Friday

It was 5:30. I was debating with myself about  the usual -- should I get up now? I could be out in the garden already. So much to do... Ed had been downstairs managing some morning cat chaos. He comes up, slides into a comfortable sleeping position and tells me -- don't get up. Get some more sleep. I fed the animals already.

It was just what I needed to prompt me to finally push the clock to its usual groove. I dozed on an off for the next three hours and when I got up, I knew I had finally kicked the jet lag out the back door.

But of course, there are consequences to getting up so late. I'm not done with lily snipping until 10. And as I clean up the beds, I see that the dryness of the soil has returned. I'm not surprised. It's been about ten days since that last blessed rainfall. Somewhat reluctantly I drag out the hose. Not for a thorough watering, but for a "spot dousing." I focus the water on plants with lots of buds or ones that are in the thick of their blooming cycle. Another hour goes by. Oh, sure, it's all very beautiful and this is what I do in the month of July and yes, the flowers are (mostly) thriving...

...But it's after 11 before I call Ed down to the breakfast table. (Dance has claimed his seat. He would never push her off. He sits to the side.)

A different day with my childcare as well. One little one is in school, another is still home sick, and Snowdrop is looking for companionship! I pick her up in the early afternoon and bring her to the farmhouse.

(yep, that's a stuck out tongue for the camera!)

Once she leaves, Ed and I push ourselves to go out for an evening walk. And as always, it is lovely and we are so happy to have roused ourselves for this.

(on the way to the park...)

You're probably thinking that I finally sat through a whole movie tonight! You would be wrong. We lost power just before 6 pm and we did not get it back by my bedtime. There is no obvious reason for the outage and many trucks came with workers attempting to repair whatever damage there may be. Tree branches were cut, line men went up, line men came down. Then they all left. Power stayed off. 

No matter. We had a very quiet evening at home, in the dark. The air outside is cool, the windows are wide open. Ed suggested we hop on the motorbike for a beer and a WiFi fix at Christie's -- the bar down the road, on Lake Waubesa, but I eked out enough battery life out of my phone to publish my post. Tomorrow, I'm (reasonably) sure we will return to normal. If not -- well that's why we have cafes on this planet, right?

With love...

so how am I?

Since my return from Europe, we have not been able to finish a single movie in our usual post-dinner streaming sessions. I've fallen asleep for every one of them. (Once, I woke up shortly after and we did finish it then, but that doesn't count.) At the same time, I continue to be a firecracker in the early morning. Today's day lily tally was close to 500. I was done snipping even before the day's sunshine flooded the garden. (Only five photos today! I'm showing restraint.)

(white with a green apple throat: hard to photograph, easy to love)

(secret path: full of lilies, penstemon and lavender)

(sun's out!)

(Big Bed)

True, I was in a bit of a rush: I had an appointment with David, my PT specialist who has been coaching me through knee rehab this spring. I hadn't seen him since before my travels and I was super curious to see if I got any better, got worse, or stayed the same.

So here's the good news (with lots of heaped on praise from David!): in walking, I'm coming in at 3.5 miles per hour which, according to him, is at some elevated super stardom for someone not quite three months after surgery. And the knee bend has improved a couple of more degrees, putting me at a solid 130 degrees. I'm likely to stay there for life and it's a good place to be. I am assured that this is more than super fantastic.

However.

David is not one to mince words when it comes to deficiencies. I love him for his brutal honesty and I swear, any time I need PT in the future, he's the one I'll shoot for. And there was definitely a wince when I kicked my leg up to demonstrate a perfectly straight leg. I know you can straighten it, because you're at perfect 0 degrees lying down. But kicking it up? You fall short by 3 degrees still. You have to work on that!

Another printout of exercises is forthcoming. 

As long as we've descended into the cavernous post-operative negative-land, I tell him that I still feel uneasy about getting up off the floor. He teaches me a trick: kneel down on your good knee, shoot your fake one forward and you're good! Then reverse the steps to get up! No more standing up on picnics in Copenhagen! Yeah!

In all, I felt rather celebratory so that even though Ed could not join me for breakfast (a day of meetings for him), I decided to defrost one of those wonderful Madison Sourdough cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

Never have I eaten a more stale piece of pastry! Ed must have put them in the freezer when they were long past their date of any possible future tastiness. I did eat it, because my heart was set on it, but I wont be reaching into that freezer bag again anytime soon.

The day becomes a little complicated going forward. David had told me to keep on walking, so I felt obliged to follow his advice on that one. I walked to the bikes and made a loop on one and then walked back, swinging on monkey bars along the way.

Ed was still at his meetings and I had an early time for going to pick up Snowdrop at her yoga-cooking-drama-art camp, as it was her very last day there and as always on Thursdays, there was a demonstration of all they do for families and sundry others. 

(sundry others)

No one from her clan could go. Sparrow is sick, dad is with son, mom is at work meetings, Sandpiper is at school. But, I was there, photographing away!! Two photos for you: from the yoga flow and from the Pea Story, where she plays the mother pea.

The girl has one more short summer program this evening so it made no sense for me to bring her back to the farmhouse. Instead, we go to a cafe, pick up some treats (in addition to the ones I'd pack for the occasion) and head out to the Middleton Village Green for a reading/eating session.

Evening. Now it's time for me to turn on my social side -- something that in the evenings I've let flop down into disuse in recent times. I join Ed and a half dozen of his colleagues for a dinner at Sardine. I would not have gone (who on earth likes their sweetie's colleague dinners?!) but they promised that there would be one other partner person there, with no connection to machines. She is from Mexico and I got curious. Besides, it's Sardine. I love Sardine!

p

Don't even ask if I fell asleep on the couch tonight. Plenty of movement, a Negroni for dinner, good food with no clean-up afterwards. Utter contentedness. Zonked, I tell you. Totally zonked.

early bird

By 9 a.m., I have fed the animals, plucked 400+ spent lilies, pulled some weeds, knocked down a bunch of mosquitoes and whipped up some batter for blueberry muffins. Into the oven they go!

I tell you, there's something to be said for jet lag!

I keep thinking that the flowers today wont wow me as much as they did yesterday because, well, I've seen a variation on the lily theme now for several days in a row. What's there to astonish? Well now! Plenty!

Breakfast, of muffins and local berries, and very prized, considering (major crop failure this year) -- Georgia peaches.

Ed and I take a park walk again. The goal is to stay on grasses so that a barefooted stroll is pleasurable. That means we skip the woods and stick to the prairie. Which is fantastic at this time of the year! (A sudden appearance of Michigan lilies!)

I watch the swallows do their swooping flight over the purple and yellow flowers and I think -- this is too beautiful for words. (Nor do I have my camera, but no matter -- a phone snapshot will jiggle my recollection and your imagination.)

In the afternoon Snowdrop is here, but it's a brief visit once again. She has softball practice in the evening so I basically run us through our routines (she wont let go of any of them!) at blistering speed!

Pick raspberries! Read a couple of chapters from current book! Eat lots of fruit and blueberry muffins!

And then the farmette lands grow very quiet. Ed is out biking, the house is empty, the hens are hiding, the cats are prowling in the fields. I sit back and think -- such a string of lovely days! All this and blue skies and none of the scorching heat that's settled over the south. How are we so lucky!

growing things

Farmers are very adept in adjusting to unfavorable weather conditions. Their livelihood depends on it. They do all they can to compensate for heat, drought, excessive rain, unseasonable frost. But honestly, there's only so much they can do. And there is only so much you can do in your flower beds. A frost that zapped some fruit trees this year, a drought that threatened and continues to threaten your plantings -- you can only compensate so much. Gardeners have noted that some perennials have taken a pause this year (because of the drought), choosing to forgo flowering. Some offer blooms, but at a reduced number. I suppose I have a little of both: some of my plants are indeed wimpy and others are just not going to make an all out effort. Still, the established old girls are robust. They dug deep with their roots and they found water (and I did contribute a little as well) and these are the show stoppers right now.

I picked twice as many spent lily blooms this morning as I did the day before. This was predictable. Yesterday was a flashy blooming day, so the haul is bigger today. Still, I came in at just under 450 snipped lilies. In other years, I'd be closer to 800 at the peak of the season (we are in fact at the peak of the season). The encroaching tree canopies (giving way too much shade) and the absence of rain are to blame, if you want to hand out blame. But I'm loathe to gripe about this. The garden has to adjust. I cannot change Ed's mind on tree removal and I cannot pour unlimited quantities of supplemental water on flower beds. I work with what's there. And honestly, there are enough flowers out there to make any gardening nut happy. I'm not going to be greedy. 450 is plenty.

(only 9 pics this morning! progress!)

I have a more relaxed day: no appointments, no grand to do lists. I work in the garden, I read, I eat breakfast alone, because just as Ed came down for it, the zoom tune sounded and he had to address machining issues.

I take a neighborhood walk, too, because I am on a roll with my daily walking and of course, I dont want to lose my momentum!

And in the afternoon I pick up Snowdrop, also keeping to a relaxed pace, indeed, pausing first for ice cream...

... then coming back to the farmette (where unfortunately the mosquitoes are now making an appearance). She wants to show me how to make a hollyhock doll and so we pick a couple of blooms...

And eventually settle down into our routines.

And all the while, I think to myself -- even with the knee causing great readjustments for me in the way I move and rest, this has been a summer of good fortune and fabulous adventures. Has it been good for you as well? I hope so.

start and pause

If you pay close attention to the seasonal cycle of a day lily, you'll notice that there isn't a march each day toward a crescendo of blooms, receding then over the next days to a dormant state. In other words, it doesn't track a normal distribution of flowers. Instead, it leaps, and then the next day it pauses. I imagine that the plant puts out a big effort as it bursts with, say, half a dozen of new flowers, and then for the next day or two it regroups, recharges, musters its energies for the next big explosion. The funny thing is that many of the plants seem to be in communication with each other. They make an appointment to explode with blooms on the same day! So that yesterday, the flower fields were tame. Many and perhaps most of the big babes were taking a pause. Today, they've opened up again! (And no, it's not driven by the weather, of that I am sure.)

Because yesterday was so tame out there in the flower fields, I actually had a low count of spent lilies to snip today. A scant 200. Tomorrow I'll have a bucketful!

I was thinking how nature controls her show and we cannot do much to change her course. Say you planned a wedding, a party, a big dinner, smack in the middle of July so that you could show off your amazing lilies. You could well hit a calm day when many of the plants are resting. Ha ha on you! 

I am up super early once again. I'm sniffling a lot and so now I have three reasons not to sleep well in the mornings -- jet lag, knee stiffness, and sniffle-snort. No matter! I feel strong, I feel nimble. And though the lilies are just beginning to open up at these early hours of the day, the flower fields in my mind are at their most scrumptious now in the wee hours. Ten photos from today's morning, okay?? I'm cutting back!!

(huge flaming orange blooms)

(incredible mix of colors...)

(from yellow to melon to apricot to peach, all in one double flower)

(cheerful chuckling little ones)

(pink champagne flutes)

(new this year...)

(the original lily field!)

(layers and rows of plants)

(a piece of the Big Bed)

(by the porch)

Breakfast, on the porch, just with Ed.

We motorbike out to our park for a walk once more. I mean, the breeze is fabulous, the air is warm but not hot or humid, and we have good quality air right now. What more could you possibly want?

We side step to the path that runs by the corn fields. We want to check out how it's doing. Seems good to us! As far as the eye can see...

Let's put Ed next to it so that you can get a sense of its size.

Oh, the monarchs are out!

And down below, the best camouflaged frog I have ever seen!

And in the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop from her day camp. The girl loved her Fourth of July with her family and the shirt from a small town parade-watching event remains one of her favorites. What can I say,  all those stars and stripes...

So ends a splendid day. And I have to note, one of the original day lilies here is finally in full bloom mode. I'll end with these gorgeous flowers that to me represent all that's worth struggling for in the garden. Nymphs and shepherds indeed! (Shadwell's poem, Purcell's song.)

Nymphs and shepherds, come away.
In the groves let's sport and play,
For this is Flora's holiday,
Sacred to ease and happy love,
To dancing, to music and to poetry;
Your flocks may now securely rove
Whilst you express your jollity.
Nymphs and shepherds, come away.

with love...