyous and delightful. Kids, chicks, trips. Ed, flowers, forests. Cats. Cherries on the tree, cherries on a special plate, eaten on the porch in dappled sunlight. Sometimes just a quiet walk to the barn and back. It all makes my life wondrous and wonderful and you'll find something of it here, in my posts, I hope.

Today, however, the walk to the barn was uninspiring. Cloudy, at the freezing point, with antsy chickens and cats. 

The color is all inside the farmhouse. Candles, a few flowers, Wisconsin raw honey. Oatmeal with steam rising. Milky coffee and a sleepy Ed. All that sensory pleasure! Enough to last me for a long stretch, as I catch up on chores and Ed washes the floor boards, because yesterday he muddied them with his soaking muddy sock. 

He proposes a walk in Owen Woods for the afternoon. I'm for it. It's not a long hike (the park is right in the middle of the city and the longest trail takes about 50 minutes to complete), but it's got all the essential components. See for yourself! Look hard! 

And in the evening we eat chili. January and chili are like blueberries and Maine (did you know that Maine produced 99% of this country's blueberries?). 

A second day of trying to do better. Remember, you only have to try! 

With love...

New Year

A new year. Wow. A gift of 365 fresh days (if we're lucky).

Even if I no longer write down resolves for the new year, I still think about the whole concept of change and improvement. If you're a senior, or getting close to being one, then you have fewer opportunities for turnarounds, or renewals. And so when the new year comes, I spend not a small amount of time thinking about what needs a prod or a a change. I'm more likely to want  to tweak the current status quo and adjust it a little, rather than do an overhaul and an about face. 

Tweak and adjust what, you ask? Well, I've always liked the idea that we can simply do better, whatever it is that we are doing. Our interactions can be kinder, gentler, less whiny and more intentionally joyous. And eat with care. And move more. Reach out to those who would benefit from your efforts. Be patient with those who, for whatever reason, do not measure up. 

Is any of that even doable? Realistic? 

For me, the determination to aim for such improvements is important. And yes, any day is reason enough to get back on track to where it is that you want to be, but why not do it now, at the start of this fiction we call a new year, when everyone else (or a large number of us) is also doing the same thing? There is strength in numbers. We're all imperfect human beings, but isn't it cool that so many of us want to come out better this year than we did the year before?

Ed is fidgety this morning. Possibly the smoke alarm going off in the middle of the night (for no reason!!) jumpstarted him into some hyper mode of activity because I could vaguely feel and hear him getting in and out of bed like maybe half a dozen times. By sunrise I was done with trying to fein sleepiness.  

Hello animals! 

Oh, I see one of the hens caught herself in the predator trap. Learn to steer clear of it next time, girl! (Do chickens ever learn?) And Peach is really stiffening up with old age. Once again I pick her up from some spot in the barn and carry her to the feeding station.

There is a dusting of snow, but I know it will melt quickly. We'll be bouncing around the freezing point for several days. That means dreams of a snowy January are just that -- dreams. 

Breakfast. It is my usual habit to want to extend a trip so that it lasts a little into the return. I suppose that's why a granola muffin and a croissant from Skip Stone in Sister Bay tasted so good this morning. I shared them with Ed.

Next: well, there's the annual accounting that I always do either on December 31st or January 1st. A person like me, who lives on a state retirement income, has to keep track of all expenditures if she wants to travel as much as I do. Looking over past year's finances and laying out the next year's budget is super important and frankly, I sort of enjoy doing it because it creates an opportunity to do that tweak: adjusting spending habits is I'm sure a worthy goal for most of us, unless you're an Ed who has never in his life been tempted by a commercial or an email advertising fantastic things at beautiful shopping venues. Doing a budget reminds me that I can an must resist the Lure of the Unnecessary Purchase. 

Finally, we go for a walk. Since I do not have the kids here for the next two days, he suggests a hike that takes a little more time. The Brooklyn Wildlife Ice Age trail segment is our favorite option and we go there this afternoon. The upside: it's a forest and a prairie, with a view, it's not too cold, it's peaceful, the sun is out in wisps, and we feel that energy from being outside. The downside: it is muddy! I mean, that's predictable. We're just above freezing. The snow is just about gone. What remains is... mud.  But, we both agree, it's well worth it!

And in the evening, we eat leftovers. This is a positive! Fighting food waste from day one of the New Year! 

Now all I need to accomplish is 364 days of doing even better! Whose idea were these New Year's resolutions anyway?

With hope and love for the new year...

New Year's Eve day

It's definitely the last hurrah, trumpeting the end of a glorious two weeks of birthdays, holidays, getaways. New Year's Eve: morning with one young family, in Sister Bay, evening with the other, at the farmhouse and with Ed. New Year's Eve -- Snowdrop claims it's her favorite holiday. Why, I would ask. She likes staying up that much? Possibly triumphantly lasting the evening even as her brothers doze off, and maybe even her parents doze off. And this morning, I hear Primrose cajoling her mom and dad -- can't we stay up and watch the cherry drop? Please? Being just four years old, I don't think there is much hope that she'll get her parents to go along.

Why do kids love to stay up past their bedtime?? 

Breakfast: I pick up coffees for us older guys at the reliably open, even on this early winter morning, Skip Stone --

... and bring them to the little apartment where the young family is staying. (They'll be here an extra night. I'm cutting out because, well, there's Ed...) Cherry and blueberry scones are baking in the oven. We have quite the fine morning meal together.

(is it time for breakfast?)

(with cherry yogurt...)

 

(yogurt? yum!)

A quick game of Guess Who with Primrose, a short play moment with Juniper...

... and I am off. See you next year, my sweet ones!

I take the longer road, past the villages of Door County that are so well populated in the summer, but so full of serenity right now.

Ephriam, looking out over the bay...

Fish Creek, looking in from the docks...

And the somewhat different Egg Harbor. It's my least favorite because the shore line is dotted with private homes. You have to drive along a narrow road quite a ways before you can look out at Green Bay.

I pass through cedar forests and cherry groves...

And then I'm over the bridge that separates the pinkie from the rest of the state...

... with my nose pointed to home. And I have to admit it -- I listen to my Christmas playlist the whole 3.5 hour long drive. It just brings up in my mind the last two weeks and the images are so sweet, so darn precious, that I don't notice the time at all. It feels like I'm home in a flash.

I do a quick clean up (Ed, alone, for three days = clean up needed), make myself a strong cup of coffee, slice off a piece of the delicious maple cinnamon raisin sourdough I bought yesterday at the Waseda  farm...

... and then I turn my attention toward cooking a New Year's Eve meal for the young family here. This is when I do a seafood pasta with a white wine sauce. The seafoods are special (shrimp, scallops, a few small lobster tails), the presentation, too, is important.

They come with hats and horns!

And now we are almost back to our routines, except that this is the one day of the year where I do pop a champagne cork (at other times I stick with Prosecco). 

(We get a call from the owners of the wandering black cat. Ed locates them on a map. Snowdrop helps.)

Dinner:

("take another one of me!")

Dessert.

And then they leave to finish New Year's Eve at home, possibly with a sleeping everyone except for Snowdrop. Here, at the farmhouse, Ed and I do what we do every day -- watch a movie, nibble on popcorn, eat a chocolate or two. Do we stay up til midnight? That's an unknown! I'll post this before the clock strikes the hour. Wishing you lots of upbeat moments and happy days with those closest to you in the New Year!

And so much love...