August 1st

New month, summer pleasures still abound, flowers keep showing off their colors, it's my older girl's birthday. These are my August 1st thoughts as I get up early and hit the farmette flower fields.

Happy Birthday to you...

And many more...

The goal is to get it all done. Eat a light breakfast. And head out.

These days, neither Ed nor I eat three meals a day -- it's jut too much food for our age. But today, we have a lunch date and a dinner date, so the cut is made at breakfast. Fruit, a few pieces of granola for me, nothing for Ed. And now we're off.

Ed has friends of long standing who live in Lake Mills -- about a 45 minute drive to the east of us. We occasionally get together -- more frequently at their place than ours, because they live by a lake and it is a rare one for south-central Wisconsin: it's clean. You can actually swim in it and not walk away with a skin infection! 

We eat lunch, we swim, we chat. They reminisce. Ed sails a boat. I hang out with our host in a motor boat.  It is an afternoon of pure unadulterated summer pleasures.

But by late afternoon we have to do the Cinderella act: disappear into a puff of misty air. We are scheduled to meet up with my daughter and her family (and friend) for a taco birthday dinner at BarTaco.

This is a place that perhaps you've seen in your neighborhood? We have one in Madison and it has enough good food to please the adults, but also totally awesome cheese quesadillas for the kids.

We dont have a traditional cake for my girl (I did ask, she said a candle would be enough), but the restaurant brought  out churros and in one there did appear to be a candle. All boxes checked off!

(Here we all are, with Ed acting as photographer!)

A stunning day! Full of good food, good vibes, and love.

July swan song

A White-breasted Nuthatch is making noises in the willow. The breeze is light, the air is clean, the sun is lovely and not too hot. July goes out with her singular beauty on full display.

Breakfast, perfect (even though it's a two-day old croissant!), on the porch. With Ed and a cat and the cat throws up, but still, the morning is beautiful.

I have a week of no childcare once again. Each grandchild is enrolled in a full day program and apart from some viewing and visiting toward the end of the week, I am not involved in their daily routines. This means that I can be slow, deliberate and thoughtful. (It does not mean that I am not slow or deliberate or thoughtful on days with kids, only that it's a hit or miss thing then.) And I start the day in this way. I read more than I usually do. And I think about what I've read. 

One news opinion piece especially caught my attention. In it, the author, who himself is a psychologist suggests that women know to tone down the use of assertive language in their communications (especially but not only in male dominated work places), because men are hostile to their use of it and will respond more favorably if women sprinkle their statements with disclaimers, hedging and qualifying as they present ideas or make requests. 

Admission: I am prone to sprinkling my posts with a million qualifiers and disclaimers when I delve into an even mildly controversial issue. 

The article would leave us (women) thinking that perhaps in our daughters' and granddaughters' future there will come a day when women will be judged favorably even if they appear to be as assertive as men in their communications. But I'm with those who believe that this is (perhaps) the wrong direction for us all. I think (maybe) women got it right: there is great humility in admitting that you do not have full possession of correct information, and that you are proceeding with the best possible facts, but they are imperfect and so is, therefore, your conclusion. I've said this before: (I think) we have too much certainty being shouted at us from all directions. Too much judgment, too much self-promotion, and way too many people believing that they know better. How to raise a child, how to do someone else's job, how to do every thing in life at every stage of the game.

What if we just stayed quiet and concentrated on gathering information? What if we listened and qualified our responses? Shouldn't aim for that? Shouldn't we want "sensitive to the needs of others" to replace "assert and demand what you think is rightfully yours?"

Just a thought. No certainty there, but it sounds right to me.

In the early afternoon, I took my daughter and her visiting friend to pay a call on my mom. 

And in the late afternoon, Ed and I went biking together. 

We did the 45 minute loop -- he on his trusty cycle, me on my borrowed e-cycle. We paused by Lake Waubesa and watched a boat come in. I suppose if you have to find fault with summers here, after you're done groaning about the mosquitoes (we've had fewer numbers thus far so you can't complain too much!), you would be justified in feeling sad about our lakes, which are being destroyed by algae and weeds. Perhaps there is hope: people are more sensitive to such issues these days. Fewer cavalierly treat their lawns unnecessarily, or pasture their livestock by water streams. But for now, the water quality isn't good.

At home, I water the pots. In late summer and early fall, we will shift our attention back to these annuals to enjoy our last bits of color before the cold takes hold and puts the farmette lands to sleep for the winter. Oh, but that's a long way away. We're on the last day of July. The colors are spectacular and the feeling of summer is deeply with us still.

Sunday tweaks

It seems to me that we are racing toward the end of summer. End of July already? I snipped a lot of lilies today, but I noticed that there are few new buds on most stems. That's an end-of-July phenomenon alright. The days of snipping will soon end and I will return to an idle morning routine. Maybe.

(good morning, world!)

(such colors!)

(a burst of citrus)

(Breakfast)

I was to have the young family for dinner today and since this would have included their houseguest whom I know well and like, I had set out to bake what I imagined would go over well with him as he likes all things citrusy: a lime-lemon-orange tart in a chocolate crust. With berries on top. This one:

All proceeded according to schedule until I got the message that Sandpiper was now sick. Well that figures. First Sparrow, then Snowdrop and now the last one to fall -- the youngest guy. Bringing him here would be foolish for him and for us, so I offered instead to take the meal over to their place and join them in an outdoor supper. Still, the prep work is larger than usual and so the day is filled with kitchen work.

But I'm not neglecting the great outdoors! I pause in stirring citrus curd and snipping beans and take off with Ed for a walk in our favorite park. Because it's beautiful and we never regret the time we take for this short but happy hike.

Now, back to the kitchen. Finish up, pack it up and head over to the young family's home.

And though at first, Sandpiper really does appear to be under the weather...

By the end of the evening, he's up and running with the rest of them!

(the rest of them)

It's wonderful to be eating on their deck and we linger for quite a while. 

I feel just a smidge guilty because when we eat at her place, the clean up is hers, not mine. But, she is way more efficient than I am and by the time I leave, the house is in order once more.

Summer evenings: they are the best, aren't they....

with love...

summer days

I think we're peaking in terms of summer pleasures and vexations. Big storms did pass over us and we kept out power, but many of the tall phloxes toppled and, too, the mosquitoes rejoiced. Party, party! Let's get out there and bight their noggins off! On the other hand, we got nearly three inches of rain. I hereby proclaim the farmette summer drought to be officially over.

Up early this morning. A few minutes after six. The goal is to get things done, but without hurry! I feed the animals and snip most of the lilies, leaving the Big Bed for later. I'm incapable of not cleaning up the spaces around me as I exit and enter the farmhouse, but at the same time, I want to get to the farmers market early today. So, a partial snip and a few moments of meditation as I take in today's flower performance.

Now to market.  My list is medium long: corn, for sure. I love our local Stoneman's (less than two miles up the road from us) but they have been slow in getting their season rolling. I have to think that they planted just a tad too late to catch the early spring rains. So, while we wait for their corn, I want to pick up some other exquisite ears, and no one can lay claim to that honor more legitimately than Mary at Bee Charmer. She mainly does honeys and I have several of hers. But, I know from the years when I was the market forager for L'Etoile restaurant (noted in a NYTimes article here), if you want to rave about exceptional corn, you can do no better than go to Mary's stand, where, behind jars of honey, she'll have this week's haul of sweet corn. 

I'm there before 8 and still she shakes her head. L'Etoile beat you to it: they took all the big ears. Of course they did! The forager is out with her (or his) cart just as the market opens at 6. Damn those early restaurant people! Still, she says she has a couple dozen left and the ears are pure heaven, if a tad small. Without hesitation I say yes to a dozen and within a minute, another person in the know comes up and picks up the last of it and there you have it. 

Another item -- haricots verts. French green beans. 

I realize that I really need to double up on my market buying: spin around once to look, a second time to buy. This, to me, is one tiny fault with our market set-up: you cant easily meander from stall to stall, you have to do the whole circuit, and it's a long walk. Too, by 8 in the morning, the sidewalk space is limited and you are at a crawl. I jump out to the street for part of my walk around, but I pay the price for shortcutting: I forget to pick up a box of red currants. And I really wanted a box of red currants for weekend baking.

Other purchases? Apricots and the last cherries from Door County. Flowers from my vendor -- I go with glads today!

Blueberries from JenEhr farm. I ask the seller -- where's all the rest of the farm's produce? They retired from farming. Just blueberries! I suppose we all eventually retire!

Okay, shopping done in forty minutes! Not bad. But I do miss pulling a red wagon. The bags get heavy!

And as long as I am downtown, I hop over to Madison Sourdough, because I so love having a fresh croissant for breakfast!

It's considerably less hot and humid today than it was, say, yesterday. Nonetheless, the bugs are out and the sun does heat things up a little. Ed and I clip some sagging branches, I finish snipping lilies and now it feels like I've done my bit of summer work. Enough for now. 

In an afternoon of reading (because summer is for an uptick in reading, a special kind of reading that allows you to be swallowed up whole by a story), I come across an article gently suggesting that we should try to give ourselves a period of time (a week? a month?) where we do zero multitasking. No listening to the radio while you cook. No half listening to the TV while you're folding laundry. No listening to anything while you're racking up the miles on the jogging trail. The author of the piece suggests that it is a more difficult challenge than you might expect.

Is it? Ed has always claimed he is a terrible multitasker (so, a real "in the moment" guy), whereas I've always thought I was pretty good at it (the author would dispute that, since according to him, no one is good at it). I could cook dinner, listen to kids talk about school, catch a news story on the TV. All at the same time. Heck, raising kids, doing full time work, cooking dinners, volunteering heavily at the kids' school, planting perennials, moonlighting at L'Etoile -- this was once my modus operandi. All in one day, with lots of overlap. 

But I dont do that anymore. I never listen to anything when working outside, or when walking or biking. And when I travel, I often tune out completely while in my plane seat or at the airport. No music, no movie, no book. Head runs on empty, like taking the plug out of a full bathtub. 

I'm thinking that at certain times in your life you have to multitask. It's a requirement for getting through excruciatingly packed weeks. Think: five days before Christmas, and you're the primary parent, cook, decorator, and Santa person and you have a work assignment due. Sure, tell me that we all should shed some of these responsibilities and opt for a simpler life. Maybe live in a log cabin, all in one cozy room. And still, someone has to chop the wood and make the garden grow. There's no escaping it: life can be one long todo list! 

But, that was then. I'm in favor of being in the moment now, at 70. I dont have tinnitus, I dont have miserable thoughts threatening to converge in an empty head. What a luxury!

But it is a luxury. You multitaskers everywhere -- I am completely sympathetic. Put on the music (or a podcast) while you fold laundry. You deserve the joy of combining pleasure with drudgery. Leave the empty headedness to us retirees and to people writing articles for the NYTimes.