poetry month

April is flooded with virtue. For us, living in south central Wisconsin, the month is transformative. Blossoms proliferate. Fruit trees are covered with pink and white petals. Bees get very excited by the massive explosion of pollen and nectar. The farmers market begins its weekly sales of produce, of spring cheese, of potted plants and bunches of flowers. I plant my perennials and purchase my annuals. the grass is lush, the garden promises to be perfection itself. 

It is also the month of tax filing (that horrid American ritual that we all suffer through). A month of poetry. (I will return to this later.) A month of the first garden disappointments.

I actually saw the big failure out there last night and this morning I confirmed it: in my absence, whatever interloper (best guess: groundhog, but maybe rabbit, maybe a deer, maybe an opossum) came to my flower fields and chomped off most of the tulips.

I had asked Ed to spray them with our special hot pepper spray (very effective) in the week I was away, but the poor guy couldn't do it -- it kept raining and, well, rain would wash off any spray he'd put on. One count for the animal world: they definitely won this round. I will have no early or even midseason tulips this year.

I try not to notice this as I walk to the barn to feed the animals.

Good morning, chickens! Please dont scratch up my flower fields too much! Have a good day! 

(back to the venerable old farmhouse, before the rains came down...)

Breakfast, with the cats and with Ed.

Okay, back to poems. In honor of poetry month, I purchased You are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, a compilation by Ada Limon that brings together poems by 24 American Poet Laureats (she herself is the current one). The release date is tomorrow so I can say nothing more about it (though there is a lovely piece on the book and on nature poetry in general by Margaret Renkl in the NYTimes today). But I will go back to Mary Oliver, because, well, she was my introduction to nature poetry. I discovered her late in life (like maybe 20 years ago), and very serendipitously -- while staring at a shelf in a bookstore in search of something to read while drinking a cup of coffee. I was stunned at how beautiful each line in that book was.

I dont have that first one of hers anymore. Lost in the move, given to a friend -- I really dont remember. But I do have another one near me, titled "Why I Wake up Early." There's much to love there, but I'll just give you one poem, because it is so much a reflection of my routine every single week of the year -- the placing and replenishing of flowers in a vase for the kitchen table.

 

Freshen Flowers, She Said (by Mary Oliver)

So I put them in the sink, for the cool porcelain was tender,

and took out the tattered and cut each stem on a slant,

trimmed the black and raggy leaves and set them all --

roses, delphiniums, daisies, iris, lilies, and more whose names I dont know, in bright new water -- 

gave them

a bounce upward at the end to let them take their own choice of position, the wheels, 

the spurs,

the little sheds of the buds. It took, to do this,

perhaps fifteen minutes.

Fifteen minutes of music

with nothing playing.

After you read that, I'm sure you'll never trivialize the task of arranging flowers in a vase again!

Later, I want to go for a walk. As does Ed. A nature walk, even though we are just at the cusp of the growing season, so that you would have to look hard to notice the buds, the emerging plant life. Still, breathing it all in sounds so rich!

And yet we stay home. I fall asleep on the couch. He falls asleep on the couch. We are a tired duo!

 

Okay, it's time to pick up the girl at the school.

Gone are the skirts, the colorful shirts. She is turning punk. Goth, without the negatives associated with it. Why? Because she is a girl who has her own sense of cool is why. Because she is rapidly nearing the double digits in age. 

I like the fact that this seems to make her happy. That she had to learn to tie her own shoelaces in order to wear her new lace up black boots. That she feels confident and experimental in a very innocent way.

(Besides, she promised me she'll put on a skirt just for me every once in a while. In the summer.)

Evening. Leftovers for supper! It rained good and hard tonight. All the more reason to feel sleepy. Very sleepy, on the 1st of a beautiful month.  

bunny hops

Yes, it feels like I'm bunny hopping my way through the morning. So much to do, so little time for any of it. I had an easy time unpacking last night, just before midnight, but this morning the ten day neglect of house and home came at me full force. 

Well, one thing at a time.

First, let's see what happened out in the flower fields while I was away. Cold, snow, rain -- all this slowed down the unfurling of plant life. I see that just a few daffodils have popped,  though the helleborus (lenten rose) is at its prime moment of great lovelinees...

Bot otherwise, the greening of the garden has slowed down. Fine. I will enjoy it in the weeks ahead.

The new chickens are more acclimated to farmette life and the three youngest ones have grown plump! Well now, free ranging seems to suit them just fine.

I leave them and the cats to their breakfast foods and without sitting down yet to my own morning meal, I head out to the grocery store. It opens at 8. I'm there just a few seconds after. I miss my morning coffee terribly, but I want breakfast with Ed and he is nowhere near ready for it in the early hours of the day.

Then, to Batch Bakehouse to pick up breads and cookies for the kids, and now I'm back, and the laundry is spinning, and the groceries are put away, and the tulips from the grocery store) are in vases on the table, and we're ready to eat our Easter breakfast of panettone -- that yeasty bread with fruits and nuts that Ed tolerates and I love. This one is from Roy's. Italian? -- you ask. No, if you read the link, you'll see that Roy bakes his in Houston. And honestly, I think it's the best I've had in a long time! (I got the one with strawberries, pistachios and mascarpone. Not too sweet. Delicious.)

Eventually I pause with house work, with laundry, with helping Ed with the mechanicals in the basement. Time to fix Easter dinner for the young family.

Christmas and Easter are times when I deviate from my predictable Sunday menus. Easter, to me, begs for a roasted chicken (and asparagus and roasted potatoes and corn for the kids). My big challenge always is to roast the bird to a crispy and even doneness, without drying out the breast or setting off the smoke alarm. (I've finally figured out that if I preheat the pan and start roasting at 500f, or 260c, and then after about twenty minutes turn it down to 400f, or 205c, I'll get the crispy skin without having to fan the alarm to shut it off!)

Okay, here they come!

First -- Sparrow. Handsomely attired.

Then mommy, daddy and Sandpiper. The boy fell asleep in the car. With a strawberry in his mouth, which no one knew about, except then we wondered -- why is he so quiet? Sandpiper is not a quiet boy!

And of course Snowdrop, who right away hits the olives -- an acquired love from Spain.

Dinner!

It's great to see them all again and it's of course a relief to have the ultimate responsibility for Snowdrop lifted, so that I can go back to being the grandma and not worry about getting her through the day!

Easter ends for us with sugar cookies, baked not by me! 

Well, Easter really ends with my kitchen clean up and Ed completely zonking out on the couch. He had worked hard getting the tomato fields ready for planting and it is a given that after all that outdoor activity, he'll fall asleep before me. 

Have I left the European clock behind me? How quickly we return to home routines after a vacation! 

with love...

leaving Amsterdam

We wake up to rain in Amsterdam. A steady rain -- the kind that will wet your shoes and have you look down to avoid puddles. The kind that makes you want to stay indoors.

(outside our window: rain)

(outside our window: small car recharging...)

I pack us up. Could I fit us into our original bags, with no overload, Aubrey and bunnies and some kid clothing additions notwithstanding? I can! Looks like we can skip sending bags through. That's always a relief!

Breakfast then. Twists and turns along narrow hallways to the breakfast room.

I could sit at this table by the window for a long time. The dining room seems empty. Are people heading home for the holiday, or are they simply sleeping in?

Lovely morning meal! A breakfast buffet always tempts me. Today, I show little restraint.

(the girl, in her Vermeer moment)

(And back along the Ambassade corridors...)

I consider a city walk. We should do it! There'll be plenty of time for tablets and books later!

And yet, the motivation is low. That rain! Do we really want to walk those wet streets of Amsterdam this morning?

Miraculously, as if listening to our grumbles, the rain pauses. We're out! 

Snowdrop wants to walk to the zoo, to the botanical gardens, to the park, but there's no time for lengthy promenades. She agrees to  the little park by the Rijksmuseum. 18 minutes each way. We're on it!

(how I would love to pick up a bouquet to bring home!)

(with the Museum towers in the background)

The line to the Museum was long yesterday (even if you had tickets). It's super long today. That's okay, the park requires no waiting, not tickets. And inside, she finds something that fascinates her -- a fountain with water from all sides. Occasionally some of the jets pause and you can step inside. Like this!

(water from all sides)

(you can't exit until the jets create an opening...)

And that is our last bit of fun. We walk back toward our hotel, pausing at the Wolf Cafe and Bakery for some baked goods to take to the airport. And now it's time to claim our suitcases and say good bye to the incredibly friendly staff of the Ambassade. (There it is -- the hotel, across the canal Herengracht.)

The airport is not terribly chaotic today. We breeze through security, passport control -- in plenty of time for our flight to Detroit. 

Nine hours later we are in the Midwest. And by 10 pm we are in Madison. Ed is there, Snowdrop's dad is there. Happiness abounds. For me as well -- there were moments during the trip when I felt... old-ish. In need of a nap perhaps. Or, a calm hour with a cup of herbal tea. No kidding! 

And yet we continued and it was beautiful. The girl always listens for hints on how to be the best possible traveler. She tries hard to do the right thing. It makes for a beautiful travel adventure! 

How's stuff at the farmette? -- I ask Ed.

All quiet. Missed you!

I smile. 

with so much love...

the not so Dutch Dutch flowers

When my girls were little, I bought a picture book about Dutch tulips. It laid to rest the idea that tulips originated in Holland. In fact, the flower came here some four hundred years ago, via Turkey, all the way from Kazakhstan. 

So how is it that modern Holland lives and breathes tulips? That it is in fact the biggest tulip bulb exporter, trading something like 1.5 billion bulbs per year? Well, we all want Dutch tulips because we see them as the real deal. So much variety! Such beautiful blooms! Bulbs from the Netherlands seem authentic and proper. Sort of like bluebells from England and lavender from southern France. Our associations are strong and they govern our purchases. Hey, didn't Ed and I buy bulbs from a Dutch couple during the gardening expo in Madison? Okay, they weren't tulip bulbs. Those I purchased in September. And I'll bet anything that they came from the Netherlands.

It is possible to visit the tulip fields of Holland. But honestly, those ribbons of color probably look best from up above. If you want to marvel at the beauty of tulip blooms, your best bet is to go to the Keukenhof gardens outside Amsterdam. Tulip growing there is a serious affair (and they've been doing it for 75 years!). It's where I want to go today. 

And once again we are lucky: we were to have rain showers. Instead, we wake up to this:

 

A morning at the Ambassade. A breakfast of breads and Dutch cheeses (another grand association with this country -- Edam and Gouda!). 

The hotel always feels more intimate than its true size. There are 55 rooms to it these days, but they're spread out over some dozen canal houses. (I remember the days when it was concentrated to just one or two buildings.) Most are connected, which means you have to have a good sense of direction and know your twists and turns. (The buildings are not necessarily on the same level, so steps are going to be part of your passageway.) 

(mirrors along the way...)

Staying in a canal-side house is a grand way to soak in the moods of this city (in the same way that staying in a hotel by the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris makes me feel connected to the more contemplative aspects of that city). How beautiful to spend a few minutes just looking outside!

(our view...)

After breakfast, Snowdrop and I take the time to read a few books about two artists -- Rembrandt and Vermeer. The Riijksmuseum has a special exhibit on Hals, but I opted to skip that and the crowds that it surely is generating. [In the same way that I opted to skip the Van Gogh Museum this time 'round. Snowdrop already knows about Van Gogh from all those Impressionist exhibitions I've dragged her to in Paris. She'll describe from memory his most famous paintings. Rembrandt and Vermeer? That's something new for her. Let's just concentrate on those for today.]

(my Vermeer-like picture of ... daily life with the girl!)

Time to walk over to the museum.

(pause along the way to watch the removal of sunken bicycles... Snowdrop wonders if the riders of these bikes got off before the bikes fell into the canals...)

The museum is pretty crowded, especially when you come to the "star attractions." Still, I do want her to see canvases like Rembrandt's Night Watch.

She's a little disturbed by the image of the seemingly frightened girl in the middle of the painting. She tells me she finds this paint box from that same time period much more interesting.

But then we come to Vermeer's Milk Maid. She knows this painting -- I have to think because her school art teacher occasionally talks up famous artists.

It becomes a Snowdrop favorite! 

In the "Dutch Impressionism" wing, you can find unfamiliar artists that strike your fancy (well, my fancy!)...

... and you can also find three Van Gogh's.

We end with that. Keeping the visit to just under an hour is perfect. And stopping at a store with bunnies for brothers and cousins is also perfect! 

Lunch time! The hotel suggests a couple of options and we try out the closest one -- A. Van Wees. It used to be a distillery. Now it's a pub, or perhaps a "cat bar!" Snowdrop loves cats, so this place is going to have a check in its favor. There's another benefit -- it offers a Dutch cheese fondue (for her) and Zeeland mussels (for me).

 

 

 

 

 

 She tells me it's the best lunch ever!

 

And at 2:30, we head out to the Keukenhof Gardens. 

Because we have so little time, I took the easy route -- I rented a car. With a driver, because frankly, I did not want to run down any of the crazy cyclists that are so much a part of the Amsterdam street scene. On the one hand, this was great. Pick up, drop off. And on the return -- pick up and take home. On the other hand, when the driver learned I was curious about the bulb production here, he suggested a circuitous route that would have us see some of the fields on the way to the gardens. 1.5 hours in stop and go traffic to get out of town and drive through Haarlem and past the fields. Guaranteed to make Snowdrop nearly car sick.

We did pause at one point and our local guy explained that in the fields, all those flowers will be hacked off and as a result, the bulbs will reproduce. These new bulbs are then hand picked, to be sold to the likes of us. Flowers that are sold for their blooms are not grown in fields, but are instead grown in Dutch greenhouses.

(three fields that were especially stunning in my opinion...)

And now we are at the gardens. This is not a small scale production. The gardens are huge and they do not lack people, even though the website tells me that we are at the "getting crowded" stage of the game (as opposed to "crowded!" or "insanely crowded!").

The thing to remember is that... they... are... beautiful.

Breathtakingly beautiful.

And if you move around with care, you can find quiet corners. Photographable corners.

Snowdrop takes on a leadership position here. Equipped with a map, she leads us to the highlights. And her favorite choices.

 

I'm resisting posting an overload of photos. Truly, these are just my very favorites!

Her favorites as well!

There is a kids' playground and the girl is thrilled with that. Five times on the zipline, several on the squiggly slide, a few tries at the monkey bars. 

But let me end with this one, where the colors are beyond beautiful.

And that rain that was supposed to wet this day for us? Nope, not a drop.

We drive back the quick way. And still, we pass a field, or two...

And now it's evening. Our last dinner in Europe. I booked it at Casa di David, which, too has such fine memories -- I ate here with my daughters when they were... Snowdrop's age! 

And again we have a piece of luck. The place is packed. We're assigned a table right in the thick of a traffic pattern. And suddenly, someone waves a magic wand and a table by the window opens for us.  We move to it, gratefully.

Snowdrop is at that edge, where one side spells joy and the other -- a readiness to head home. Ask her is she wants vacation to be over and she'll say no! Ask her if she misses home and she'll say yes! This is when she loves texting with mommy.

We do have a lovely view out onto the lights around the canal. I give myself a few minutes to think about being here, about the joys of travel, about the challenges as well. We've done well this past week! I am so happy about that!

We walk back, we eat our dessert chocolates, we turn out the lights. Tomorrow is a big-time travel day. Tonight -- we're still one foot in the tulip fields, with one eye toward the twinkling lights reflected in the waters of the canal outside.

with so much love...