April 11th

This year's first daffodil flower bloomed today!

Actually, at least three showed their pretty yellow faces and they are lovely.

We have been promised beautiful warm weather and that promise holds. It's a stunning day -- way too beautiful for April, which is typically stingy with sunshine and warm air. 

Morning walk -- good, though still a little cool, which is as it should be.

I then have a stress test -- something that needs to be done before knee replacement since running uphill on a treadmill (on crutches?) afterwards seems, well, not doable. I am hugely competitive on these things and today is no different. I aim to outperform. I do not know why. The nurses do not care. Indeed, outperforming to the point where I will drop rather than give up, sounds sort of wrong for a nearly 70 year old, but there you have it: I want to beat my old record, which admittedly, is exceedingly hard with a bad knee. Still, I do okay!

And because this stuff has to be done before morning coffee, or morning food, or morning anything, breakfast is very very late. So late that we are already at 72F (22C) by the time I put out the food. On the porch of course!

Such a treat to be eating outside in April! A wonderful, awesome treat!

We do take a walk in our local park, yard work notwithstanding. One doesn't walk away from a stress test without feeling like you have to keep at it or else next time, several years down the road, you'll be a total stress failure!

And in the afternoon, Snowdrop is here and it is indeed ballet day, so outdoor play, indeed, any play is kept to a minimum. That's the plan, anyway. But driving in the vicinity of the playground just pulls me to it and of course, the girl is thrilled to climb, sway and move from bar to bar.

And now we really should hurry. Go inside, read a page or two, eat that snack and get ready. And yet we pause. For that moment in the yard. Because it is that grand to be outside.

Evenings, too, are so lovely now... The last bits of sun come in from the west windows, the animals settle down for the night, Ed and I retreat to our couch moments. So perfect at the end of a stunning day.

April 10th

On this most beautiful day, warm, inviting, delightful, we did not eat breakfast outside (too chilly in the earlier hours of the day), I did not plant a single thing, and weeded very little. Indeed, I spent the better part of the day inside working on federal tax returns. 'Nuf said, right?

Oh yes, I loved my morning walk to feed the animals...

And even the kitchen based meal was very very pleasant (oh that panettone! just so so good!)...

(Observed by our seventh stray, Pancake, who more and more is feeling like this is also her home. We've started reworking her and soon will trap her and take her to the vet to get spayed...)

But then, I had to turn my back to the farmette lands and concentrate on those forms, especially since Ed had some time to help me through the tough spots. Why he, mr. engineer, should have to help me, ms. lawyer, is, I suppose, puzzling, but he is more adept at throwing correct schedules at me, one after another and so the time savings for me were substantial. 

Twice I made a mistake and the online fillable form site rejected the final product, but the errors were readily fixable and by early afternoon, I was done with at least the federal paperwork for myself. I smiled when I saw that I had done the taxes on April 10th last year as well! I seem to always wait until almost the last minute.

I took a five minute walk, which put me face to face with the field of Siberian Squill -- always a beautiful sight!

And then it was time to pick up Snowdrop.

I'm tempted to do something outdoorsy with her, at the same time, I know we both like the calmer pace of a farmhouse afternoon. So I do a compromise: we stop by the playground near me -- she loves to run through the possibilities there and I am really impressed how much her arms have grown stronger in recent months.

(It gives me a chance to swing as well: I'm up to all of 20 seconds! Snowdrop, on the other hand, can nimbly swing from one bar to the next... Hmmm... Could I ever have done that?)

At the farmette, it's easy to get her excited about staying outdoors. I tell her that the hose is on!

(She loves to make rainbows with it...)

(And, of course, to water any new plants...)

(Spring almost never disappoints!)

We'll have a few more such days -- days that properly begin in late May. I'll try to make up for this terrible acquiescence to indoor work. I mean, really, fabulous April warm spells are explosive and exhilarating. I cannot waste them!

spring, full and beautiful

This morning, I could not leave, not for anything in the world. I could not get up from this miraculous moment where Ed and I felt warm enough to take our meal outside, on the porch.

True, it was a very late breakfast and so the temperature had already risen to 62F (17C). And we had put in a mountain load of work: I'd fed the animals...

Happy Easter, girls!

Ed had chopped up some of the branches of the trimmed tree, and I had done the somewhat yucky task of spring cleaning the porch. After a winter of snow, wind, dust, dirt and cat traffic, that space can look awful come springtime. I washed down the trim, vacuumed thoroughly, wiped down the furniture and changed the table cloths. 

And so we are ready!

My one concession to a morning of Easter foods is to buy and serve a Panettone -- an Italian yeasty, eggy bread. Ed makes fun of anything with candied fruit in it, but Olivieri makes one with just chocolate bits and it is delicious!

Ed scrambles up some eggs, and I feel like we have given this holiday its due recognition! 

And after all that wonderfulness, I just have to linger and be in the moment. I make myself a second cappuccino and I sit there and I have to say, the feeling of overwhelming peace and beauty is profound. 

Wow. It really is spring!

I wish I had pressing yard work to do, but right now, as I wait for the day lilies and the annuals (both should come in about two weeks), all I have is maintenance stuff and much as my flower fields appreciate my TLC, I have to admit, the IRS needs me to focus on taxes even more and so I do retreat into my lair and study sums and curse the complexity of this job, as I do every single year. I make no progress. The lure of the great outdoors is overwhelming.

We do take a walk in the afternoon and that is another piece of heaven. It's a new path for us, just a few minutes to the west, through a pine forest which, of course, smells divine. The feeling of immense gratitude takes hold and stays with me all day long.

In the evening the young family is here. 

(Kids, in their Easter regalia, in a field of Scilla Siberia, now blooming!)

They'd been in Chicago earlier and so they are a bit travel weary, but still, the weather revives us all...

...and we have a lovely dinner of roast chicken and roast potatoes and of course asparagus because every April meal should have asparagus in it!

And yep, those chocolate eggs for dessert.

I hope your day was beautiful. I hope you found peace and joy and that your table had good food on it and you had someone with whom you could share a moment of happiness today. 

with so much love... 

Easter Eve

There are two things that stand out for me about Easter: first of all, it brings with it food traditions (different ones in different parts of the world) that are interesting and sometimes fun for me to replicate. Secondly, the holiday wakes up my sometimes sleepy friends in Poland. All my best pals there reach out on this weekend and it is grand to connect with them once again. 

Oh, of course, I love the fact that Easter comes at time when the earth here, in south-central Wisconsin, is also waking up. You already know that I'm nuts about spring!

Besides those factors, I've never latched onto Easter in the way that I have latched onto Christmas even though I'm not Christian. Bunnies and chicks -- it's all very charming, but there is a heck of a lot of sugar thrown into the mix: more than even on Halloween and that's saying a lot! Coloring eggs can be beautiful, but then you have all those hard boiled eggs in the fridge and only Ed is a fan of egg salad for a meal and he doesn't care how pretty the shell may be. So we do a very low key Easter: I make sure we have something special for breakfast and if the young family is here for dinner (and they will be), I'll prepare something out of the usual rotation. And yes, I'll put out some chocolate eggs (indeed, Snowdrop and I bought some in our travels just for this purpose), as if anyone needed more chocolate!  

Still, I recognize that many people love this holiday and it has great meaning for them, so if you are an Easter person, or indeed a Passover person, well then, happy holidays to you!

Our hens join in the chorus of good wishes!

(Morning walk: Snowdrop had asked yesterday "how come your neighbor's grass is so much greener than yours?" She got a very long explanation from me, with many references to the insanity of lawn maintenance! Still, you can see the green color coming back to the farmette lands, no?)

Breakfast, ordinary, but splendid with the pastel backdrop.

My day today is a marathon of gardening. Honestly, I really did work like a person possessed and Ed was not far behind, helping me fill tubs, fix the lavender field and do some of the grunt jobs that I happily hand over to him. Here's what we did:

I planted all the strawberries. We hit 64F (which is 18C) today and it is only going to get warmer this week. They will survive any frost that may still come our way. This is the set up we came up with for this year's crop:

I also planted all the phloxes that came from the same nursery (meaning early). And the astrantia, and the clematis, and the dianthus. Some plants were bare root and I'm not sure if those will fare well after the mudroom hiatus. We will see.

Then we got busy with the tubs. We have pretty much eliminated the attractive but short-lived cedar tubs and have replaced them with the aluminum ones which I admit, do look like the tubs my grandma used to do the laundry outside before we had running water. I wasn't sure how these would look in the yard, but after a trial run last summer, I decided that they were indeed farm-like and once they are filled with flowers, they look terrific. So we got them ready for planting. It's a tedious job and I'm glad it's behind us. 

Then I planted the lavender cuttings we wintered-over in the sheep shed. The whole lavender field is a work in progress and I was disappointed to see how fragile the roots of these baby plants were, but maybe they will survive the transplant. I'm hoping!

(the lavender field, before I added my row of baby plants...)

And, too, I planted peas. That was easy! The trellis was already set up. All I had to do was weed the dirt and push in several dozen peas. And water all the new plantings. And pull out endless weeds and creeping charlies in different flower fields. A marathon, I tell you!

At the end of all that, I said to Ed -- things are looking good, honey. (That's my standard line at the end of a work day outside.) He responded -- until the weeds grow knee high again.

Well yeah, he has a point. In early spring, everything looks grand and under control. It really does feel like you are the champ and the garden is your great work of art. Nature hangs back and lets you strut your stuff. Then it doesn't hang back anymore and you get the not so gentle reminder that you are a mere peg in her grand scheme for the land around you. You may contribute, but she is in control. The weeds thrive, some plants topple or wilt or are done in by any number of viruses, bugs, weather crises. It's all just so much bigger than you! Still, you contribute and in these early months of the growing season, you are rewarded by splendid buds and tips and all those other signs that maybe, just maybe all's right out there and maybe your successes will outnumber your failures and in any case you will have learnt a lot and the farmette lands will be the better for it.

April stuff

How good it is to step out, step in, do one thing out there, come back inside to finish your coffee, go out to do something else! In winter, you need to brace yourself and layer on the wraps for that blast of cold each time you leave the house. Now? You're in step with the weather. You are made of stuff that can join with the forces of nature. In out. All is one and you are part of it!

This is what April feels like.

Morning walk with the animals...

Breakfast with two of my favorite animals...

And then we do this dance of working in and out, not quite yet immersed in planting, but setting the stage for it!

One task that we have is figuring out where to put my strawberries -- the ones that came too early!  They're doing well out there in the mudroom and tomorrow I can put them in their permanent homes. But where?

They can't go in the ground. Chickens, groundhogs, rabbits, squirrels -- they all eat our berries. But last year I put out two pots on the picnic table and covered them with netting. That worked well enough, though netting and berries are a tricky combination. Everything gets tangled up and picking out berries is tough going. Ask Snowdrop, who did manage to reach for and consume our whole crop of fraises de bois! So yes, I'll use pots, though maybe I'll rethink the netting. But I cant just put them on the picnic table again. Ed wants to keep that mostly clear for his outdoor work.

Initially I thought we might put up a board over sawhorses, but finding a sunny spot for this set up is not easy. Ed offers another idea -- why not move some of the tree stumps that he sawed up and use them as "tables" for berry baskets? 

I like it!  

We work on this for a while. Tomorrow I'll plant (and take photos).

In the back of my head I have that nagging thought that I really should be working on taxes. On my quick pause inside, I get the papers together. It's like prepping the strawberry pots! The stage is set. I'll fill in the forms.... another day. (Insert sheepish smile here.)

In the afternoon I pick up Snowdrop, but not at school. She is home today because, well, school's out for the day. I'm getting used to these frequent school closures but I can only imagine how messy this is for most working parents. 

She is here, enjoying the coming of spring almost as much as I am...

She looks a little concerned here and I ask her why the hesitancy. Bees -- she tells me. She likes them, but  at a distance.

I look closer. Bees? Awesome!

And then comes evening, only it doesn't really feel like evening because the sun is now setting at 7:31 p.m. which is amazing and wonderful all at the same time. Honestly, is there anyone in the northern hemisphere who does not love April?!

a slower day

Two cool days offer a chance to catch up on indoor garden work. I'm always tempted to plunge and plant, but this year, my planting is limited -- maybe half a dozen new perennials and 15 new day lilies. Seeds in the meadows, annuals in the flower tubs. That's probably a fifth of what I usually put in, expanding beds, filling in gaps. This year though I'm realistic. I have only two, maximum three weeks to put stuff in and the beds are doing well enough to be left in their current state.  But this means that I have to think carefully about what goes where. So today I'm thinking. (I also have some two dozen lavender cuttings that we overwintered on a winter sill. They're looking good, so I will also be expanding the lavender bed pretty soon!)

When I do go out to feed the animals...

I keep my eyes out for that first daffodil bloom. I don't see it yet. So far I'm just dealing with crocuses. But even though you may think of it as a bare landscape, to me it is already bursting with growth. 

The frozen tundra-like farmette lands are a thing of the past.

Breakfast -- with tulips, because April and May are my tulip months! (Inside at this point. The outdoor ones, as every year, have been decimated by either the groundhog or squirrels. Some later ones will likely survive but the first buds are cut down to the ground. This is where one has to practice patience and understanding.)

This morning I scramble some cheeper eggs for Ed, who is being a good soul by trying to make a dent in our egg supply. I tell you, those Bresse girls lay like there's no tomorrow!

We then assess our tomato situation. The seeds we planted just before I left for Greece are a huge disappointment. The germination rate is just so much lower than what we usually have. I'm trying a new (for me) seed company and I am deeply regretting this experiment. 

Some of the tomato varieties are to be planted 5- 6 weeks before the last frost and so these should go in right about now. We get to it.

We'll see what happens going forward.

I then have to take a break and go out to the hospital to do the pre-op stuff for my knee replacement. It's a funny thing about that knee -- it was so out of whack a month ago, that I called my doc and asked if I couldn't maybe schedule the replacement for an earlier date. I could barely move! (No such date was available.) Then came Greece and I put that knee to a real test and honestly, it feels pretty okay now! I feel like I'm playing whack-a-mole here -- today it's fine, tomorrow it will pop up  and tear my leg apart. So, I'm moving ahead as scheduled, if only because I know that when it acts up, I'm totally incapable of doing anything that requires a functional limb. 

And after the deliberations and discussions at the hospital, I pick up Snowdrop, who again is forging her own style in dress choices! I'm so glad that she has shed much of her reluctance to move beyond hoodies!

It's true that at some level I don't care what she wears. Clothes do not a person make. At the same time, I care that she retains her adventurousness and channels it into her daily life, so that she can free herself to experiment and feel happy with her choices.

At the farmhouse, she almost always starts off with a round of some game or other with Ed on the computer. I dont object. It beats throwing pillows at each other.

Evening. I still get sleepy early and most movie watching results in me dozing off for a while. I blame the movie selections. Well, and Europe jet lag. And my getting mighty close to being seventy.

With love...

spring forward!

That was some loud hail we had at night! Some said it was like hearing bricks hit the roof. I wouldn't go that far, but it was intense! Still, we were lucky: no tornadoes, no damage. And now, looking ahead, we have before us a beautiful ten days of perfect April weather.

This means that today I start my seasonal work in the flower fields.

After animal care of course.

As I survey all that needs to be done, I have to scratch my head a bit and ask myself this: can I really maintain ten flower fields, plus the two wildflower meadows, even as I am about to cross over into my seventies? I ask Ed over breakfast -- given that you are so incredibly busy with the machine design, who'll be my right hand assistant?

He tells me he'll be there to help and indeed, all morning long he runs between farmhouse with his zoom calls and the courtyard, trying to give me some help with the dumping of the flower tubs (they've rotted through: we need to replace them) and with the cutting down of emergent saplings in places where they don't belong.

Me, I work outside all morning long, feeling grateful for all that I managed to do in the fall. I know I like to take it easy come the end of the growing season, but right now I have so little time and so much work before me, that I am just happy I did not totally give up the ship back in October.

And so this morning, after I bake muffins for Snowdrop (because she told me yesterday that this is a very important day -- her eight and a quarter birthday!), I begin my spring work.

I trim all the hydrangeas. (There are many.)

I dig up invading Creeping Charlie. (This is a never ending task that will stay with me all summer long.)

I clear the spot for pea planting (easy peasy!).

I trim all the lavender bushes. (There are over 50 lavender bushes on farmette lands. The lavender field that seemed so hopelessly limp last spring seems to have experienced a rebirth and may well give us a lovely field of flowers behind the barn. Not that anyone ever goes there, except for us, but still...)

And all the while, I feel the wind in my face, and I marvel at how perfect the temperature is for outdoor work, and the sun does poke out eventually and that feeling of hope is so pronounced that honestly, I would do a dance outside if I weren't so busy doing yard work.

And now it's time to pick up Snowdrop.

Shockingly, she is wearing a dress. Of her own volition. If you knew how fiercely committed she was this year to leggings and a hoodie, you too would be impressed with the transformation.

We read, but, too, she plays. One thing I love to see is how much she goes back to old toys here and gives them new life, new stories, new identities.

And in the evening, it's me and Ed again, on the couch, utterly wiped out by the first day of big time outdoor work. But wiped out in a good way! Spring is awesome!