Tuesday

Day number two of my week among les medecins. It's a foggy Tuesday and a stinky one too: on my morning walk to feed the animals, I pick up that powerful odeur of une moufette (skunk). [Why the French? I'm out of practice. Have to keep that language ball rolling!] Well that's not good! Moufettes eat poulettes (chicken, but poulette sure sounds prettier for our French Bresse girls!). 

All chickens are accounted for, but it is a warning to be vigilant in the next few days. 

Breakfast. Oatmeal and fog go well together, don't you think?

Now comes the fun part: I get to discuss my knee with a specialist. Because I have the unfortunate probably genetic trait of liking new things, and am willing, like no other person I know, to get rid of old stuff, I'd been a little bit looking forward to getting a shiny (it's metal, no?) new knee. 

[Just to reassure you that I am not totally loony, when my knee acts up, walking up stairs, for example to the bathroom, or down stairs, for example to do the laundry in the basement, are acts of courage!]

My doc (whom I meet today for the first time) has a lot to say: about my knee, about replacements, about skiing, about my background: people hear my name and right away impute an identity to match it. Fact is, I was not born a Camic -- it's my ex husband's name. I was born a Lewandowska (the feminized version of my father's name). My doc explained to the resident in the room that "ska" means you're female. His wife is a "ska." What would be truly my own name? Not Haracz either (my mother's birth name). That came from her father. It's hard to escape the patrilineal descent of names! I liked being a Camic in the US far more than I liked being a Lewandowska. No one could ever get the "ska" part right (except for my doc today) and absolutely no one could pronounce it (my daughters and the doc today are exceptions).

It's clear I need a new knee. But, he did strive to level off my expectations. We spend some time discussing  what I could and could not do with a replacement. "You can ski, even downhill. But stick with Blue runs. No more Black Diamonds. " (I did not tell him that I never, ever liked Black Diamonds and wouldn't be caught dead on one now, especially when climate change means there's more machine snow than natural snow, which in turn means icy skiing.) "And stay away from Intermediate runs too. People are crazy on those. They don't know what they're doing!" I let him talk. I'd already told his resident that I have forsaken downhill. It's not what it once was. All of it seems crazy to me.

Excited as I am about the new model, coming up soon, I now face the biggest hurdle of them all: when to do the surgery. I do not have time for it! "You wont be able to drive immediately" Well that wont do! "You wont be able to go on trips far away for several months." You're kidding me! "It will take up to six months to get to your full capacity. Which, BTW wont be your previous capacity." 

You know, I got an ad in my inbox today from my Subaru dealer enticing me to buy a new car. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Blue Moon, but the newer model sounds so much better! People there know how to make you feel good about wasting money on a new product ("brand new safety features! it will only raise your monthly payments by $24! and you'll get a moon roof!" Oh wow, I love moon roofs!) Here I am, about to get a new, imperfect knee. Well, never mind. It's an improvement over what's there now. And I promise not to have wild expectations. Once I figure out when this year I could possibly schedule the replacement!

I drive over to pick up Snowdrop at school, stopping for a cup of coffee on the way and reaching into my bag for a couple of those free Kind Mini bars to munch on (lunch!). It's a long drive and it gives me time to imagine what life would be like with a new knee. Such privilege to be able to do this: new eyes, new teeth, new knees. To say I am grateful is an understatement.

Snowdrop's schedule here is so routinized that I need not say no more than this: eat, read, exhale.

(tree climbing is so... yesterday)

(today? much more interested in analyzing human relations! like -- why do some people not get along? she has theories!)

And in the evening, I catch up with Ed. He'd been preoccupied with the testing of his new machine design. Once he is focused on something, it's impossible to get him to pay attention to anything else. Not a problem! There is always the dinner hour: frittata tonight. And a piece of chocolate. And shared stories about a very good day!

 

Monday

As I backed out of our driveway with Snowdrop in the back seat, she asked me several times -- are you sure it's Monday? I share her confusion. For her it was just a question of homework: normally her teacher assigns homework for the week on the first day back: Monday. But none had been distributed and some late entries (from last week?) were being collected and so it felt more like a Friday, but since that was definitely not right, she was gunning for maybe Tuesday?

For me, it was less about the ordering of day's assignments and more about the unusual nature of this whole week: I have four appointments, on four successive days, even though if you asked Ed, I should have none. So every day is disrupted, and feels weird, and because I have Snowdrop in the afternoons, time has suddenly twisted itself into a mush of imperfect hours, where I do nothing well, even as at the end of the day, it all comes out okay.

What four appointments? Well, two date back to loose ends still being tied up from my Mystery Disease in September. Some of them should be shut down soon, others will continue until there is no more breath left to the investigation. The other two are regular creaky joints stuff. 

I asked Ed today why, unlike me, he chooses to bypass investigations of potential health issues. 

Because of exactly what you are going through -- he tells me. Endless visits for possible problems, even as chances are you would do fine without the visits. 

But what if you're missing important information?

When it is obvious that something is wrong, then I'll consider going to the doctor. I weigh my odds.

I've commented on this before: he is entirely sensible in his approach. At the same time, I am sensible in mine: if a doc says "you might want to check out X" I check out X.

So, shortly after the animal feeding, the breakfast, the cats trampling over our morning meal...

I leave for the clinic.

One thing I will say is that none of my doc visits are unpleasant. I like all my medical people here. They're interesting, knowledgeable folk, and when we are not analyzing data on this or that, we oftentimes have informative conversations. Today's doc asked me where my accent comes from.

Now, if you have never heard me speak, I am telling you -- save some time on the evening of January 26, because I have an LaS presentation which you can Zoom-join from just about anywhere (more on that on another day). If you listen then, you can send me an email telling me if you, too, hear an accent. Some people do, some don't. Those that do, think I am Dutch or German. 

I told my doc that wearing a mask probably makes me sound even less like a native Wisconsinite, and this brought us around to the topic of Covid, mask wearing, and the like. Two points that stuck with me: one is that he agreed with me that seniors are being poorly treated by the culture wars that lead to the politicization of mask wearing (well yeah! how does a senior feel traveling in a pandemic surrounded by unmasked, possibly infected other travelers? kind of antsy!). Secondly, though, he noted that the antivaxxers are even worse: his mother is one of them. She eventually got Covid and suffered terribly, helped only by the availability of Paxlovid, which he insisted she take. Now I ask you -- if the mom of a University Hospitals doctor doesn't believe in the efficacy of a Covid vaccine, what hope is there for us all?

We then turned to a discussion of skiing, just to get off the depressing topic of Covid.

In other words, despite Ed's weighing of the costs/benefits, I don't consider my time in clinics necessarily wasted. If you come out with good results, well then that's great! If not -- hey, good thing you had a chance to fix the problem before it fixed you! And if you had a couple of good, informative conversations in the meantime -- you come out a smarter person! Win win.

On the way from school, Snowdrop and I talked about what kind of shops we'd like to see in the new development within walking distance of the farmette. (Ed and I took a quick spin around those blocks just for the exercise, so the topic was fresh on my mind.) Ice cream shop. Coffee shop. She thought a hot dog place would be fun. Maybe we were hungry because every alternative had the focus on food. We drove by the buildings were shops are being planned and so long as we were there, Snowdrop begged to pause at the playground, where she took a spin on her favorite climbing/hanging equipment. 

I didn't have my jacket so I talked her down to a five minute play period. As we got back in the car she mused about how neat it was to have that development, with its bike path (she first rode a bike there), the potential of food shops, the playground. Maybe I'll live there someday when I am older -- she mused.

Oh, that would sure be nice! -- I responded with a smile.

Gaga, you'll be.... (here she caught herself and went silent, not wanting to hurt my feelings)

Dead? Well maybe. But maybe not. People often move out of their homes by the time they're in their twenties. We did the math. She wasn't convinced, but hey, you never know!

At the farmhouse, reading took up 90% of our time. 

(to read or to play.... hmmm... reading wins!)

And then she went home and I settled in for an evening of leftovers. Finally, I caught up with the day. I even wrote this post before midnight. Fantastic!

Sunday

Now that the holidays and two winter grandkid birthdays are behind us, our attention has to turn to farmette living and the one harsh reality we are facing here: there is a problem with the way we raise chickens.

(a Bresse girl, Henny, and Unie)

Yes, we free range. Cage-free, all day long. But, in the evening Ed must put them away in the coop. We have expanded the original structure and it was possible to fit 9 chickens in there (they all crowd together upstairs at night and keep each other warm), though 7 -- what we have now -- is a far more comfortable number. Still, out of those 7, two are old. Peach is very old, Henny is pretty old. We expect not to get any more eggs out of them. 

Some chickens will only lay reliably for a couple of years. That means that within a year or two we may wind up with a retirement home for hens. Seven hens, no more eggs. 

A Bresse rooster is now available for purchase -- both an adult one (though at a distance from us) and a newly hatched one. Should we add him to the group and start hatching chickens, raising them for consumption? If you answer "no" to that, then there needs to be another plan for getting back on track with egg production. Add more young ones? We cant keep adding little chicks without making room for them in the coop. The old girls would have to go. Somewhere.

And of course it is not cheap to feed and house nonproductive hens. But, even if you write this off as the cost of raising "pets," you have to wonder -- do old chickens really make good pets? The four Bresse girls -- we can't even distinguish one from the other (except the one who keeps on hiccuping). We gave them names and we promptly forgot what they were. Even the kids don't pay much attention to them. I used to get some level of excitement when I'd say -- I'm going out to give them some bread treats! Now, no one even looks up at me. Yawn... Okay, come back soon!

You don't think of these things as you buy your first day-old chicks from a hatchery (or pick them up at some reliable chicken farm). And you could say we have been lucky. The reason we are not already overcrowding the coop with seniors is because predators have kept the numbers at a reasonable level for us. Each loss to an invader is an opportunity to add a fresh chick come spring. A new layer as it were.

But assuming we keep them all safe, shouldn't we start thinking about butchering the old hens so that we can make room for new ones, with or without a rooster?

This was our breakfast discussion today.

And predictably, we came to no conclusion. When there is no easy way out of a farmette problem, we often ignore it for a very long time. 

The clouds came back today and neither of us felt like walking. We are slated to have a rather warm January (temperatures will climb above freezing during each day for the next couple of weeks) so we'll wait until a more interesting weather pattern comes along. I know, I know -- buying croissants and skipping walks isn't the "do better" that I put forth as a challenge to the New Year, but in fact, we are moving more and I only had one run to the bakery so far this year! Last December I was bringing home vienoiserie pastries all the time! We are doing better!

In the evening the young family is here for dinner. One noticeable change is that Snowdrop has gone from years of never wearing a jacket from car to house, even on the coldest of cold days, to now always wearing a jacket, and if she had her way, she'd keep it on even in the house. Instead, she makes do with a hoodie inside. Preferably with the hood up. If you coax her into pulling it down, her very long hair will have managed to turn itself into a good sized tangle. 

(here, mommy is helping with brushing it out)

(Done? Up goes the hood.)

This really reminded me of Judy Blume books that I read to the kids: in her novels, for every new behavior that a young protagonist would take up, the parent would always say -- it's just a phase. 

(Hey Sandpiper, you're too young for Judy Blume!)

It makes you go back to your own childhood habits and thank the stars how many of those habits were indeed just a phase.

(Sandpiper is content to move away from Fudge-a-Mania to sitting on his daddy's lap and saying cheese, both because he loves and wants some cheese and because he sees me with my camera.)

Dinner.

A few minutes of play time...

And they are off.

Evening calm. A bookend to a fine day! Wonderful to the end.

Saturday

In the tradition of our family's milestone celebrations, we are continuing today with Snowdrop's 8th birthday party. The girl indeed has a full weekend -- her first sleepover at a friend's house, followed immediately by a party with her closest chums. I am not urgently needed for that event, but I promised I'd stop by for some photos and with good wishes.

But that comes later. First, the usual morning at the farmette...

And because it is Saturday, I then drive out to pick up produce from our Farmer's Unite drop off point (spinach, beauty heart radishes, winter sweet carrots), and hey! As long as I am pointing the car in that direction, isn't this a fine time to also drive over to the bakery??

For croissants and cinnamon viennoiseries for breakfast!

The sun is out and Ed and I push ourselves for a walk in the local park. Yay us!

And we are rewarded! Winters in Wisconsin usually have exactly these kinds of stretches of sunshine. It is what makes them sweeter than winters in, say, Warsaw, where weeks can roll by and the sun remains hidden. And there's that other difference to take note of as well: the sun here sets a whole hour later than in Warsaw today: 4:39 here, 3:41 Warsaw. But of course, ultimately they will catch up with us and exceed our midsummer daylight hours. The magic day for Warsaw is April 27th, when their sunset is at 7:54 and ours doesn't quite get there, staying at 7:53. Thereafter, we slog to the highpoint of June 25th when the sun will set at 8:41, while Warsaw speeds along and has a sunset on June 21st at 9:01. Don't get too cocky, Warsaw people, or I'll start throwing around times for Helsinki or Oslo. Okay, fine -- Helsinki sunset on June 22nd: 10:50! Gotta love that day up north!

And now I'm off to the Nail Place where the Snowdrop party begins. 

(It's for her friends, but it includes Sparrow who is at first apprehensive, but within a few secs, he is very on board with the whole nail painting project!)

She is too, of course.

After everyone's hands look plenty colorful, we go back to my daughter's house for gifts, for pizza, for a movie. I stay for just a moment. I admire their hands...

I say hi to a bewildered Sandpiper...

And I take a group photo, part of which you can see here, in this fragment:

Yes, a happy day for the little girl. Excuse me -- for the big girl. At her age I very much considered myself to be a self sufficient big kid! 

I return home, cook up some fish for supper and exhale. A birthday week well spent. Always a relief, always a feeling of grandparental contentment when it's over.  The kids are just fine, we are all so lucky...

with love...

hatching

To me, January is for hatching new plans. It's what you do! You look at your funds. You plan trips and summer vacations. You start thinking about your spring planting and you envision new gardens. You decide on how your winter will end and importantly, how the rest of your life will proceed. Ambitious? Well yeah! In the best of ways.

If I had to pick themes from this day I'd say it had a great deal of hatching and then also a bit of the usual lovely space in between. Hatching what, you ask? Well, I investigated my eating options for a forthcoming trip. That took a long time! Ed was amused. Then, secondly, I met up with my older girl and we reviewed December and looked ahead to the possibilities of the New Year. Might she be able to get away with her husband and leave me with the kids? Might the two of us get away to Chicago? How will the summer work out for the kids this year? Exciting stuff, hatched in the early evening at a new place for me -- Leopold's Cafe and Bookstore. And just so you know, this place is so popular and so packed, that they have to borrow tables for the spillover from the neighboring Rocky Rococo's Pizza. That is not exactly an atmospheric place, but when you're desperate for a seat, you don't care. Luckily we were not desperate for a seat. (here's my faux-furred girl...)

The quiet moments in-between the hatching were spent with chickens...

And doing my weekly watering of plants that we winter over on the sheep shed windowsills (with hens looking in and cats looking out...).

(Well, not on all windowsills. Some are otherwise in use. Here's our beautiful feral Tuxie girl.)

And they're spent with Ed, both at breakfast and on a walk by Lake Waubesa...

(Looking out, you assume the lake is completely frozen over. The ice fishing huts certainly make you think it's rock solid out there.)

(It's not.)

(What is iced over is the trail.)

And of course, in the evening, we luxuriate, with leftovers for dinner, and with a return to our tagged shows and movies. While the three barn/farmhouse cats sleep. Luxuriously as well.

(Dance and Unfriendly Snowflake)

A beautiful January day! I tell you, this month has lots of redeeming qualities! And perhaps you'll recall -- starting this morning, we begin to lengthen our morning daylight minutes. Slowly. But surely.

May the full moon, the Wolf Moon,  a micro moon shine brightly on all of us tonight.

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!!