October Saturday

I began the work of designing a holiday card today. Usually this is a joyous event. I study art, I think about love. This year, however, poses unique challenges. First of all, for some people on my list a message of joy would be an affront. There was not a whole lot of joy in their 2024. Meager scraps of it could well be sucked dry if the outcome of the election doesn't go their way. Secondly, I am often inspired by woodland themes. Animals figure prominently on many of my past cards. This year, deer have decimated our peach orchard, just this past week, striping three year old peach trees of bark and life support. Should I included woodland deer on a card? Ed is feeling grumpy about their visits to farmette lands. Yesterday I heard him compare the deer to mice. A stunning putdown. Animal lover that he is, Ed is not a fan of mice.

In general, playing with themes of unity and love seems especially hard now. I look at the headline in the Economist today -- Why Passive Aggression Took Over the World -- and I think: am I to ignore the cruelty that I hear coming out of the mouths of young and old? Are we all to turn a blind eye to the rampant hurt that's freely bestowed by some onto others? 

Meanwhile, our neighbor (distant, to be sure) is practicing with his semiautomatic rifle, so I sort through cards with messages of peace, at the same time that I hear the horrible sounds of pop pop pop somewhere across the road. 

Nonetheless, it's getting to be the end of October. My "discount deadline" has long passed. My November is busy. I tally forth.

The day itself is stunningly beautiful: warm, sunny. And dry. Ed does the animals this morning. I start in on breakfast. Let's see... fruit and what... Mmmm, would be nice to pick up some Kuign Amann... Off to the bakery!

So yes, we indulge in richness for breakfast once again this weekend, but I promise myself that this is not a new normal. That the day of oatmeal in the morning will return. Soon.

I work on bulbs today. The weather is both perfect and impossible for it. Beautiful sunshine, impossibly dry soil. Still, at the end of the day, I have only 26 bulbs left, all crocuses and snowdrops, requiring very shallow digging.

What's been missing in my days? Movement. Pneumonia does that to you: it slows you down. So that when Ed suggests a bike ride I don't hesitate. It may well be our only real look at local fall colors!

(he does pull up ahead; I dont want to overdo it...)

In the evening, the young family was to be here for Sunday dinner. We chose this day for it because tomorrow has to be clear of all scheduling. I'll tell you more about that when the time comes. For now I start in on dinner, only to get the call that a string of unfortunate circumstances confounded everyone's schedule for tonight. So it's just going to be me 'n Ed after all. With reheated soup. Contentedly, on the couch.

 

And let's please remember that for all the gripes we have stored in our souls, we still have life. And a chance to live it well. Generously. With acceptance and love...

Friday

Remind me next time I plug up a whole week with appointments, especially if that week is in bulb planting season, that perhaps I'd do better spreading things out a bit. Remind me that I actually like having the occasional free morning. That I can get a real thrill from just watching the leaves, or rather the dappled shade of leaves dancing on the floor or wall of the farmhouse as the sun comes in, and that you can't do that when you're trying to fit in as much as possible into a very small box of time, because you have an appointment. (Today's culprit: a haircut.)

Lovely morning once again. The chickens agree.

Colorful breakfast, due to yesterday's market flowers. Dahlias are utterly gorgeous this year (so much sunshine!) but this is the end of their bloom time. You can't expect market flowers in Wisconsin past October.

Breakfast has to include some of the apple cider doughnuts, also from the market. (Are you also of the opinion that apple cider doughnuts sound and look a whole lot better than they taste?)

And then a tight squeeze: a few bulbs into the ground (25 anemonies to be precise, 20 to go in later in the day), and I'm off for that hair trim.

My haircut person has been snipping away at my hair for maybe ten years now. She runs her own salon, and she mothers a four year old son and she plays lots of competitive frisbee. So it's a good guess that she keeps herself tied up in knots over time. I ask her about it, and, too, what's the one thing that guarantees relaxation for her. 

She has to think about it, but finally acknowledges that it's acupuncture. Not necessarily because all those needles relax me, but when you're pinned down like that, you have nothing left to do but let go of everything. For half and hour anyway. 

We are that out of control with demands placed on us! But, she hit a point there for me and perhaps for you as well: nothing is truly relaxing if your mind is spinning about what it should be doing at that moment. If you're halfhearted about your efforts to let go. What relaxes me exactly? It's inconceivable to me to go so far as to pin myself with needles to "unwind." Massages are great but that's an expensive way to go limp, in mind and body. So what is it?

I come back from the haircut and instead of rushing to add more bulbs, to frame a post for this day, to do my budget for the month -- oh, you know, the million things that are on everyone's to-do list, even among those who are retired, would you believe it -- instead of doing any of it, I sit down in our brightly red plastic Adirondack, the throw away chair we picked up at the curb last year, and I turn my face to the sun. Call it a ten minute infusion of vitamin D. Totally relaxing.

Pretty quickly afterwards, it's time to pick up the kids. Pajama day in school for the little guy, lolipop treat from the teacher for the older girl.

And the day would have continued, very much on track to be ranked up there with all other quiet October days. With reheated soup no less. Comfortably, on the couch.

But it did not end like that. It ended instead with an email, from the husband of a very special friend. Maybe you noted her presence in my life? I would on rare occasion refer to her -- my friend from Australia.

My friend died last night. Pneumonia no less (I'm quite certain she would not mind if I gave her this moment on Ocean tonight -- she was so very, very accepting of my diffuse style of writing about the everyday). 

Over the years of Ocean writing, I've met a number of people. Not in person, but through a correspondence, born of some post that inspired a first note from someone far away, but did not end there. I'm old enough and Ocean is old enough for us both to have lived through the death of at least two solidly good connections made that way. But my friend from Australia was in a class of her own. A post card writer, she sent me many. Sometimes she would have me release photos from Ocean, so that she could make them into cards and I would find myself staring at an image of daylilies in the mailbox.

How she would fill that card, always squeezing out every last possible space! She wrote densely, beautifully, intelligently.

Not all days can end with a smile. Though maybe this one should? For her? Jean, you will forever have a place in my heart. This smile is for you.

with so much love...

who knows, yet again

Back in June I posted a fragment of the song Who Knows Where the Time Goes, and now here we are, four months later and it's on my mind again.  (Lyrics, btw, are by Sandy Denny, 1966, but I know the song as sung by Judy Collins, 1968.) Before, I thought of the reference to spring. Now? It's this:

Across the evening sky
All the birds are leaving
But how can they know
It's time for them to go?

 

Before the winter fire
I will still be dreaming
I have no thought of time

For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

 

Before, in early June, my mom was still  occasionally reading Ocean. I wrote my post thinking of her influence on my life. I often did that. 

Now, in mid October, I am free of the worry of how she may read my words. Back then, I wondered if I could perhaps convey a theme that explained me in some way to her. I'm free of that as well. I'm glad. It felt like those years of courting my high school "boy friend" -- I'd be sending light signals all the time. He never got them. I doubt that my mother got any of them either. 

Have I stopped being subtle here? I suppose with age, we all do.

 

Sad, deserted shore
Your fickle friends are leaving
Ah, but then you know
It's time for them to go

 

But I will still be here
I have no thought of leaving
I do not count the time

For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

 

I've never played that game with Ed. We are both so blunt in our messaging. It's less stressful that way. And we do not (usually) abuse the privilege that it confers. We don't just speak our minds. We are careful. That, too, comes with age.

 

And I am not alone
While my love is near me
I know it will be so
Until it's time to go

 

It's another rush of a day, with the same cold morning and bright sunshine and the colors of the few remaining basket flowers...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Same need to get to an appointment. Same late breakfast (with a granola that is the opposite of too sweet!)

And same rush to plant. Today -- 30 bulbs. Only because the soil was easier to work in the areas I planted tulips. I have 115 bulbs left, which tells me that I had way more at the beginning than 325.

 

So come the storms of winter
And then the birds in spring again
I have no fear of time

For who knows how my love grows?
And who knows where the time goes?

 

And yes, then it is time to pick up the kids.

We go to the last market of the year. There'll be another one next week, but I wont be here for it.

Ed joins us. And it is a radiant time of sweets and veggies and cheese curds and flowers.

Bye, farmer friends! See you in May.

We are just a block away from the City Hall. Ed and I have prepared our election ballots. We drop them off today. The kids hold on to mine along with me, so you could say they helped cast my vote!

At home...

And in the evening, I cook up veggie soup. Ed puts away the chickens, but he calls me outside. You should see the harvest moon! It's enormously brght!

Shining fully here, over you as well I hope...

frost and freeze

If you have an overnight frost, many of your annuals will disappear then. Wilt and perish. Many, but not all. Some will waffle -- hanging in by a thread, ultimately letting go. Or not. Some will survive by a thread. It takes a deep freeze to wipe everything out. We had frost (down to 30F/-1C), but not a freeze. Moreover, the next days are all above freezing, day and night. In other words, we are still slogging along. Wounded, but not demolished.

And we are still very very dry. I've not ever seen such a dry late summer and early fall. Will we get pounded by snow to make up for it? For us snow lovers that wouldn't be a terrible winter outcome, though I speak cautiously, because with snow you can easily have too much. Catastrophically so.

But I'm running way ahead. For now, I wake up to a cloudless, cold October morning. With some (just a few!) plants still showing their stuff.

And once again, I have morning appointments, this time quite appropriate ones -- with lung docs, and of course, I under-perform on all their tests because, well, I had this bout of pneumonia. I'm told to come back again in a few months. Which means -- write in more appointments, more reminders, more time fillers into my calendar. 

Well, no matter. For now, I am good to go. Or at least to return to the farmhouse for breakfast. Which again is very late, but all's forgiven because I have this again for my morning meal!

Not much left to the first half of the day. Just enough to put in the first bunch of tulip bulbs. 25 of them. The ones that will likely be eaten by a groundhog and/or deer before they ever bloom. One can but try!

In the afternoon, I pick up the kids.

(she's still into purple clothes)

(he loves those purple pansies... which survived!)

(her first few minutes? pounding away...)

(his? well, the current love is to mess with the tiny reject lego pieces...)

In the evening, Ed bikes, I put away the chickens, feed the cats. There should be a dinner plan in place, but it's one of those days when nothing, absolutely nothing seems like it's worth the effort. Those are the evenings when a big salad and a couple of eggs will do. 

We do always have the eggs.  Fewer now each day. The hens take a pause. They dont need a deep freeze to slow down in their laying. Ed reminds me, too, that they're getting old. Well now, aren't we all!

my Stockholm knee

It was cold, but it stayed just above the freezing mark overnight. Still, it was very cold. Stepping out in the morning, I felt that winter chill of an early walk to the barn.

Feed animals, get kitchen in order, cut up fruits for the populace (for kids, for Ed, for me), shout a "see you later" to Ed and I'm off. I have my appointment with the doc who replaced my left knee a year and a half ago. He is to do an assessment of my right knee now. 

That knee had been the marvel of strength, needing no intervention at all. Beautifully functional, never giving any sign of trouble. Until my big daylong walk through Stockholm. It decided then and there to show its true aged face (does a knee have a face?) and it has been wobbly ever since. Today, my doc and I consult. The big question is: do the replacement of my Stockholm knee now, or try some tricks first to forestall its deterioration. 

Typically I do not wait. I move forward quickly and put things behind me. A replaced knee would be huge bother for a year, but it would then give me a trouble-free existence til my deathbed. And yet, a fake knee never fully bends. A fake knee takes a chunk out of your life as you tote ice machines and do endless exercises to get it to work in the way that it should. 

So I opt to wait. To medicate, to do therapy, to stall for more time. I dont want to give over another year to healing right now. And so I say -- see you later doc and please dont retire. He promised me he wont. Not in the next decade anyway.

 

Breakfast is very late, but oh is it worth the wait! I stop over at Madison Sourdough to stock up on stuff including on these:

 

 

Honestly, they are up there with the ones in Perros-Guirec. Indeed, better, I think, than the one from the bakery by the port! 

All I have time today is for 30 bulbs to (sort of) go in. And it's a struggle. Ground hard as a rock. You know how they're supposed to go into the ground about 6 inches, measured from the bulb tip? Ha ha ha. Predominantly clay soil, without rain, turns into solid clay. The chickens watch me chip away at it and then proceed to undo my diggings, thinking perhaps that I am there just to loosen things up for them a bit. A frustrating final act of the gardening season. And not so final -- I finished the daffodils and have done none of the tulips, allium etc yet. Sigh,..

 

And then -- off to school to pick up the kids.

(look who else is attending their school??)

It's not a straightforward return today, as Snowdrop has Girl Scouts. But eventually everyone is where they should be and importantly, I am on the couch once more, still working to get back to some level of strength appropriate for a sprotive senior who is just getting over pneumonia.

One big cold snap tonight. Such a good word -- snap! The frost will definitely snap shut the gardens at the farmette. And maybe that's a good thing...

with love...

October Monday

As far as I can figure out, all my grandchildren are afraid of spiders. Sure, the youngest -- Juniper and Sandpiper -- aren't really expressive about it, but the older two more than compensate for that. Snowdrop calls out every time a daddy-long-legs (or a cellar spider) is in her path. She doesn't want me to squash it, just to pick it up and take it outside. Which I do. Again and again. Because the fact is, the farmhouse is not free of spiders. 

Most of them reside high up in corners that are unreachable by us and I tell the kids that anything that is unreachable and does not cross their path stays there. The thing is, Ed and I do have a great deal of respect for our spiders (and spider lookalikes). I'll admit to even having one who lives by the corner of my bed. When I see it in the evening, I smile. 

I was, therefore, enchanted, positively enchanted by the gentle opinion piece by Margaret Renkl in the NYTimes this morning. She, too, likes spiders, though she seems to like them on the outside of her window pane. Not a real spider aficionado, by my count!

It's not that I am bug crazy. And weird spiders do give me pause. Most spiders can't puncture human skin, but there are those who can and no, I dont like bug bites any more than you do. Fun fact: daddy long legs are known to attack and kill spiders that would harm humans. And by the way, they are not even spiders but opilionids: they lack silk and venom glands. We think of it this way: spiders (and opilionids) have a life and moreover, they are the most effective insect control you can employ in your home, trapping and killing mosquitoes, mites, clothes moths, earwigs, flies. What's there not to like?

Inside, a daddy long legs can live for up to three years. Outside, the frost tonight will kill off most of them. Their egg sacks will survive. New spiders will emerge in spring. You've read Charlotte's Web, haven't you? The cycle continues.

I count this as the seasonal turning point for us: the night that frost comes to farmette lands. It may come tonight, it most assuredly will come tomorrow night. On the one hand, nothing changes. The birds will dive for the crab apples despite the burst of cold. The woodpecker will continue to peck at the corner of our house. (Such a remarkable thing, nature's evolution is, allowing that bird to have protection of its pea brain so that it can absorb all those shocks!) The leaves will still cling to the branches of the maples, the black walnut, and yes, the dreadful honey locust ("dreadful" only because it shades the Big Bed and drops huge seed pods over everything). And yet, that frost marks a change for us. The annuals will disappear. The spiders will have done their life's work. The heavier jacket hangs now in the kitchen, because I can longer just dash out in my hoodie to feed the animals. Us humans need help keeping warm outside. And inside. The furnace is on. Winter is just around the corner.

Morning walk...

(Renkl got it exactly right: October sunlight is stunning! But then, so is February's. So different, and so beautiful...)

(Ed urged me to take a look at our one successful artichoke plant out back...)

(Right next to it -- our very successful lavender patch, which did a rebloom this October...)

(Perhaps an award should go to my sweet peas: do you see the one that climbed all the way up the crab apple?)

Breakfast of oatmeal. Tis the season. And snipped lavender blooms. Tis not the season.

Planting bulbs: just 25.

Today is a day of no school for the kids. I can't say I have entirely shaken my pneumonia just yet, but I'm making progress and Snowdrop requires no work for me so while her brother attends an afternoon of sewing at his sewing class (the little guy has a new hobby he loves!), I pick up the girl for an afternoon at the farmhouse. With a stop first at the Arboretum because we do not want to miss the fall colors this year.

(You know what's not supposed to blooming right now? Lilac.)

Colors? Just starting to emerge...

We find trees that head the show.

It's cold and in any case, I'm not in top form so we do not stay long. Still, I'm glad we went. I haven't missed this October walk yet in the last decades! I'm glad we could squeeze it into the afternoon.

At the farmhouse: a quick lunch, reading, math, play lines -- the usual.

(computer math -- she asks for help on this one....)

And in the evening I do a modest postponed "Sunday dinner" for the young family. 

(shows me his sewing class creation; "and it glows in the dark!")

(for the love of carrots)

(if those two get to be on my lap, is there room for a third?)

I don't rush to clean up everything afterwards. My bedtimes this week are on the very early side and I sleep (would you believe it!) a solid 9 or even 10 hours -- I am that worn out by this bug. I sit for a while with Ed on the couch and think about October. And frost.  Growing season behind me. All that's left is to look for beauty (and it's there!) in the barren landscape that will ours for the colder months of the year.

with love...